Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-21T08:08:13.079Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

How others drive our sense of understanding of policies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2020

NATHANIEL RABB ,
JOHN J. HAN  and
STEVEN A. SLOMAN
NATHANIEL RABB*
Affiliation:
The Policy Lab, Brown University, Providence, RI, USA
JOHN J. HAN
Affiliation:
Tepper School of Business, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
STEVEN A. SLOMAN
Affiliation:
Department of Cognitive, Linguistic, and Psychological Sciences, Brown University, Providence, RI, USA
*
*Correspondence to: The Policy Lab, Brown University, 225 Dyer Street, 5th Floor, Providence, RI 02903, USA. E-mail: natrabb@gmail.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Five experiments are reported to compare models of attitude formation about hot-button policy issues like climate change. In broad strokes, the deficit model states that incorrect opinions are a result of a lack of information, while the cultural cognition model states that opinions are formed to maximize congruence with the group that one affiliates with. The community of knowledge hypothesis takes an integrative position. It states that opinions are based on perceived knowledge, but that perceptions are partly determined by the knowledge that sits in the heads of others in the community. We use the fact that people's sense of understanding is affected by knowledge of others’ understanding to arbitrate among these views in the domain of public policy. In all experiments (N = 1767), we find that the contagious sense of understanding is nonpartisan and robust to experimental manipulations intended to eliminate it. While ideology clearly affects people's attitudes, sense of understanding does as well, but level of actual knowledge does not. And the extent to which people overestimate their own knowledge partly determines the extremity of their position. The pattern of results is most consistent with the community of knowledge hypothesis. Implications for climate policy are considered.

Type
Article
Information
Behavioural Public Policy , Volume 5 , Special Issue 4: Behavioural Climate Policy , October 2021 , pp. 454 - 479
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bak, H.J. (2001), ‘Education and public attitudes toward science: Implications for the “deficit model” of education and support for science and technology’, Social Science Quarterly, 82(4): 779–795.Google Scholar
Bateman, T.S. and O'Connor, K. (2016), ‘Felt responsibility and climate engagement: Distinguishing adaptation from mitigation’, Global Environmental Change, 41: 206–215.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bedford, D. (2016), ‘Does climate literacy matter? A case study of US students’ level of concern about anthropogenic global warming’, Journal of Geography, 115(5): 187–197.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bolsen, T. and Druckman, J.N. (2018), ‘Do partisanship and politicization undermine the impact of a scientific consensus message about climate change?’, Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 21(3): 389–402.Google Scholar
Bolsen, T., Druckman, J.N. and Cook, F.L. (2014), ‘The influence of partisan motivated reasoning on public opinion’, Political Behavior, 36(2): 235–262.Google Scholar
Bromme, R., Thomm, E., and Ratermann, K. (2016), ‘Who knows? Explaining impacts on the assessment of our own knowledge and of the knowledge of experts’, Zeitschrift für Pädagogische Psychologie, 30(2–3): 97–108.Google Scholar
Campbell, T.H. and Kay, A.C. (2014), ‘Solution aversion: On the relation between ideology and motivated disbelief’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 107(5): 809–824.Google Scholar
Clifford, S., Jewell, R.M. and Waggoner, P.D. (2015), ‘Are samples drawn from Mechanical Turk valid for research on political ideology?’, Research & Politics, 2(4): 2053168015622072.Google Scholar
Cohen, G.L. (2003), ‘Party over policy: The dominating impact of group influence on political beliefs’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85(5): 808–822.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Colombo, C., and Kriesi, H. (2017), ‘Party, policy–or both? Partisan-biased processing of policy arguments in direct democracy’, Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties, 27(3): 235–253.Google Scholar
Drummond, C. and Fischhoff, B. (2017), ‘Individuals with greater science literacy and education have more polarized beliefs on controversial science topics’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114(36): 9587–9592.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Egan, P.J. and Mullin, M. (2017), ‘Climate change: US public opinion’, Annual Review of Political Science, 20(1): 209–227.Google Scholar
