The Tragedy of the Risk-Perception Commons: Culture Conflict, Rationality Conflict, and Climate Change
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Date
2011
Authors
Kahan, Dan
Peters, Ellen
Braman, Donald
Slovic, Paul
Wittlin, Maggie
Larrimore Ouellette, Lisa
Mandel, Gregory
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Yale Law School
Abstract
The conventional explanation for controversy over climate change emphasizes impediments to public understanding: limited popular knowledge of science, the inability of ordinary citizens to assess technical information, and the resulting widespread use of unreliable cognitive heuristics to assess risk. A large survey of U.S. adults (N = 1540) found little support for this account. On the whole, the most scien- tifically literate and numerate subjects were slightly less likely, not more, to see climate change as a serious threat than the least scientifically literate and numerate ones. More importantly, greater scientific literacy and numeracy were associated with greater cultural polarization: respondents predisposed by their values to dismiss climate change evidence became more dismissive, and those predisposed by their values to credit such evidence more concerned, as science literacy and numeracy increased. We suggest that this evidence reflects a conflict between two levels of rationality: the individual level, which is characterized by the citizens’ effective use of their knowledge and reasoning capacities to form risk perceptions that express their cultural commitments; and the collective level, which is characterized by citizens’ failure to converge on the best available scientific evidence on how to promote their common welfare. Dispelling this “tragedy of the risk-perception commons,” we argue, should be understood as the central aim of the science of science communication.
Description
31 pages
Keywords
Heuristics, Emotions, Numeracy, Values, Communication, Climate change
Citation
Kahan, D. M., Wittlin, M., Peters, E., Slovic, P., Ouellette, L. L., Braman, D., & Mandel, G. (2011). The tragedy of the risk-perception commons: Culture conflict, rationality conflict, and climate change (Cultural Cognition Project Working Paper No. 89). Available at the Social Science Research Network.