Climate: Why disinformation is so persistent

Melting of glaciers, rising sea levels, extreme heat waves: the consequences of climate change are more visible than ever, and the scientific community has confirmed that humans are responsible. Yet studies show that a third of the population still doubts or disputes these facts. The cause is disinformation spread by certain vested interests. To try and prevent this phenomenon, a team from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) has developed and tested six psychological interventions on nearly 7,000 participants from twelve countries. The research, published in the journal Nature Human Behavior, highlights the extremely persuasive nature of disinformation and the need to strengthen our efforts to combat it.

Fighting disinformation about climate change is a major challenge for society.

Although scientific consensus on human responsibility -- reaffirmed by the sixth report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) -- has been in place for decades, a third of the population still doubts or disputes it. This phenomenon can be explained by the disinformation spread by certain companies and lobbies over the last 50 years.

''For instance, these messages can take the form of an unfounded questioning of the scientific consensus or an overestimation of the socio-financial burden of climate policies,'' explains Tobia Spampatti, a PhD Student and Teaching and Research Assistant in the Consumer Decision and Sustainable Behavior Lab (CDSB Lab) at the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences and at the Swiss Center for Affective Sciences of the UNIGE.

Many psychological factors

This phenomenon weakens the support of a part of the population for climate policies.

To combat this, Tobia Spampatti and researchers from the UNIGE developed a theoretical framework to describe the formation and updating of (anti)scientific information.

This framework, built on previous theoretical takes on the psychology of misinformation (Philippe Mueller et al. and Ulrich Ecker et al. in 2022), takes into account the source of the message, its content, its recipients, and the psychological factors that can influence their processing.

This theoretical framework aims to identify the entry points for disinformation to access a person's ''psyche'', and can be used to intervene and block, or encourage, people to accept information.

''As individuals, we do not process scientific messages as neutral receivers of information, but by weighing them up against our prior beliefs, desired outcomes, emotional ties and socio-cultural and ideological backgrounds.

Depending on the configuration of these psychological factors, anti-scientific beliefs can be amplified and become resistant to correction,'' explains Tobia Spampatti, first author of the study.

Six preventive strategies put to the test

On this basis, the researchers developed six psychological intervention strategies aimed at preventing climate disinformation from affecting people's climate-related beliefs and behaviors.

They were tested on 6,816 participants in twelve different countries.

Each strategy was linked to a particular theme (scientific consensus, trust in climate scientists, transparent communication, moralizing climate action, accuracy, positive emotions towards climate action). The participants were divided into eight groups: six subjected to one of these strategies, one to disinformation without prevention, and a control group.

The ''trust in climate scientists'' group, for example, received verified information demonstrating the credibility of IPCC scientists.

The "transparent communication" group, meanwhile, was presented with information on both the advantages and the disadvantages of climate mitigation actions.

Each group was then exposed to twenty pieces of false or biased information, ten on climate science and ten on climate policy.

The UNIGE scientists then measured their impact after these preventive interventions by asking the participants about their feelings regarding climate mitigation actions.

Low preventive effect

''We found that the protective effect of our strategies is small and disappears after the second exposure to disinformation.

Climate disinformation used in this study has a negative influence on people's belief in climate change and their sustainable behaviour'', says Tobias Brosch, Associate Professor in the CDSB Lab at the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences and at the Swiss Center for Affective Sciences in the UNIGE, and final author of the study.

''Disinformation is therefore extremely persuasive, seemingly more so than scientific information.

Only the 'accuracy' group, who were asked to think in depth about the accuracy of the information they encountered online, showed a slight advantage''.

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Study showing how the brain retrieves facts and may help people with memory problems

 A shared set of systems in the brain may play an important role in controlling the retrieval of facts and personal memories utilised in everyday life, new research shows.

Scientists from the University of York say their findings may have relevance to memory disorders, including dementia, where problems remembering relevant information can impact on the daily life of patients.

Researchers say the findings may also have important implications for the development of a new generation of artificial intelligence systems, which use long-term memory in solving computational problems.

The brain's long-term memory stores are categorised into two: factual memory and memory of personal experiences.