Ehret, P.J., Van Boven, L. and Sherman, D.K. (2018), ‘Partisan barriers to bipartisanship: Understanding climate policy polarization’, Social Psychological and Personality Science, 9(3): 308–318.Google Scholar
Fernbach, P.M., Light, N., Scott, S.E., Inbar, Y. and Rozin, P. (2019), ‘Extreme opponents of genetically modified foods know the least but think they know the most’, Nature Human Behaviour, 3(3): 251–256.Google Scholar
Fernbach, P.M., Rogers, T., Fox, C.R. and Sloman, S.A. (2013), ‘Political extremism is supported by an illusion of understanding’, Psychological Science, 24(6): 939–946.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Funk, C., & Kennedy, B. (2016). The politics of climate. Retrieved from http://www.pewinternet.org/2016/10/04/the-politics-of-climateGoogle Scholar
Gauchat, G. (2012), ‘Politicization of science in the public sphere: A study of public trust in the United States, 1974 to 2010’, American Sociological Review, 77(2): 167–187.Google Scholar
Gaviria, C., Corredor, J. A., and Zuluaga-Rendón, Z. (2017), “If it matters, I can explain it”: Social desirability of knowledge increases the illusion of explanatory depth. Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.Google Scholar
Giffin, C., Wilkenfeld, D., and Lombrozo, T. (2017), ‘The explanatory effect of a label: Explanations with named categories are more satisfying’, Cognition, 168: 357–369.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gilens, M., and Murakawa, N. (2002), ‘Elite cues and political decision-making’, Research in Micropolitics, 6: 15–49.Google Scholar
Graham, M.H. (2018), ‘Self-awareness of political knowledge’, Political Behavior: 1–22.Google Scholar
Guber, D.L. (2013), ‘A cooling climate for change? Party polarization and the politics of global warming’, American Behavioral Scientist, 57(1): 93–115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hamilton, L.C. (2015), ‘Polar facts in the age of polarization’, Polar Geography, 38(2): 89–106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hamilton, L.C. (2018), ‘Self-assessed understanding of climate change’, Climatic Change, 151(2): 349–362.Google Scholar
Hamilton, L.C., Hartter, J. and Saito, K. (2015), ‘Trust in scientists on climate change and vaccines’, Sage Open, 5(3): 2158244015602752.Google Scholar
Hamlin, A. and Jennings, C. (2011), ‘Expressive political behaviour: Foundations, scope and implications’, British Journal of Political Science, 41(3): 645–670.Google Scholar
Hardwig, J. (1985), ‘Epistemic dependence’, The Journal of Philosophy, 82(7): 335–349.Google Scholar
Hornsey, M.J., Harris, E.A., Bain, P.G. and Fielding, K.S. (2016), ‘Meta-analyses of the determinants and outcomes of belief in climate change’, Nature Climate Change, 6(6): 622–626.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hornsey, M.J., Harris, E.A. and Fielding, K.S. (2018), ‘Relationships among conspiratorial beliefs, conservatism and climate scepticism across nations’, Nature Climate Change, 8(7): 614–620.Google Scholar
Isberner, M. B., Richter, T., Maier, J., Knuth-Herzig, K., Horz, H., and Schnotz, W. (2013), ‘Comprehending conflicting science-related texts: Graphs as plausibility cues’, Instructional Science, 41(5): 849–872.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iyengar, S. and Westwood, S.J. (2015), ‘Fear and loathing across party lines: New evidence on group polarization’, American Journal of Political Science, 59(3): 690–707.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kahan, D.M., and Braman, D. (2006), ‘Cultural cognition and public policy’, Yale Law & Policy Review, 24: 149–172.Google Scholar
Kahan, D.M., Jenkins-Smith, H. and Braman, D. (2011), ‘Cultural cognition of scientific consensus’, Journal of Risk Research, 14(2): 147–174.Google Scholar
Kahan, D.M., Peters, E., Dawson, E.C. and Slovic, P. (2017), ‘Motivated numeracy and enlightened self-government’, Behavioural Public Policy, 1(1): 54–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kahan, D.M., Peters, E., Wittlin, M., Slovic, P., Ouellette, L.L., Braman, D. and Mandel, G. (2012), ‘The polarizing impact of science literacy and numeracy on perceived climate change risks’, Nature Climate Change, 2(10): 732–735.Google Scholar
Lachapelle, E., Montpetit, É. and Gauvin, J.P. (2014), ‘Public perceptions of expert credibility on policy issues: The role of expert framing and political worldviews’, Policy Studies Journal, 42(4): 674–697.Google Scholar
Lau, R. R., and Redlawsk, D. P. (2001), ‘Advantages and disadvantages of cognitive heuristics in political decision making’, American Journal of Political Science, 45(4): 951–971.Google Scholar
