Guest essay by Eric Worrall
A climate psychology study by UQ Professor Matthew Hornsey suggests evidence that Conservatives are all conspiracy nuts is weak; Matthew instead believes that Conservatives have been manipulated through vested interest “ignorance-building strategies” into doubting the climate consensus.
‘It’s all about vested interests’: untangling conspiracy, conservatism and climate scepticism
Graham Readfearn
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Academics have suggested that people who tend to accept conspiracy theories also underplay or reject the science showing humans are causing rapid and dangerous climate change.
But a new study that tested this idea across 24 different countries found the link between so-called “conspiratorial ideation” and “climate scepticism” only really holds in the US.
University of Queensland psychology professor Matthew Hornsey and colleagues surveyed 5,300 people to test the link between climate “scepticism” and acceptance of four internationally propagated conspiracy theories around the assassination of President Kennedy, the 11 September terrorist attacks, the death of Princess Diana and the existence of a new world order.
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Conservatism and climate
The study also tried to tease out the links between the rejection of human-caused climate change and the ideologies that people hold.
It’s here that the study offers the greatest cause for hope, Hornsey says. He has developed a form of “jiujitsu” persuasion technique that he thinks might work.
There’s been a general acceptance that people who have broadly conservative or rightwing ideologies tend to rail against climate science because it rubs their worldview up the wrong way. That is, that tackling climate change will require broad interventions from governments.
But Hornsey’s study finds that “there is nothing inherent to conspiratorial ideation or conservative ideologies that predisposes people to reject climate science”.
Instead, it suggests vested interests have managed to reshape the conservative identity with “ignorance-building strategies” in two countries – the US and Australia.
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The abstract of the study;
Relationships among conspiratorial beliefs, conservatism and climate scepticism across nations
Matthew J. Hornsey, Emily A. Harris & Kelly S. Fielding
Studies showing that scepticism about anthropogenic climate change is shaped, in part, by conspiratorial and conservative ideologies are based on data primarily collected in the United States. Thus, it may be that the ideological nature of climate change beliefs reflects something distinctive about the United States rather than being an international phenomenon. Here we find that positive correlations between climate scepticism and indices of ideology were stronger and more consistent in the United States than in the other 24 nations tested. This suggests that there is a political culture in the United States that offers particularly strong encouragement for citizens to appraise climate science through the lens of their worldviews. Furthermore, the weak relationships between ideology and climate scepticism in the majority of nations suggest that there is little inherent to conspiratorial ideation or conservative ideologies that predisposes people to reject climate science, a finding that has encouraging implications for climate mitigation efforts globally.
Read more (paywalled): https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-018-0157-2
Sadly the full study is paywalled, but in a sense I see this shift as progress, an attempt to move psychological thought on climate scepticism from the utterly absurd to the merely badly mistaken.
The author of the study Professor Matthew Hornsey doesn’t appear to consider the possibility that Conservatives might be right. But Hornsey’s criticism of Lewandowsky’s extreme climate psychology claims seems rather courageous.
Any criticism of extreme climate claims, even a critique as mild as Hornsey’s suggestion that Conservatives might not be completely irrational, has the potential to incur academic ostracism and strident accusations of climate denial.
I’m not an expert in psychology but doesn’t psychology tell us that the weak and ignorant blindly follow the consensus?
Almost all the people I know who are conspiracy believers are liberals. From UFO ti Kennedy, 911 and Sandy Hook. This is a pathetic attempt to lump sceptics with nut jobs. Typical of these haters.
Notice the sly way that the New World Order is thrown in as an example of an unbelievable conspiracy theory.
The reality is that the New World Order is alive and well, as numerous official reports show.
My take would be that this paper has a secondary aim of trying to take focus away from the NWO because it does most of its insidious expansion in the dark.
