Climate Change and the Covid-19 Pandemic: Testing for Motivated Reasoning
Motivated reasoning can contribute to societal divides over the perceived severity of global challenges, leading to policies that are less stringent than necessary, such as overly low carbon prices. Using an experimental design conducted in a large-scale survey in Germany in 2022, we find that respondents are more likely to consider news articles about global challenges credible if they confirm, rather than contradict, their prior beliefs. This tendency is stronger for the psychologically closer event of the Covid-19 pandemic than for the seemingly more distant issue of climate change. Additionally, our results suggest that polarization with respect to both challenges is lower among individuals who are less inclined to maintain their beliefs. However, encouraging people to process information accurately and independently of their preexisting beliefs does not reduce the tendency to view only confirmatory information as credible.
United States Association for Energy Economics (USAEE)
JEL-Klassifikation: A13, H23, Q54
DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.5235597