Together, these two long-term memory stores help us understand and respond to the world around us.

Decades of clinical and experimental research has shown that these two memory stores are represented across two separate brain regions.

But the new study suggests that a shared set of brain regions play an important role in controlling the successful retrieval of weak memories.

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging technology, researchers studied how these regions were shown to increase their activity when participants were asked to retrieve fact memories and personal memories.

Lead researcher Dr Deniz Vatansever, formerly of the University of York and now working for the Institute of Science and Technology for Brain-inspired Intelligence, Fudan University said: "The new research suggests that despite their functional differences, successfully retrieving weak information from these two memory systems might be dependent upon a shared brain mechanism.

"Our memories allow us to make sense and flexibly interact with the world around us. Although in most cases, our strongly encoded memories might be sufficient for the task at hand, remembering to pack a beach towel for an upcoming seaside holiday, this strong memory may be irrelevant in other instances, such as when packing for a business trip. As such, we need to tightly control the retrieval of relevant memories to solve different tasks under different circumstances. Our results indicate that this control process might be shared across both factual and personal memory types."

Senior author Prof. Elizabeth Jefferies from the Department of Psychology, University of York, said: "In order to generate appropriate thoughts and behaviours, we have to draw on our memory stores in a highly flexible way. This new study highlights control processes within the brain that allow us to focus on unusual aspects of the meanings of words and to retrieve weakly encoded personal experiences. This control over memory allows us to be creative and to adapt as our goals or circumstances change."

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How do we separate the factual from the possible? New research shows how our brain responds to both

 Our brains respond to language expressing facts differently than they do to words conveying possibility, a team of neuroscientists has found. Its work offers new insights into the impact word choice has on how we make distinctions between what's real vs. what's merely possible.

"At a time of voluminous fake news and disinformation, it is more important than ever to separate the factual from the possible or merely speculative in how we communicate," explains Liina Pylkkanen, a professor in NYU's Department of Linguistics and Department of Psychology and the senior author of the paper, which appears in the journal eNeuro.

"Our study makes clear that information presented as fact evokes special responses in our brains, distinct from when we process the same content with clear markers of uncertainty, like 'may' or 'might'," adds Pylkkanen, also part of the NYU Abu Dhabi Institute.

"Language is a powerful device to effectively transmit information, and the way in which information is presented has direct consequences for how our brains process it," adds Maxime Tulling, a doctoral candidate in NYU's Department of Linguistics and the paper's lead author. "Our brains seem to be particularly sensitive to information that is presented as fact, underlining the power of factual language."

Researchers have long understood that the brain responds in a variety of ways to word choice. Less clear, however, are the distinctions it makes in processing language expressing fact compared to that expressing possibility. In the eNeuro study, the scientists' primary goal was to uncover how the brain computes possibilities as conveyed by so-called "modal" words such as "may" or "might" -- as in, "There is a monster under my bed" as opposed to, "There might be a monster under my bed."

To explore this, the researchers used formal semantic theories in linguistics to design multiple experiments in which subjects heard a series of sentences and scenarios expressed as both fact and possibility -- for example, "Knights carry large swords, so the squires do too" (factual) and "If knights carry large swords, the squires do too" (possible).

In order to measure the study subjects' brain activity during these experiments, the researchers deployed magnetoencephalography (MEG), a technique that maps neural activity by recording magnetic fields generated by the electrical currents produced by our brain.

The results showed that factual language led to a rapid increase in neural activity, with the brain responding more powerfully and showing more engagement with fact-based phrases and scenarios compared to those communicating possibility.

"Facts rule when it comes to the brain," observes Pylkkanen. "Brain regions involved in processing discourse rapidly differentiated facts from possibilities, responding much more robustly to factual statements than to non-factual ones. These findings suggest that the human brain has a powerful, perspective-adjusted neural representation of factual information and, interestingly, much weaker, more elusive cortical signals reflecting the computation of mere possibilities."

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People tune out facts and trust their guts in medical emergencies

A study conducted by two associate professors of marketing at The University of Texas at Arlington shows that people are more likely to base decisions on anecdotal information instead of facts when they feel anxious and vulnerable.