BTW, I attended University of Queensland, which used to have an enviable reputation for excellence. These days there are just too many events, like some related to Great Barrier Reef research, plus some related to data secrecy, plus some about treatment of climate change disbelief, that give cause for pause. It is apparent that non-scientific emphasis has increased in the last 30 years as soft faculties have grown. The questions are whether the UQ can reverse its course and when. Geoff
If the UQ did that it would lose it’s funding.
I’m sure it was by sheer coincidence that a seminal conference greatly influencing the CAGW movement (the “right major crisis”?) was held at David’s estate just outside of Rome (The Club of Rome).
Yes, the New World Order is an unbelievable conspiracy.
This is the very acme of idiocy, the summit of stupid, the Everest of ignoramus. Gosh if I had a large funding grant, I would write a paper about it.
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regarding TRANSPARENCY IN ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE
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EVEN A LETTER OF CONGRATULATIONS for ACCEPTING the principle
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Submissions CLOSE on May 30th. 2018.
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yes, conservatives are ignorant. And they KNOW it. Liberals are just as ignorant, but they think they know.
The only sure thing for a conservative are
* trust only god
* politicians lie. Hell, that’s literally their job
* business lie, too, but at least in a capitalist country, if unhappy of a business, you can quit.
* young are idealistic and gullible, they follow the easy path with anyone promising to right the wrongs of the world. When they understand they were lied, they turn conservative. When not, they stay liberals.
“If You Are Not a Liberal at 25, You Have No Heart. If You Are Not a Conservative at 35 You Have No Brain”
Your last sentence explains why. Thanks for that. I keep learning.
I’ve known conservatives who did not believe in God. But there aren’t a lot of them.
That appears to be one of the principle divides between conservatives and liberals.
The morals, and therefore the actions, are governed by weather we are Darwin’s evolutionary products, or weather we are God’s children. Doesn’t matter which God either; it’s the morals behind the idea that governs our actions and responsibilities. The Left don’t have such hang-ups, and don’t believe in consequences.
I am an atheist. Show me the data ! Where is his throne? And I am just as Conservative as any one of you.
Alan, how exactly does your statement refute mine?
BTW, I’m willing to bet you believe in a lot of things that can’t be seen directly.
I didn’t say that conservatives believe in god (implicit: the biblical god). I said that they would trust only god. Whether he exists or not.
Does his hypothesis explain climate change on other Planets?
Jim Heath: No need for ‘splainin’, we can simply state it thusly: “Are conservatives who deny the science of man-caused climate change on other planets conspiracy nuts, or just ignorant?” When the conclusion is “Yes”, your grant is approved! See how easy, and that way you don’t give them any ammo for their “ideations”, so thoughtful.
….”positive correlations between climate scepticism and indices of ideology were stronger and more consistent in the United States than in the other 24 nations tested. This suggests that….”
Any study that confuses a positive correlation with a causal relationship is bunkum. We have sadly come to expect this kind of ignorance from journalists but not from professional scientists.
Given the low number of people in the study, it’s unlikely that there were enough people from any one country to form a valid opinion regarding that one country.
CAGW is the biggest conspiracy theory of the lot. History is littered with failed consensus opinions. He who controls the consensus controls the power.
Accusing of “willful ignorance” those you perceive as threatening your self-righteousness… Where have I seen that recently on these pages?
UQ Professor Matthew Hornsey is just plain wrong.
Conservatives are independent in nature, and not easily stirred to making rash decisions.
That is to say most conservative people are in the main people have the courage and drive to formulate their own ideas independently of any consensus. They mostly do not need, or seek the approval of others (that is what the ‘left’ is all about).
They may seek the advice from others but that does not necessarily mean they have to agree with them. They may form friendships and bonds with many others but that does not mean they have to agree with all or any of them — having colleges and friends that get thing done is what it’s all about.
For most conservatives a half pound of observed verification trumps a ton of theory.
If you are good at herding cats then you may be good at trying to herd bunch of independent thinking conservatives.
“tom0mason May 8, 2018 at 12:18 am
UQ Professor Matthew Hornsey is just plain wrong.”
I am sure he knows it. I am confident he has tenure. Also, pretty sure he has a “compliant” state Govn’t and a pliable federal Govn’t to help him in to retirement on the back of the “climate change” scare.
The whole point of scepticism IS ignorance – a belief that we know very little and that what is claimed as fact must be proven.
One of the main reasons I am sceptical about AGW is that our understanding of climate appears to be very rudimentary. I am ignorant and see little that suggests climate scientists are not ignorant too,
It’s all about the learned professor himself being clueless.
It’s always nice to hear about psychologists assuming they know all about climate https://www.nature.com/news/over-half-of-psychology-studies-fail-reproducibility-test-1.18248
Vested interests in government and politics have managed to reshape the liberal identity with “ignorance-building strategies” into believing the climate consensus with little evidence to back it up.
Fixed it for him.
The fundamental crisis of conservatism means that it can react so slowly to the most pressing problem in the world. Meanwhile, the rest of the world made an important step forward with the Paris Convention.
Forward with the Paris COnvention?
Rather, the politicians who signed the Paris Accord, trying to get as much guilt/gilt money from the West and America as possible for themselves and their sponsors, are only stepping forward off of the cliff into deliberate hardship for billions, and slow agonizing death for hundreds of millions to energy restrictions.
The Paris Convention does not preclude essentially reducing population indices in some regions, which is the worst source of poverty on Earth.
How do you propose killing off the excess population?
We are still waiting for you to come up with evidence that climate change is a problem, and that man is responsible for it.
If conservatism means we want you to prove your claims, then the world needs more conservatives.
MarkW “How do you propose killing off the excess population?” Surprisingly, there are some of us who have not yet met the concept of contraception.
You’re into mandatory sterilization. How liberal of you.
Anticonception does not mean sterilization, sterilization is a form an anticonception, if it is voluntary can be a very good thing. You’re probably twelve years old.
The problem is that in order to get the reductions you want, voluntary simply won’t get you there. Hence MarkW’s comment.
Fools rush in…….
Mihaly says “the fundamental crisis of conservatism….” The rest got a bit gibberishy, but moving slowly on problem you conjure up is not a crisis, nor a bug- it’s a feature! What does scientist J. Hansen think of the “important step”? Don’t bother telling us how it’s an important step forward, tell Hansen.
Just friendly advice Professor Hornsey: get a little science and you may stop looking like a dumb jerk.
Steve BA BSc MSc MPhil, MRes FIET
I think the two words that describe “climate science” and M. Hornsey is … He Believes .
All that’s is required for conservatives to accept the CAGW hypothesis is for hypothetical projections to match reality within 2 standard deviations for a statistically significant duration.
The reason rational and logical conservatives are extremely skeptical is that all CAGW projections have become miserably failed to refl3ct reality:
1) Global Warming trend: stuck at 0.05C/decade since 1850, and just 0.13C/decade since satellite data became available. FAIL
2) Sea Level Rise: stuck at 7”/Century. FAIL
3) Antarctic Land Ice Mass: INCREASING at 80 Billion tons/year FAIL
4) Global Severe Weather Incidence/frequency: No increasing trends for the past 60~118 years for:hurricanes, typhoons, cyclones, tornadoes, floods, droughts, tropical storms, subtropical storms, thunderstorms and hail. FAIL
5) Global Crop yields: have increased over two fold since 1960–FAIL
6) Air pollution: fallen 30~99% (depending on pollutant) just since 1980–FAIL
7) Ocean pH: fallen from 8.2 to 8.1 over the past century. Still too alkaline…FAIL
8) Arctic Sea Ice: 9 out of the past 11 years have been larger than the 2007 Minimum. (Was supposed to be ice-free by 2012…FAIL.
Conservatives are not the ones being ideological, we’re simply being logical.
