Date created: | Last Updated:

Category: Project

Description: The challenge: Only 9% of Americans view climate change as a top priority for Congress (NPR/Marist poll, 2022). Our currently divided world has made clear that neither authority nor consensus within a group or society is a measure of “truth” or rationality. In this polarized milieu, can cognitive science be applied to promote political and personal climate actions? Our solution: We constructed materials to create conditions under which people can come to their own conclusion that they need to take political and personal actions to mitigate climate change. To straddle the divide, our study invoked what is in common across all humans. We ask: How do people come to understand the world and its workings, and their place in it? Based on a new approach that integrates insights from philosophy, history of science, cognitive psychology, and anthropology, our materials presented questions on a range of relatable events to participants in ten U.S. states with the highest level of climate skepticism.