The evidence for motivated reasoning in climate change preference formation

Abstract

Despite a scientific consensus, citizens are divided when it comes to climate change — often along political lines. Democrats or liberals tend to believe that human activity is a primary cause of climate change, whereas Republicans or conservatives are much less likely to hold this belief. A prominent explanation for this divide is that it stems from directional motivated reasoning: individuals reject new information that contradicts their standing beliefs. In this Review, we suggest that the empirical evidence is not so clear, and is equally consistent with a theory in which citizens strive to form accurate beliefs but vary in what they consider to be credible evidence. This suggests a new research agenda on climate change preference formation, and has implications for effective communication. In this Review, a Bayesian framework is used to explain climate change belief updating, and the evidence required to support claims of directional motivated reasoning versus a model in which people aim for accurate beliefs, but vary in how they assess information credibility.