ArticlePloS one2015
Simple messages help set the record straight about scientific agreement on human-caused climate change: the results of two experiments.
Article in PloS one, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 17 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed.
- Highlighting consensus among medical scientists increases public support for vaccines: evidence from a randomized experiment.BMC public health · 2015Trial
- From Blog to lab: testing messages to shift public opinion on gene editing.Frontiers in bioengineering and biotechnology · 2026Article
- A 27-country test of communicating the scientific consensus on climate change.Nature human behaviour · 2024Article
- Interventions Based on Social Norms Could Benefit From Considering Adversarial Information Environments: Comment on Constantino et al. (2022).Psychological science in the public interest : a journal of the American Psychological Society · 2022Article
- Evidence-based recommendations for communicating the impacts of climate change on health.Translational behavioral medicine · 2022Article
- Understanding scientists' communication challenges at the intersection of climate and agriculture.PloS one · 2022Article
- Rule-Governed Behavior and Climate Change: Why Climate Warnings Fail to Motivate Sufficient Action.Behavior and social issues · 2022Article
- Six minutes to promote change: People, not facts, alter students' perceptions on climate change.Ecology and evolution · 2021Article
- Effects of consensus messages and political ideology on climate change attitudes: inconsistent findings and the effect of a pretest.Climatic change · 2021Article
- Influences of study design on the effectiveness of consensus messaging: The case of medicinal cannabis.PloS one · 2021Article
- Dissemination of Information About Climate Change by State and Local Public Health Departments: United States, 2019-2020.American journal of public health · 2020Article
- Communicating uncertainty about facts, numbers and science.Royal Society open science · 2019Review
- Changes in perceived scientific consensus shift beliefs about climate change and GM food safety.PloS one · 2018Article
- Inoculating the Public against Misinformation about Climate Change.Global challenges (Hoboken, NJ) · 2017Article
- Climate change and human health: what are the research trends? A scoping review protocol.BMJ open · 2016Article
- Enhancing endorsement of scientific inquiry increases support for pro-environment policies.Royal Society open science · 2016Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Human-caused climate change is happening; nearly all climate scientists are convinced of this basic fact according to surveys of experts and reviews of the peer-reviewed literature. Yet, among the American public, there is widespread misunderstanding of this scientific consensus. In this paper, we report results from two experiments, conducted with national samples of American adults, that tested messages designed to convey the high level of agreement in the climate science community about human-caused climate change. The first experiment tested hypotheses about providing numeric versus non-numeric assertions concerning the level of scientific agreement. We found that numeric statements resulted in higher estimates of the scientific agreement. The second experiment tested the effect of eliciting respondents' estimates of scientific agreement prior to presenting them with a statement about the level of scientific agreement. Participants who estimated the level of agreement prior to being shown the corrective statement gave higher estimates of the scientific consensus than respondents who were not asked to estimate in advance, indicating that incorporating an "estimation and reveal" technique into public communication about scientific consensus may be effective. The interaction of messages with political ideology was also tested, and demonstrated that messages were approximately equally effective among liberals and conservatives. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.