Leiserowitz, A., Maibach, E., Roser-Renouf, C., Rosenthal, S., Cutler, M., and Kotcher, J. (2018), Climate change in the American mind: March 2018. Yale University and George Mason University. New Haven, CT: Yale Program on Climate Change Communication.Google Scholar
Lewandowsky, S., Gignac, G.E. and Vaughan, S. (2013), ‘The pivotal role of perceived scientific consensus in acceptance of science’, Nature Climate Change, 3(4): 399–404.Google Scholar
Lupia, A., and McCubbins, M. D. (1998), The democratic dilemma, Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Mackie, D. M., Worth, L. T., and Asuncion, A. G. (1990), ‘Processing of persuasive in-group messages’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58(5): 812–822.Google Scholar
Marks, J., Copland, E., Loh, E., Sunstein, C.R. and Sharot, T. (2019), ‘Epistemic spillovers: Learning others’ political views reduces the ability to assess and use their expertise in nonpolitical domains’, Cognition, 188(1): 74–84.Google Scholar
Marquart-Pyatt, S.T., McCright, A.M., Dietz, T. and Dunlap, R.E. (2014), ‘Politics eclipses climate extremes for climate change perceptions’, Global Environmental Change, 29(1): 246–257.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCright, A.M., Dunlap, R.E. and Xiao, C. (2013), ‘Perceived scientific agreement and support for government action on climate change in the USA’, Climatic Change, 119(2): 511–518.Google Scholar
McPhetres, J., Rutjens, B.T., Weinstein, N. and Brisson, J.A. (2019), ‘Modifying attitudes about modified foods: increased knowledge leads to more positive attitudes’, Journal of Environmental Psychology, 64(1): 21–29.Google Scholar
Motta, M., Callaghan, T. and Sylvester, S. (2018), ‘Knowing less but presuming more: Dunning-Kruger effects and the endorsement of anti-vaccine policy attitudes’, Social Science & Medicine, 211(1): 274–281.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mumpower, J.L., Liu, X. and Vedlitz, A. (2016), ‘Predictors of the perceived risk of climate change and preferred resource levels for climate change management programs’, Journal of Risk Research, 19(6): 798–809.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nicholson, S.P., Coe, C.M., Emory, J. and Song, A.V. (2016), ‘The politics of beauty: The effects of partisan bias on physical attractiveness’, Political Behavior, 38(4): 883–898.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'Connor, C., and Weatherall, J. O. (2019), The misinformation age: How false beliefs spread, Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Ortoleva, P. and Snowberg, E. (2015), ‘Overconfidence in political behavior’, American Economic Review, 105(2): 504–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Poortinga, W., Whitmarsh, L., Steg, L., Böhm, G., and Fisher, S. (2019), ‘Climate change perceptions and their individual level determinants: A cross-European analysis’, Global Environmental Change, 55(1): 25–35.Google Scholar
Rabb, N., Fernbach, P., and Sloman, S. (2019), ‘Individual representation in a community of knowledge’, Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 23(10): 891–902.Google Scholar
Rabinovich, A., Morton, T.A. and Birney, M.E. (2012), ‘Communicating climate science: The role of perceived communicator's motives’, Journal of Environmental Psychology, 32(1): 11–18.Google Scholar
Ramirez, M.D. and Erickson, N. (2014), ‘Partisan bias and information discounting in economic judgments’, Political Psychology, 35(3): 401–415.Google Scholar
Ranney, M.A. and Clark, D. (2016), ‘Climate change conceptual change: Scientific information can transform attitudes’, Topics in Cognitive Science, 8(1): 49–75.Google Scholar
Rhodes, E., Axsen, J. and Jaccard, M. (2014), ‘Does effective climate policy require well-informed citizen support?’, Global Environmental Change, 29(1): 92–104.Google Scholar
Rollwage, M., Dolan, R.J. and Fleming, S.M. (2018), ‘Metacognitive failure as a feature of those holding radical beliefs’, Current Biology, 28(24): 4014–4021.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rozenblit, L. and Keil, F. (2002), ‘The misunderstood limits of folk science: An illusion of explanatory depth’, Cognitive Science, 26(5): 521–562.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rutjens, B.T., Sutton, R.M. and van der Lee, R. (2018), ‘Not all skepticism is equal: Exploring the ideological antecedents of science acceptance and rejection’, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 44(3): 384–405.Google Scholar
