ZMT - Leibniz Zentrum für Marine Tropenforschung

Abstract:
Global warming is caused by humans and poses imminent dangers to our planet. These are scientific facts supported by multiple and complementary lines of evidence. Despite these facts, our society appears quite divided about causes and consequences of global warming. Research of the Yale Programme on Climate Change Communication, for example, has identified “six Americas”. These are six unique audiences within the public of the United States that each respond to the issue of global warming in their own distinct way (ranging from alarmed to totally dismissive). Even if we were able to identify some mutually beneficial and economically acceptable policies against global warming, with these range of contrasting opinions, such policies may not receive the support they would require to be effective. Research in behavioural psychology and economics tells us that facts do not change people’s mind. This is mostly due to cognitive biases, which prevent us from weighing contrasting arguments and change our mind. Given that cognitive biases are difficult to remove, can we still hope to reach consensus on existential matters like global warming? I will present a study based on Agent-Based Modelling exploring this possibility. Surprisingly, we find that biases may have opposing effects on opinion dynamics depending on the structure of the communication network (who is in contact with whom) characterising a society. In contrast to current wisdom, our study suggests that cognitive biases are not necessarily barriers to consensus formation, the structure of the communication network is critically important for determining consensus even in the presence of moderately strong biases.