{"id":258092,"date":"2023-05-19T12:32:05","date_gmt":"2023-05-19T10:32:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=258092"},"modified":"2023-05-19T12:32:07","modified_gmt":"2023-05-19T10:32:07","slug":"study-climate-believers-are-more-likely-to-trust-strangers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=258092","title":{"rendered":"Study: Climate Believers Are More Likely to Trust Strangers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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From Watts Up With That?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Essay by Eric Worrall<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps greens find it difficult to imagine that scientific authority figures can be self serving lying toads, just like anyone else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Climate change believers are more likely to cooperate with strangers, new research finds<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Published: May 17, 2023 10.01am AEST
Ananish Chaudhuri<\/a> Professor of Behavioural and Experimental Economics, University of Auckland
Quentin Douglas Atkinson<\/a> Professor of Psychology, University of Auckland
Scott Claessens<\/a> Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Auckland<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Willingness to cooperate<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Using such micro-scale social dilemma games, we found a general psychological preference for cooperation that we refer to as the \u201ccooperative phenotype\u201d (phenotype being all observable characteristics of an organism). These were people who routinely cooperate with strangers even if that means sacrificing money. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We found at least some evidence for the second scenario \u2013 those who are more cooperative tended to believe in the facts of climate change and were willing to take action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Crucially, this doesn\u2019t mean conservatives are less generous. Evidence suggests that when it comes to cooperative issues like contributing to charity, conservatives and progressives don\u2019t differ in how much they give, so much as who they give to. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While progressives are more comfortable with contributing to large anonymous groups (such as charities or governmental agencies), conservative giving is often much more targeted at the local community level<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our findings apply primarily to a developed Western population and more work is needed to generalise beyond this. However, our work offers the promise that a potential way to change minds is to convince people that climate change issues are merely a larger-scale extension of local social dilemmas. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026Read more: https:\/\/theconversation.com\/climate-change-believers-are-more-likely-to-cooperate-with-strangers-new-research-finds-205469<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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The abstract of the study;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Cooperative phenotype predicts climate change belief and pro\u2010environmental behaviour <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scott Claessens1, Daniel Kelly1, Chris G. Sibley1, Ananish Chaudhuri2,3 & Quentin D. Atkinson1*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Understanding the psychological causes of variation in climate change belief and pro\u2010environmental behaviour remains an urgent challenge for the social sciences. The \u201ccooperative phenotype\u201d is a stable psychological preference for cooperating in social dilemmas that involve a tension between individual and collective interest. Since climate change poses a social dilemma on a global scale, this issue may evoke similar psychological processes as smaller social dilemmas. Here, we investigate the relationships between the cooperative phenotype and climate change belief and behaviour with a representative sample of New Zealanders (N <\/em>= 897). By linking behaviour in a suite of economic games to self\u2010reported climate attitudes, we show robust positive associations between the cooperative phenotype and both climate change belief and pro\u2010environmental behaviour. Furthermore, our structural equation models support a motivated reasoning account in which the relationship between the cooperative phenotype and pro\u2010environmental behaviour is mediated by climate change belief. These findings suggest that common psychological mechanisms underlie cooperation in both micro\u2010 scale social dilemmas and larger\u2010scale social dilemmas like climate change.Read more: https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41598-022-16937-2.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n