Helen Fischer
Biographic Data
| ID | 3862127 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Helen Fischer |
| GIVEN NAMES | Helen |
| FAMILY NAME | Fischer |
| SIGNATURE | FISCHER H |
| AFFILIATIONS | Heidelberg University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5037-0390 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 20 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 75 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 20 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2006 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
People’s Responses to Nuclear Weapons
Nuclear weapon threats are increasing and may be comparable to levels not seen since the worst periods of the Cold War. There could be value in psychologists documenting and explaining people’s responses to nuclear weapons. More than 3 decades have passed since the last major reviews of people’s responses to nuclear weapons. We thus aimed to understand how psychologists and researchers from related fields have empirically studied responses to nuc…
Zone‐flooding, public confusion, and signal detection theory
While historically, the aim of propaganda was to convince the public of a certain agenda, many political commentators contend that modern forms of disinformation come with a different goal in mind: To confuse, rather than convince. It is believed that to secure this goal, informational spaces are diluted, rather than dominated, a strategy termed “zone‐flooding.” The present research provides a unified psychological account of confusion that draws…
Making climate-sensitive health counselling acceptable for patients
Public Communication about Science in 68 Countries
This 68-country survey ( n = 71,922) examines science information diets and communication behavior, identifies cross-country differences, and tests how such differences are associated with sociopolitical and economic conditions. We find that social media are the most used sources of science information in most countries, except those with democratic-corporatist media systems where news media tend to be used more widely. People in collectivist soc…
Acceptability of health-only versus climate-and-health framings in lifestyle-related climate-sensitive health counselling
Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg
Trust in scientists and their role in society across 68 countries
Science is crucial for evidence-based decision-making. Public trust in scientists can help decision makers act on the basis of the best available evidence, especially during crises. However, in recent years the epistemic authority of science has been challenged, causing concerns about low public trust in scientists. We interrogated these concerns with a preregistered 68-country survey of 71,922 respondents and found that in most countries, most p…
Science Communication as a Collective Intelligence Endeavor
Effective science communication is challenging when scientific messages are informed by a continually updating evidence base and must often compete against misinformation. We argue that we need a new program of science communication as collective intelligence—a collaborative approach, supported by technology. This would have four key advantages over the typical model where scientists communicate as individuals: scientific messages would be inform…
Contested science
Societal polarization over contested science has increased in recent years. To explain this development, political, sociological, and psychological research has identified societal macro-phenomena as well as cognitive micro-level factors that explain how citizens reason about the science. Here we take a radically different perspective, and highlight the effects of metacognition: How citizens reason about their own reasoning. Leveraging methods fr…
Polarized climate change beliefs
A substantial literature shows that public polarization over climate change in the U.S. is most pronounced among the science literate. A dominant explanation for this phenomenon is that science literacy amplifies motivated reasoning, the tendency to interpret evidence such that it confirms prior beliefs. The present study tests the biasing account of science literacy in a study among the U.S. population that investigated both interpretation of cl…
Importance of domain-specific metacognition for explaining beliefs about politicized science
Extrapolation accuracy underestimates rule learning
Understanding the development of non-linear processes such as economic or population growth is an important prerequisite for informed decisions in those areas. In the function-learning paradigm, people's understanding of the function rule that underlies the to-be predicted process is typically measured by means of extrapolation accuracy. Here we argue, however, that even though accurate extrapolation necessitates rule-learning, the reverse does n…
When IPCC graphs can foster or bias understanding
To develop effective climate change policy, decision-makers need to have the best possible understanding of the available climate science. The IPCC Assessment Reports therefore aim to lay the foundation for informed political decision-making by providing policy-relevant information. But how successful are IPCC reports at communicating key findings? Although IPCC reports display key information in graphs, the interpretation of such graphs has rece…
It starts at home? Climate policies targeting household consumption and behavioral decisions are key to low-carbon futures
