Psychological inoculation strategies to fight climate disinformation across 12 countries [Registered Report Stage 1 Protocol]

ABSTRACT
Decades after the scientific debate about the anthropogenic causes of climate change has been settled, climate disinformation messages are still challenging the scientific evidence in public discourse. Here, we present a comprehensive theoretical framework of (anti)science belief formation and updating to account for the different psychological factors that influence acceptance or rejection of scientific messages. We will experimentally investigate, across twelve countries (N=6816), the effectiveness of six inoculation strategies targeting the factors identified in the framework – scientific consensus, trust in scientists, transparent communication, moralization of climate action, accuracy, and positive emotions – to fight real-world disinformation about climate science and climate mitigation actions. We expect the inoculations to significantly protect participants’ climate change beliefs, affect towards climate mitigation actions, actual pro-environmental behavior, and truth discernment capacity against climate disinformation. Our findings will provide behavioral scientists and stakeholders with new theory- and evidence-based strategies to fight climate disinformation in a warming world. 

ITEMS

Stage 1 Registered Report Protocol