Pre-registered replication of the gateway belief model – Results from a representative German sample

Abstract

Consensus messaging aims to increase climate change awareness by communicating the scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change. According to the gateway belief model, consensus messages improve the estimation of scientific consensus, which then causes subsequent changes in personal attitudes about climate change. Most studies investigating this communication strategy refer to US-American samples. Therefore, the present study replicated existing research on consensus messaging using a national representative German sample (N = 1110), which represents a high-consensus context. We further tested confidence in perceived scientific consensus as moderator variable in the gateway belief model. The consensus message improved the participants’ estimates of scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change but had no statistically significant effect on the climate change attitudes (belief in climate change, belief in human causation of climate change, worry about climate change, support for action on climate change). Regarding the moderation analysis, confidence in perceived scientific consensus did not moderate the consensus messaging process. However, we found a significant main effect of confidence in perceived scientific consensus on worry about climate change. This finding adds to existing literature arguing that metacognition might influence political and societal beliefs.