Motivated Attention in Climate Change Perception and Action.

ABSTRACT: Despite the scientific consensus, some people still remain skeptical about climate change. In fact, there is a growing partisan divide over the last decade within the United States in the support for climate policies. Given the same climate evidence, why do some people become concerned while others remain unconvinced? Here we propose a motivated attention framework where socio-political motivations shape visual attention to climate evidence, altering perceptions of the evidence and subsequent actions to mitigate climate change. To seek support for this framework, we conducted three experiments. Participants viewed a graph of annual global temperature change while they were eyetracked and estimated the average change. We found that political orientation may bias attention to climate change

SUBMITTER: Luo Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6660247 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature