Essay by Eric Worrall
Perhaps greens find it difficult to imagine that scientific authority figures can be self serving lying toads, just like anyone else.
Climate change believers are more likely to cooperate with strangers, new research finds
Published: May 17, 2023 10.01am AEST
Ananish Chaudhuri Professor of Behavioural and Experimental Economics, University of Auckland
Quentin Douglas Atkinson Professor of Psychology, University of Auckland
Scott Claessens Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Auckland…
Willingness to cooperate
…
Using such micro-scale social dilemma games, we found a general psychological preference for cooperation that we refer to as the “cooperative phenotype” (phenotype being all observable characteristics of an organism). These were people who routinely cooperate with strangers even if that means sacrificing money.
…
We found at least some evidence for the second scenario – those who are more cooperative tended to believe in the facts of climate change and were willing to take action.
…
Crucially, this doesn’t mean conservatives are less generous. Evidence suggests that when it comes to cooperative issues like contributing to charity, conservatives and progressives don’t differ in how much they give, so much as who they give to.
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.
…
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.
…
Read more: https://theconversation.com/climate-change-believers-are-more-likely-to-cooperate-with-strangers-new-research-finds-205469
The abstract of the study;
Cooperative phenotype predicts climate change belief and pro‐environmental behaviour
Scott Claessens1, Daniel Kelly1, Chris G. Sibley1, Ananish Chaudhuri2,3 & Quentin D. Atkinson1*
Understanding the psychological causes of variation in climate change belief and pro‐environmental behaviour remains an urgent challenge for the social sciences. The “cooperative phenotype” 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 = 897). By linking behaviour in a suite of economic games to self‐reported climate attitudes, we show robust positive associations between the cooperative phenotype and both climate change belief and pro‐environmental behaviour. Furthermore, our structural equation models support a motivated reasoning account in which the relationship between the cooperative phenotype and pro‐environmental behaviour is mediated by climate change belief. These findings suggest that common psychological mechanisms underlie cooperation in both micro‐ scale social dilemmas and larger‐scale social dilemmas like climate change.
Read more: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-16937-2.pdf
I think the researchers have still missed the point. Re-casting climate change as a local issue won’t move conservatives, because we don’t trust the people who are doing the re-casting.
What is needed is some actual evidence that climate change is a problem.
But if climate scientists were able to provide substantial evidence of a problem, instead of a shotgun scatter of dubious climate predictions which we’re supposed to accept as serious science, there probably wouldn’t be a need for psychological studies into why some people reject climate messaging.
At the environmental institute where I work, it’s down to about 10% now of PhD scientists and graduate students that wear face masks. But only a few months ago, the majority still did.
Very gullible these people are.
Maybe oxygen deprivation has killed so many brain cells, they haven’t noticed the covid crisis isn’t fashionable any more.
It’s peer pressure. From the outside, these people seem very susceptible to peer pressure, conformity and are more willing to submit to authority.
Fun Fauci fact. It has been known for decades that masks do not prevent the transmission of aerosolized influenza. The apt analogy is that chain link fences cannot keep out mosquitoes. The minute we knew that COVID -19 was at least partly aerosolized (which was NOT obvious in the first 6-9 months, and may have come about partly thru the well known Darwinian viral mutation pathway—more infectious but less virulent), the whole mask thing became a non-starter. Yet ‘I persisted.
Separate observation about this paper, paraphrasing: cooperatives are more likely to trust strangers even if it costs them money. P.T. Barnum said, ‘A sucker is born every minute.’ He had a traveling zoo exhibit that posted a big sign near the end, “To the Egress”. Suckers thought it meant to the next zoo exhibit, Egrets, and out they went.
‘Cooperatives’ have been suckered into climate change by modern P. T.Barnums like Mann and Kerry. And they are flocking to the inevitable economic egress.
Love the PT Barnum link. PT Barnum was a very talented showman and huckster who actually did some good when he became mayor of Bridgeport, CT. Mann and Kerry are not in his class.
During SARS, twenty years ago, it was lefty thing to ridicule anyone wasting a mask. “You need to wear 16 of them to be any good. Scientific fact”.
story tip
Lab-Grown Meat Produces Up To 25 Times More CO2, Study Reveals
https://thenationalpulse.com/2023/05/17/lab-grown-meat-produces-up-to-25-times-more-co2-study-reveals/
Based on the headline:
Nothing stranger than a climate believer.
Regards,
Bob
Yes. Science is not a belief system.
Creating believers (in any and everything, especially when shown in papers or tv) is a failure of the education system everywhere.
Here is the link to the study referenced in the article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-16937-2.pdf.
A quick read indicates this study was done using 4 games — the Dictator game, the Trust game, the Public Goods game and the Stag Hunt game.
Dare to say these results apply to the real world at your own risk. It’s easy for people to be generous with play money.
None of these people (in the games) had to make real tradeoffs like people in the real world do. Do you want to pay double or triple for your electric bill to meet Net-Zero? Are you willing to endure brownouts and rolling blackouts? Do you want to pay to heat the house or do you want to buy medicine this month?
Let’s create a Food, Medicine or Heat game and test these same subjects. Let’s try a Net-Zero No More Job game. How about Let’s have Crickets for Dinner game?
My observation is the majority of people concerned about climate change and the environment want and expect somebody else to pay the costs.
Even worse they think the cost is a benefit because somebody gets the money, thus creating JOBS.
https://www.cfact.org/2023/05/16/the-left-thinks-offshore-wind-costs-are-benefits/
There must be a big overlap between Climate Believers and Open Borders activists, who think immigrants should be housed at public expense, just not in their households or communities.
Yes, funny how things change when the hotels all fill up with dubious immigrants consisting of single males of fighting age. Even the dumbass mayor of New York is realising that tourists won’t come if there are no hotels rooms and that they might also be put off by all the immigrants wandering around, not to mention the soaring crime in New York, or any DemoTwat city.
Al Gore failed Divinity School. But being a preacher does suit his basic style except with a different sort of Armageddon being predicted if the congregation does not repent.
fire and brimstone and the oceans are boiling!
Right.
Decades ago, a little man with a moustache also failed art school, and see what was the result… a problem when some people who are prevented from following their natural vocation decide to dedicate themselves to other activities.
That’s a really goofy-looking wolf. I guess that makes sense, with all the goofy climate claims out there.
From the article: “What is needed is some actual evidence that climate change is a problem.”
That’s the bottom line.
To date, there is no evidence.
Depends on your concept of evidence. The greens think hot model results are evidence. That is the deep problem.
Opening sentence is a gem!
Made me laugh out loud–
but felt a bit awkward in context of seriousness of the fraud.
Nothing against toads though.
Out of copyright was my main criterion 😉
Wouldn’t credulity be required to believe that crap?
Apparently so.
“Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one.”
— Charles MacKay
Sam Bankman-Fried appreciates all the cooperation from believers.
Number one one beliefs have nothing to do with the science of climate. Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming activists have precious little science to promote their beliefs. The CAGW crowd is more religion or cult like than scientific. I suppose that is why psychology/sociology types are sympathetic to the idea. In any case the psychology/sociology crowd have little to contribute to the science of climate.
Trouble is, they were read “The Three Little Pigs” every day until they were 40…
… so they still believe in the Big Bad Wolf.
Quote:“self serving lying toads, just like anyone else.
No….
There are 2 especial instances of self serving toads:
Drug usersSocialists#2 is only a variation on #1 = it where The Drug is ‘other people’s money’ in a cocktail of Control.
Otherwise what I see here is a poor attempted replication of a very famous experiment – that of Warrior Spirit
It was and is quite surprising, controversial and entirely not what anyone would initially think/believe nor want to believe – it draws an amazing and counter-intuitive distinction between boys and girls.
That in times of high stress and danger, boys will do insanely personally dangerous things to help a friend who’s in trouble.
This how it got its ‘warrior’ name = that in a war/battleground situation, if a boy warrior sees an injured/wounded friend, the boy will put himself into extreme danger to go and rescue his friend.
Whereas girls, supposedly the caring sensitive sharing giving members of society will always dump their friend and do everything in their power to save themselves – leaving what everyone thought was their friend to perish.
It’s totally counter-intuitive until you realise that where that behaviour evolved was out on the (sub) tropical grasslands of hunter gatherers.
The boys were obviously doing the hunting and it’s a dangerous and rough/ready game. Just like war.
The boys acted in small teams (3 or 4 members) and if they lost one, it meant that The Team was very effectively crippled. Maybe each one brought a unique skill, such as tracking, navigating, finding water, keeping lookout etc whatever.
So saving the friend actually meant ‘saving the team’
Probably also, the injury sustained was caused by the very thing they were hunting, so returning to the danger zone also meant the possibility of concluding a successful hunt.
But at that time, almost any and all ‘grown up’ girls would have had at least one child/baby in tow – so when they ran from danger (dumping their sister/friend or spouse) – they were in reality saving their baby.
It then makes perfect sense.
And that also explains sometimes bizarre ‘initiation ceremonies’ – especially where groups of boys are assembled.
As happened a lot inside British Army barracks = drinking a pint of piss with a turd in it was a way of making friends and ‘proving it’ = that you’d volunteer to go through hell for the sake of your friend.
Also as the US Army found in Afghanistan and the Gulf – where a lot of women were expected (even by their own selves) to be active on the front line.
It was just that, when the shooting actually started, the girls suddenly formed into a queue outside the doctor’s office/tent/shelter to get pregnancy tested.
And if the first or any test came back negative, they damn well went out of their way to get another test taken that came back positive.
Reason being: Pregnant people are not permitted on ‘the front line’ and are required to return home.
so perfect you can only smile
cooperative phenotype: collectivist. It may be largely a genotype.
“those who are more cooperative tended to believe in the facts of climate change”
I.e., collectivists are more likely to submit their belief to authoritarian propaganda.
That diagnosis includes,
Ananish Chaudhuri Professor of Behavioural and Experimental Economics, University of Auckland
Quentin Douglas Atkinson Professor of Psychology, University of Auckland
and
Scott Claessens Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Auckland
Proof positive that intelligence provides no immunity against surrender to socially arrogated opinion.
Morality is just the behavior that allows people to feel virtuous in their particular society.
Hence Ananish Chaudhuri, Quentin Douglas Atkinson, and Scott Claessens can feel moral touting the pseudo facts of climate change all the while knowing at some inner level that the imposition of their pseudo-fact policies will immiserate billions.
Trust but Verify. In times past a mans word and a handshake
would be his bond, or so I’ve been told. In todays world
not so much.
Donating locally means some oversight by the donor.
Is it this easy to be an academic?
PS it will only get worse with climate change.
Climate believers also “know” the last thing someone told them.
Climate believers trust strange science, of course they do they have been brainwashed . .
Climate change believers are gullible. Surprise, surprise, surprise.
Unquestioningly following the herd isn’t admirable
The road to hell on Earth is paved with ‘good intentions’ (I’m being generous) from ignorant bad actors…..,
Back in the Shakespearian era bad actors had rotten food thrown at them. Today the bad actors playing Climate Alarmism, complain if rotten comments are thrown at them.
Social progress I guess?
Baloney on the cooperative phenotype. What it really is, is the frightened rat phenotype. People who are prone to being afraid of life (frightened rats) are easy targets for conmen of all description including those who promise a safey safe new world order in return for the frightened giving up their basic human dignity (cooperating with the daft).
They’re more gullible
Great point, Eric!
One of the characteristics of psychopaths is their great ability at persuasion. Our “modern” education system makes this even easier by filling little heads with mush, and refusing to teach life skills like logical thought and analysis. Making millions victims-for-life will only lead to severe overcrowding in the Stockholm Syndrome and the death of Western liberal democracy!
conservatives and progressives don’t differ in how much they give
I would like to see support for this statement, as it contradicts the (very) few studies I have seen on the topic.
Good article, Eric. But it’s not just greens. Just ask our very own Editor Willis whether he can “imagine that scientific authority figures can be self serving lying toads, just like anyone else.”
Indeed, this problem is not limited to scientific authority figures either. It applies equally to all of them.