Traci Freling and Ritesh Saini, both in the College of Business, published "When poignant stories outweigh cold hard facts: A meta-analysis of the anecdotal bias" in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.

"We found that people are more likely to consider personal anecdotes than fact-based information, especially when it deals with medical emergencies," Freling said. "This has a high importance in the current environment, where everyone is concerned about the coronavirus."

Freling said people are more likely to listen to personal stories instead of facts because emotions run high during medical emergencies like the COVID-19 pandemic.

"They are especially dismissive of facts if the incident is something they personally experienced," Freling said. "Specifically, we show that when an issue is health-related, personally relevant or highly threatening, then decision-making is compromised and people tend to rely on anecdotes."

Freling pointed to the run on toilet paper buying during the COVID-19 pandemic as one example of not basing decisions on facts. This example illustrates how consumers who feel vulnerable to a particular problem may rely more heavily on subjective, anecdotal information instead of objective, statistical facts to make decisions.

Former UTA faculty member Zhiyong Yang, now a professor at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro, and two graduate students contributed to the analysis.

The research also revealed that when emotional engagement is low, statistical evidence weighs more heavily.

"Primarily, when there is low-threat severity or it's a non-health issue, people tend to take cold, hard facts into account rather than personal accounts and stories," Freling said.

Additionally, Saini noted that people make "more fact-based decisions when choosing for others, but become surprisingly irrational when choosing for self."

Elten Briggs, chair of the Department of Marketing, said Freling and Saini's analysis could have implications on decision-making processes for business and industry, especially during medical crises.

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Facts and stories: Great stories undermine strong facts

Some research shows facts are better received when presented on their own. Other studies show facts are more accepted when interwoven with stories; stories can help bridge emotional connections. If someone is trying to persuade or influence others, should they use a story or stick to the facts? According to research from social psychologists at Northwestern University, stories can increase the persuasiveness of weak facts, but actually decrease the persuasiveness of strong facts.

"Stories persuade, at least in part, by disrupting the ability to evaluate facts, rather than just biasing a person to think positively," says Rebecca Krause, who coauthored the paper with Derek Rucker.

The research appears in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, a publication of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology.

Prior psychological research on storytelling and persuasion demonstrated that stories led to more persuasion.

However, why stories were more persuasive was less clear. It could be that stories focused people on good aspects of a message and away from the negative ones. Alternatively, stories might have disrupted people's ability to process information in an elaborated manner. This distinction is important because these two accounts imply different predictions for when stories will be more or less persuasive.

To test this interplay between facts, stories, and persuasion, Krause and Rucker had 397 U.S. adults evaluate a set of either all strong or all weak facts about a fictitious brand of cell phone called Moonstone. Half of the people read only facts about the phone, while the other half read a story about the phone that had the facts embedded within it. For a strong fact, they used "The phone can withstand a fall of up to 30 feet." For a weak fact, they used "The phone can withstand a fall of up to 3 feet."

Krause and Rucker found that when facts were weak, a story with the facts embedded within it led to greater persuasion than facts alone. But when facts were strong, the opposite effect occurred: facts alone led to more persuasion than a story with the facts embedded within it. This result suggests that stories don't just direct people away from weak information; they reduce people's general processing of information. As a consequence, stories help persuasion when facts are weak, but they hurt persuasion when facts are strong.

Krause replicated the first study, this time with 389 U.S. adults, and observed similar results.

A third study occurred in a lab setting, and changed the content. In the third experiment, 293 people read about a fictitious flu medicine, either on its own or embedded within a story, and were asked whether they would provide their email to receive more information. While people are generally protective of sharing their email, people's willingness to share that information varied in a manner similar to the first two studies.

Specifically, stories once again undermined the persuasive appeal of strong facts. In the absence of a story, 34% of participants agreed to provide their email address in response to strong facts. However, when these same strong facts were included in a story, only 18% of participants agreed to provide their email address.

Krause notes that avoiding stories isn't the message they are trying to send.

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