Satherley, N., Yogeeswaran, K., Osborne, D. and Sibley, C.G. (2018), ‘If they say “yes,” we say “no”: Partisan cues increase polarization over national symbols’, Psychological Science, 29(12): 1996–2009.Google Scholar
Shi, J., Visschers, V.H. and Siegrist, M. (2015), ‘Public perception of climate change: The importance of knowledge and cultural worldviews’, Risk Analysis, 35(12): 2183–2201.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Shi, J., Visschers, V.H., Siegrist, M. and Arvai, J. (2016), ‘Knowledge as a driver of public perceptions about climate change reassessed’, Nature Climate Change, 6(8): 759–762.Google Scholar
Sloman, S. and Fernbach, P. (2018), The knowledge illusion: Why we never think alone, Riverhead.Google Scholar
Sloman, S.A. and Rabb, N. (2016), ‘Your understanding is my understanding: Evidence for a community of knowledge’, Psychological Science, 27(11): 1451–1460.Google Scholar
Smith, E.K. and Mayer, A. (2019), ‘Anomalous Anglophones? Contours of free market ideology, political polarization, and climate change attitudes in English-speaking countries, Western European and post-Communist states’, Climatic Change, 152(1): 17–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, C. T., Ratliff, K. A., and Nosek, B. A. (2012), ‘Rapid assimilation: Automatically integrating new information with existing beliefs’, Social Cognition, 30(2): 199–219.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stone, D.F. (2019), ‘“Unmotivated bias” and partisan hostility: Empirical evidence’, Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics, 79: 12–26.Google Scholar
Stoutenborough, J.W. and Vedlitz, A. (2014), ‘The effect of perceived and assessed knowledge of climate change on public policy concerns: An empirical comparison’, Environmental Science & Policy, 37(1): 23–33.Google Scholar
Stoutenborough, J.W. and Vedlitz, A. (2016), ‘The role of scientific knowledge in the public's perceptions of energy technology risks’, Energy Policy, 96(1): 206–216.Google Scholar
Suldovsky, B. (2017), The information deficit model and climate change communication. In Oxford research encyclopedia of climate science.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sundblad, E.L., Biel, A. and Gärling, T. (2009), ‘Knowledge and confidence in knowledge about climate change among experts, journalists, politicians, and laypersons’, Environment and Behavior, 41(2): 281–302.Google Scholar
Tobler, C., Visschers, V.H. and Siegrist, M. (2012), ‘Consumers’ knowledge about climate change’, Climatic Change, 114(2): 189–209.Google Scholar
Tranter, B. and Booth, K. (2015), ‘Scepticism in a changing climate: A cross-national study’, Global Environmental Change, 33(1): 154–164.Google Scholar
Unsworth, K.L. and Fielding, K.S. (2014), ‘It's political: How the salience of one's political identity changes climate change beliefs and policy support’, Global Environmental Change, 27(1): 131–137.Google Scholar
van der Linden, S.L., Leiserowitz, A.A., Feinberg, G.D. and Maibach, E.W. (2015), ‘The scientific consensus on climate change as a gateway belief: Experimental evidence’, PloS one, 10(2): p.e0118489.Google Scholar
van der Linden, S., Maibach, E., Cook, J., Leiserowitz, A., Ranney, M., Lewandowsky, S., Árvai, J. and Weber, E.U. (2017), ‘Culture versus cognition is a false dilemma’, Nature Climate Change, 7(7): 457.Google Scholar
van Prooijen, J.W., Krouwel, A.P. and Emmer, J. (2018), ‘Ideological responses to the EU refugee crisis: The left, the right, and the extremes’, Social Psychological and Personality Science, 9(2): 143–150.Google Scholar
Vitriol, J.A. and Marsh, J.K. (2018), ‘The illusion of explanatory depth and endorsement of conspiracy beliefs’, European Journal of Social Psychology, 48(7): 955–969.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Voelkel, J.G., Brandt, M.J. and Colombo, M. (2018), ‘I know that I know nothing: Can puncturing the illusion of explanatory depth overcome the relationship between attitudinal dissimilarity and prejudice?’, Comprehensive Results in Social Psychology, 3(1): 56–78.Google Scholar
Vraga, E., Myers, T., Kotcher, J., Beall, L., & Maibach, E. (2018), ‘Scientific risk communication about controversial issues influences public perceptions of scientists’ political orientations and credibility’, Royal Society Open Science, 5(2): 170505.Google Scholar
Zaller, J.R. (1992), The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion, Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Zeveney, A. and Marsh, J. (2016), The illusion of explanatory depth in a misunderstood field: The IOED in mental disorders. Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Rabb et al. supplementary material

Rabb et al. supplementary material

Download Rabb et al. supplementary material(File)
File 66.5 KB