Personal Efficacy, the Information Environment, and Attitudes Toward Global Warming and Climate Change in the United States

Despite the growing scientific consensus about the risks of global warming and climate change, the mass media frequently portray the subject as one of great scientific controversy and debate. And yet previous studies of the mass public's subjective assessments of the risks of global warming and...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Risk analysis 2008-02, Vol.28 (1), p.113-126
Main Authors: Kellstedt, Paul M, Zahran, Sammy, Vedlitz, Arnold
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Administrative efficiency
Attitude
Attitude to Health
Attitudes
Automatic Data Processing
Climate
Climate change
Ecology
Environmental policy
Global warming
Global warming and climate change
Greenhouse Effect
Humans
information efficacy
Mass media
Perception
Polls & surveys
Proportional Hazards Models
Public opinion
Risk
Risk Assessment
Risk management
risk perceptions
Scientists
Self Efficacy
Social behaviour
U.S.A
United States
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Summary:Despite the growing scientific consensus about the risks of global warming and climate change, the mass media frequently portray the subject as one of great scientific controversy and debate. And yet previous studies of the mass public's subjective assessments of the risks of global warming and climate change have not sufficiently examined public informedness, public confidence in climate scientists, and the role of personal efficacy in affecting global warming outcomes. By examining the results of a survey on an original and representative sample of Americans, we find that these three forces--informedness, confidence in scientists, and personal efficacy--are related in interesting and unexpected ways, and exert significant influence on risk assessments of global warming and climate change. In particular, more informed respondents both feel less personally responsible for global warming, and also show less concern for global warming. We also find that confidence in scientists has unexpected effects: respondents with high confidence in scientists feel less responsible for global warming, and also show less concern for global warming. These results have substantial implications for the interaction between scientists and the public in general, and for the public discussion of global warming and climate change in particular.
ISSN:0272-4332
1539-6924
DOI:10.1111/j.1539-6924.2008.01010.x