ARC Talk: Jan Pfänder, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag): Strengthening Trust in Climate Scientists in the US: A Megastudy Approach

Strengthening Trust in Climate Scientists in the US: A Megastudy Approach

Trust in climate scientists is a key predictor of belief in climate change and support for mitigation policies, yet we know surprisingly little about how to strengthen it. Existing evidence is scarce and fragmented across studies with different samples, designs, and outcome measures. To address this gap, I am currently leading a megastudy—a large-scale experiment in which many interventions are tested simultaneously against a common control group, using identical outcome measures. Our megastudy tests 20 interventions designed to increase trust in climate scientists. The interventions were selected from 105 proposals submitted by researchers in response to an open call for collaboration. They include, for example, reading about the history of climate science, learning about peer-review, or discussing reasons for distrust with AI chatbots. The study is fielded in the United States, where public beliefs about climate change are highly polarized and climate research faces growing funding pressures.

In this talk, I will present preliminary results of the megastudy. Beyond the substantive question of what strengthens trust in climate scientists, I will walk through the process of running a large-scale collaborative experiment of this kind, from the open call through expert review and selection to data collection and analysis. I will reflect on megastudies as a methodological approach for generating comparable, policy-relevant evidence in behavioral sciences.

Hybrid talk: https://arc.mpib-berlin.mpg.de/public-with-recording/
Meeting-ID: 614 8074 7860
Passcode: 425472