Overview
Climate change has become a central issue in public discourse. Leaders and everyday people alike have become increasingly vocal about their stances on CO2 emissions, reforestation, and even the reality of global warming itself. Such stances often fall along political lines.
While there is ample research on the science of climate change, there is far less on the psychology or communication or climate change. Indeed, despite mounting evidence of global warming, we know little about how belief in or denial of climate change affects others’ perceptions of us. Does climate change denial hurt one’s perceived intelligence? Do political beliefs affect these perceptions?
The Experiment
To test whether climate change denial affects perceived intelligence, we ran a simple experiment with 400 participants from Amazon MTurk. For the study, we designed a short vignette scenario of a local public figure and framed him as either a proponent or skeptic of human-caused climate change. We then measured participants’ perceptions of his intelligence and their personal political affiliations—Republican, Independent, or Democrat.
Participants read the following vignette. "A local public figure in the U.S. has recently asserted that climate change from human causes is [not] real." The word “not” was randomly included for half of our participants. Each participant then rated their perceptions of the public figure’s intelligence through the survey question, "How smart do you think this person is?" using a 1-7 rating scale (1 = Not at all, 7 = Extremely). Lastly, participants indicated their political affiliations. Approximately 25% of participants were Republican, 25% Independent, and 50% Democrat.
Results
There was a pronounced difference in perceived intelligence, with our climate change believer being viewed as 40% more intelligent than our denier (p < 0.0001). This equated to a 2.10-point difference on a 1-7 scale.
Notably, the results were deeply intertwined with political beliefs. While Democrats exhibited the largest gap in perceived intelligence—a 53% decrease in perceived intelligence for the climate change denier—Republicans showed an insignificant decrease of 8%. Independents fell in between with a 37% decrease. Taken together, the results reveal a nuanced landscape of environmental communication and politics.
Conclusion
Articulating one’s climate change beliefs can profoundly shape your perceived intelligence. Overall, denying climate change makes you seem less intelligent. However, these perceptions are heavily influenced by the political identities of the audience. Nevertheless, while climate change deniers certainly garner an image penalty from liberals, there appears to be no contrasting boost from conservatives. The results suggest evolving attitudes towards climate science and an increasing tendency to judge those who deny it.
Methods Note
We used ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analysis to test for significant differences in perceived intelligence between the climate change believer and denier. For significant differences, the coefficient would be large, and the corresponding "p-value" would be small (p < 0.05). We also conducted OLS regression analyses with interaction terms to assess whether these differences varied by political beliefs.
Data and survey materials for this study are available upon request.