Through their consumption behavior, households are responsible for 72% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Thus, they are key actors in reaching the 1.5 °C goal under the Paris Agreement. However, the possible contribution and position of households in climate policies is neither well understood, nor do households receive sufficiently high priority in current climate policy strategies. This paper investigates how behavioral change can achieve a s…
Human health as a motivator for climate change mitigation
The 2018 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change
Promoting health under the Paris Climate Agreement – results from a European mixed-methods study
How Well Do COP22 Attendees Understand Graphs on Climate Change Health Impacts from the Fifth IPCC Assessment Report
Graphs are prevalent in the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), often depicting key points and major results. However, the popularity of graphs in the IPCC reports contrasts with a neglect of empirical tests of their understandability. Here we put the understandability of three graphs taken from the Health chapter of the Fifth Assessment Report to an empirical test. We present a pilot study where we evaluate objective…
Explaining climate policies’ popularity—An empirical study in four European countries
Household preferences for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in four European high-income countries
This is one of the first comprehensive mixed-methods approaches to investigate which mitigation measures households are most willing to implement in order to reach the 1,5° target set by the Paris Agreement, and whether health co-benefits can serve as a motivator for households to implement these measures. The comparison of the empirical data with current climate policies will provide knowledge for tailoring effective climate change mitigation an…
Les dessous de l'amour romantique
It starts at home? Climate policies targeting household consumption and behavioral decisions are key to low-carbon futures
Through their consumption behavior, households are responsible for 72% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Thus, they are key actors in reaching the 1.5 °C goal under the Paris Agreement. However, the possible contribution and position of households in climate policies is neither well understood, nor do households receive sufficiently high priority in current climate policy strategies. This paper investigates how behavioral change can achieve a s…
Trust in scientists and their role in society across 68 countries
Science is crucial for evidence-based decision-making. Public trust in scientists can help decision makers act on the basis of the best available evidence, especially during crises. However, in recent years the epistemic authority of science has been challenged, causing concerns about low public trust in scientists. We interrogated these concerns with a preregistered 68-country survey of 71,922 respondents and found that in most countries, most p…
Human health as a motivator for climate change mitigation
Acceptability of health-only versus climate-and-health framings in lifestyle-related climate-sensitive health counselling
Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg
Science Communication as a Collective Intelligence Endeavor
Effective science communication is challenging when scientific messages are informed by a continually updating evidence base and must often compete against misinformation. We argue that we need a new program of science communication as collective intelligence—a collaborative approach, supported by technology. This would have four key advantages over the typical model where scientists communicate as individuals: scientific messages would be inform…
Explaining climate policies’ popularity—An empirical study in four European countries
Les dessous de l'amour romantique
Household preferences for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in four European high-income countries
This is one of the first comprehensive mixed-methods approaches to investigate which mitigation measures households are most willing to implement in order to reach the 1,5° target set by the Paris Agreement, and whether health co-benefits can serve as a motivator for households to implement these measures. The comparison of the empirical data with current climate policies will provide knowledge for tailoring effective climate change mitigation an…
The 2018 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change
Promoting health under the Paris Climate Agreement – results from a European mixed-methods study
How Well Do COP22 Attendees Understand Graphs on Climate Change Health Impacts from the Fifth IPCC Assessment Report
Graphs are prevalent in the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), often depicting key points and major results. However, the popularity of graphs in the IPCC reports contrasts with a neglect of empirical tests of their understandability. Here we put the understandability of three graphs taken from the Health chapter of the Fifth Assessment Report to an empirical test. We present a pilot study where we evaluate objective…
Explaining climate policies’ popularity—An empirical study in four European countries
It starts at home? Climate policies targeting household consumption and behavioral decisions are key to low-carbon futures
Through their consumption behavior, households are responsible for 72% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Thus, they are key actors in reaching the 1.5 °C goal under the Paris Agreement. However, the possible contribution and position of households in climate policies is neither well understood, nor do households receive sufficiently high priority in current climate policy strategies. This paper investigates how behavioral change can achieve a s…
Human health as a motivator for climate change mitigation
When IPCC graphs can foster or bias understanding
To develop effective climate change policy, decision-makers need to have the best possible understanding of the available climate science. The IPCC Assessment Reports therefore aim to lay the foundation for informed political decision-making by providing policy-relevant information. But how successful are IPCC reports at communicating key findings? Although IPCC reports display key information in graphs, the interpretation of such graphs has rece…
Importance of domain-specific metacognition for explaining beliefs about politicized science
Extrapolation accuracy underestimates rule learning
Understanding the development of non-linear processes such as economic or population growth is an important prerequisite for informed decisions in those areas. In the function-learning paradigm, people's understanding of the function rule that underlies the to-be predicted process is typically measured by means of extrapolation accuracy. Here we argue, however, that even though accurate extrapolation necessitates rule-learning, the reverse does n…
Contested science
Societal polarization over contested science has increased in recent years. To explain this development, political, sociological, and psychological research has identified societal macro-phenomena as well as cognitive micro-level factors that explain how citizens reason about the science. Here we take a radically different perspective, and highlight the effects of metacognition: How citizens reason about their own reasoning. Leveraging methods fr…
Polarized climate change beliefs
A substantial literature shows that public polarization over climate change in the U.S. is most pronounced among the science literate. A dominant explanation for this phenomenon is that science literacy amplifies motivated reasoning, the tendency to interpret evidence such that it confirms prior beliefs. The present study tests the biasing account of science literacy in a study among the U.S. population that investigated both interpretation of cl…
Science Communication as a Collective Intelligence Endeavor
Effective science communication is challenging when scientific messages are informed by a continually updating evidence base and must often compete against misinformation. We argue that we need a new program of science communication as collective intelligence—a collaborative approach, supported by technology. This would have four key advantages over the typical model where scientists communicate as individuals: scientific messages would be inform…
Making climate-sensitive health counselling acceptable for patients
Public Communication about Science in 68 Countries
This 68-country survey ( n = 71,922) examines science information diets and communication behavior, identifies cross-country differences, and tests how such differences are associated with sociopolitical and economic conditions. We find that social media are the most used sources of science information in most countries, except those with democratic-corporatist media systems where news media tend to be used more widely. People in collectivist soc…
Acceptability of health-only versus climate-and-health framings in lifestyle-related climate-sensitive health counselling
Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg
Trust in scientists and their role in society across 68 countries
Science is crucial for evidence-based decision-making. Public trust in scientists can help decision makers act on the basis of the best available evidence, especially during crises. However, in recent years the epistemic authority of science has been challenged, causing concerns about low public trust in scientists. We interrogated these concerns with a preregistered 68-country survey of 71,922 respondents and found that in most countries, most p…
People’s Responses to Nuclear Weapons
Nuclear weapon threats are increasing and may be comparable to levels not seen since the worst periods of the Cold War. There could be value in psychologists documenting and explaining people’s responses to nuclear weapons. More than 3 decades have passed since the last major reviews of people’s responses to nuclear weapons. We thus aimed to understand how psychologists and researchers from related fields have empirically studied responses to nuc…
Zone‐flooding, public confusion, and signal detection theory
While historically, the aim of propaganda was to convince the public of a certain agenda, many political commentators contend that modern forms of disinformation come with a different goal in mind: To confuse, rather than convince. It is believed that to secure this goal, informational spaces are diluted, rather than dominated, a strategy termed “zone‐flooding.” The present research provides a unified psychological account of confusion that draws…
Climate change (10 works) · Climate Change Communication and Perception (10 works) · Political science (8 works) · Environmental Education and Sustainability (7 works) · Misinformation and Its Impacts (6 works) · Psychology (6 works) · Climate Change and Health Impacts (5 works) · Economics (5 works) · Medicine (5 works) · Computer Science (4 works)