Leftists are the ones that continue to delude themselves that CAGW is a viable hypothesis, even though all empirical evidence emphatically show it to be disconfirmed.
I like to call Leftists being aggressively ignorant..
I don’t suppose the study tried to actually measure the study subjects’ actual familiarity with the science, the concepts, the issues… No?
Psychology is a pseudo-science. They do not use equal signs in their “equations” so their theories can never be subject to definitive experimentation, they are not falsifiable. This is the reason they resort to statistics as a means to support their theories and surreptitiously inject their theories into the lexicon with fancy labels for a given behavior they believe is bad or good or otherwise requires them for their esteemed opinion. That enables them to place themselves above us, refereeing the boundaries of their own Venn diagrams they use to box us into herds and brand us.
Climate science has become a pseudo science now resorting to statistics and unfalsifiable claims so it seems quite natural that a majority of psychologists would feel a sense of kinship with climate scientists and have an instinctive desire to defend it because they realize that if people are able to sink the sophistry of the pseudo science of climate modeling – they might next come after the pseudo-science of psychology demanding proof which psychologists cannot provide any more than can climate scientists.
I contend that psychologists such as this Matthew Hornsey are the ones who are in fact ignorant of what science is. They are willfully ignorant to the very idea of truth being immalleable because it is an entirely foreign and frightening concept to them that something they believe could ever be disproven. So we can conclude that, like their climate science brethren, psychologists are afraid of real scientists who require proof thus rendering “studies” such that from Matthew Hornsey of no more value than a whimper in the dark of night.
This may be in part true. There are “rules” for falsifying statistical projections and predictions that are similar to “real science”. Some psychologists lean in said direction.
This has far more to do with marketing than anything else. Climate science failed, so the new problem is how to sell the failed science (because they are not going to change the theory, obviously). That’s where the psychologists come in—Cook, Lew, etc. “How to Market a Failed Theory”. They leave out science because that failed and include a lot of surveys, appeals to authority, etc in an effort to market the failing theory as true, necessary and not to be ignored.
Their Big Lie has become Too Big To Fail
It is curious that Nature keeps plumbing for new depths for irrational claims and bad science.
I bolded waffle terms and curious assumptions:
Need, I point out that Hornsey is from the same University that Cook hails from?
Or that Hornsey cites Lewandowsky?
Throughout Hornsey’s abstract, he coaches statements with waffle terms. Apparently to give his claims an appearance of scientific foundation; but effectively to minimize reality.
Indeed, Hornsey built his alleged study around his “confirmation bias” assumptions that mirror false claims of Lewandowsky and Cook.
“may be“, ergo meaningless.
“reflects something“, that is meaningless.
N.B. Hornsey’s assumption that “idealogical nature” is solely CO₂ and CAGW skepticism and does not refer to the very religious CAGW global warming or climate change belief structures.
“positive correlations”, again, meaningless without proof. Instead Hornsey phrases and frames correlation as linked to causation and claimed results.
N.B. Hornsey’s global assumptions based upon what?
Hornsey’s first research papers in his “references” cite Lewandowsky’s synthesized results based on blogs, bloggers and comments. Research shown to be decisively erroneous with author assumptions contrary to data collected.
Hornsey also loves to cite his own research as supporting his current research. A house of cards built upon bias, assumptions and baseless conclusions.
Pure baffle gab with waffle terms apparently needed to confirm Hornsey’s claims.
Here is a snapshot of Hornsey’s “supplemental data”.
N.B. Hornsey’s standard deviation manipulations based on “25 samples”. Apparently, each country is one “sample”.
One must pity University of Queensland students that are subjected to this specious pseudo science.
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Australia has a unique pathos in its academic psychology community. Did they invent the strategy of debate has ended based on a manipulated survey? They are certainly equipped for it.
If not believing in a manufactured, mythical consensus is proof of ignorance, then I plead guilty.