How People update beliefs about climate change: Good news and bad news

Cornell Law Review

Volumn 102, Issue 6, 2017, Pages 1431-1443

  Sunstein, Cass R ^a   Bobadilla Suarez, Sebastian ^c   Lazzaro, Stephanie C ^c   Sharot, Tali ^b  

^a HARVARD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON   (United Kingdom)

^c NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 85042645547     PISSN: 00108847     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Review

References (18)

1. For one account, see Michael Greenstone et al., Developing a Social Cost of Carbon for US Regulatory Analysis: A Methodology and Interpretation, 7 REV. ENVTL. ECON. & POL'Y 23 (2013).
2. The social cost of carbon was upheld against a variety of legal challenges in Zero Zone, Inc. V. U. S. Dep't of Energy, 832 F.3d 654, 677-80 (7th Cir. 2016).
3. See U. S. ENVTL. PROT. AGENCY, FUTURE OF CLIMATE CHANGE (Jan. 18, 2017) https://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/science/future.html [https://perma.cc/KKU8-5JAQ].
4. See Martin L. Weitzman, Fat-Tailed Uncertainty in the Economics of Catastrophic Climate Change, 5 REV. ENVTL. ECON. & POL'Y 275, 277-79 (2011).
5. See, e.g., Robert S. Pindyck, Climate Change Policy: What Do the Models Tell Us? (Nat'l Bureau of Econ. Research, Working Paper No. 19244, 2013), http://www.nber.org/papers/w19244.pdf [https://perma.cc/9TV4-CJ5G].
6. See, e.g., Charles G. Lord et al., Biased Assimilation and Attitude Polarization: The Effects of Prior Theories on Subsequently Considered Evidence, 37 J. PERSONALITY & SOC. PSYCHOL. 2098 (1979);
7. John W. McHoskey, Case Closed? On the John F. Kennedy Assassination: Biased Assimilation of Evidence and Attitude Polarization, 17 BASIC & APPLIED SOC. PSYCHOL. 395 (2002);
8. Geoffrey D. Munro et al., Biased Assimilation of Sociopolitical Arguments: Evaluating the 1996 U. S. Presidential Debate, 24 BASIC & APPLIED SOC. PSYCHOL. 15 (2002).
9. Brendan Nyhan & Jason Reifler, When Corrections Fail: The Persistence of Political Misperceptions, 32 POL. BEHAV. 303 (2010).
10. David Eil & Justin M. Rao, The Good News-Bad News Effect: Asymmetric Processing of Objective Information About Yourself, 3 AM. ECON. J.: MICROECONOMICS 114 (2011);
11. Tali Sharot et al., How Unrealistic Optimism Is Maintained in the Face of Reality, 14 NATURE NEUROSCIENCE 1475 (2011).
12. Tali Sharot & Neil Garrett, The Myth of a Pessimistic View of Optimistic Belief Updating - A Commentary on Shah et al. (2016), http://papers.ssrn. com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract-id=2811752 [http://perma.cc/W5ZR-CEEE].
13. AMAZON MECHANICAL TURK, https://www.mturk.com/mturk/welcome [https://perma.cc/SZ45-NSQX].
14. Connor Huff & Dustin Tingley, "Who Are These People?" Evaluating the Demographic Characteristics and Political Preferences of MTurk Survey Respondents, RES. & POL., July-Sept. 2015, at 1 (2015).
15. See TALI SHAROT, THE OPTIMISM BIAS (2012);
16. See Dan M. Kahan et al., The Polarizing Impact of Science Literacy and Numeracy on Perceived Climate Change Risks, 2 NATURE CLIMATE CHANGE 732(2012), for a series of illuminating observations and findings.
17. See, e.g., Nyhan & Reifler, supra note 10; Brendan Nyhan et al., The Hazards of Correcting Myths About Health Care Reform, 51 MED. CARE 127 (2013).
18. For discussion, see Edward Glaeser & Cass R. Sunstein, Does More Speech Correct Falsehoods?, 43 J. LEGAL STUD. 65 (2014).