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Society For Risk Analysis Annual Meeting 2009

Risk Analysis: The Evolution of a Science

Session Schedule & Abstracts

* Disclaimer: All presentations represent the views of the authors, and not the organizations that support their research. Please apply the standard disclaimer that any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations in abstracts, posters, and presentations at the meeting are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of any other organization or agency. Meeting attendees and authors should be aware that this disclaimer is intended to apply to all abstracts contained in this document. Authors who wish to emphasize this disclaimer should do so in their presentation or poster. In an effort to make the abstracts as concise as possible and easy for meeting participants to read, the abstracts have been formatted such that they exclude references to papers, affiliations, and/or funding sources. Authors who wish to provide attendees with this information should do so in their presentation or poster.

Common abbreviations

M3-A Risk Communication and Climate Change Room: Baltimore A   1:30-3:00 PM

Chair(s): Ann Bostrom

M3-A.1  13:30  Framing climate change: Gains or losses? - And for me, them, or us? Spence A*, Pidgeon N; Cardiff University   SpenceA1@cardiff.ac.uk Abstract: Communications regarding climate change are increasingly being utilised in order to encourage sustainable behaviour and the way that these are framed can have an important impact on the way that they are received. This research examined how framing climate change in terms of gain or loss outcomes or in terms of personal relevance can impact related perceptions. Here, climate change was framed using text adapted from the most recent IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report on climate change impacts, modified to focus either on losses from climate change or gains from climate change mitigation. In addition to this further text was utilised, alongside maps and images, in order to focus participants on either the personally relevant local or less personally relevant distant impacts of climate change. Participants then completed measures of various relevant socio-cognitive factors and questions assessing their responses to the information that they had received. Results indicated that participants provided with gain framed climate change information exhibited more negative attitudes towards climate change and more positive attitudes towards climate change mitigation than those provided with loss framed information. However, mediation analyses demonstrated that the greater impact of the gain framed information noted on attitudes was partially suppressed by lower fear responses and a lower amount of information recalled within gain framed information. Frames which manipulated focus on distance did not significantly impact attitudes. However irrespective of frame condition, when participants were focused on social aspects of climate change, attitudes towards climate change were more negative and attitudes towards climate change mitigation were more positive than when participants focused on personal aspects of climate change. This may be due to social impacts of climate change being perceived as more serious than personal impacts. Implications for designing communications about climate change will be outlined.

M3-A.2  13:50  The role of political ideology and victim identification in the effectiveness of climate change messages. Hart PS*; Cornell University   psh22@cornell.edu Abstract: Over the last few decades, science communicators have been challenged to find effective ways to discuss the issue of climate change with the general public. This challenge has been heightened as climate change has increasingly become a core component of political ideology in recent years, with Democrats generally supporting regulation aimed at addressing climate change and Republicans opposed. A related question of climate change communication is how information about the impact that climate change may have on different types of victims affects public support for climate change policy. Drawing from social identity theory and the political communication literature, this study examines how support for government policies addressing climate change may change through an interaction between political ideology and messages describing the impact that climate change may have on different types of victims. Towards this end, this study adopts a 3 (Republican, Independent, Democrat) x 2 (in-group victim vs. out-group victim) + control design. This study finds a main effect for political ideology and a significant interaction between political ideology and the identity of the climate change victims. Democrats and Independents both supported policies addressing climate change at a significantly higher level than Republicans. In addition, the significant interaction is explained by the fact that Democrats and Republicans were not sensitive to the framing of the victims of climate change, while Independents supported policies addressing climate change significantly less in the out-group condition than the in-group or control conditions. These results are placed in discussed in terms of the role that opinion leaders may play in guiding the policy support of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents, which may, in turn, affect their relative sensitivity to framing effects of climate change messages.

M3-A.3  14:10  Now What Do People Know About Global Climate Change? A Mental Models Approach. Bostrom A*, Reynolds T, Hudson R; University of Washington   abostrom@u.washington.edu Abstract: The effectiveness with which democratic societies respond to climate change depends on how the problem is understood by the lay public. Citizens must decide which public policies to support, and whether and how to consider ecological implications when making personal consumption choices. In this study we use a mental models approach to characterize pre-existing knowledge and belief structures about climate change. Open-ended interviews with 56 educated laypeople in the Pacific Northwest of the United States revealed a basic famliarity with climate change among respondents, who viewed global warming as both negative and very likely. Their knowledge of climate change processes exhibited some of the same idiosyncracies observed in mental models of climate change in the early nineties, but to a lesser degree. A scant majority volunteered fossil fuel use as a cause, while nearly a third cited carbon dioxide specifically. Several respondents cited local weather events as evidence of climate change. Respondents nominated ozone depletion as a cause of climate change almost as frequently as carbon dioxide emissions (and more frequently than other greenhouse gas emissions). While industrialization in developing countries was correctly cited as another cause, domestic electricity use in the U.S. was mentioned by few. Finally, nearly half of the sample cited “natural processes” as a major contributor to climate change, although concepts such as feedback loops and ecological thresholds went almost entirely unmentioned. The specter of global climate change has brought the issue of climate change and related concepts of carrying capacity and ecological thresholds to the forefront of scientific and political debates. But to have practical value, some form of such core concepts must make their way to all decision makers, including individual citizens. Understanding the mental models laypeople use now to interpret new information will strengthen such communications efforts.

M3-A.4  14:30  Climate Risk Communication: A Cure for People’s Mental Models. Dutt V*, Gonzalez C; Carnegie Mellon University   varundutt@cmu.edu Abstract: In this paper we attempt to find evidence and a cure to people’s erroneous mental models of climate change. Previous research has shown that people possess poor mental model of climate change where people wrongly believe that stabilizing carbon-dioxide (CO2) concentration would mean stabilizing CO2 emissions (correlation heuristic) and that CO2 concentration could be stabilized even when CO2 emissions exceed natural CO2 absorptions (violation of mass balance; Sterman, 2008). But past research has also shown that repeated feedback might help people to change their erroneous mental models of dynamic systems (Cronin et al, 2009). In an experiment we gave participants a paper and pencil CO2 stabilization task where participants drew CO2 emissions and CO2 absorptions given a CO2 concentration stabilization scenario. Results showed that as high as 90% of participants drew CO2 emissions trajectory that was similar to the CO2 concentration trajectory and nearly all participants kept CO2 emissions above the CO2 absorptions. In a follow-up experiment participants played an interactive computer simulation called “Dynamic Climate Change Simulation” task that was based on the “bath tub” metaphor of the effects of emissions and absorptions of atmospheric CO2. The interactive simulation allowed participants to make decisions on the CO2 emissions, observe the consequences of the decisions and try new decisions again in order to stabilize the CO2 concentration to the a goal. Results on account of repeated feedback of participant CO2 emissions decisions revealed that none of the participants followed correlation reasoning or violated mass balance. Participants decreased emissions to meet absorptions in order to stabilize CO2 concentration to the goal and tried to maintain CO2 emissions closer to CO2 absorptions rather than above it as seen in previous experiment. Implications of these research findings for education of climate change and climate risk communication are discussed.

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