Testing the impact of fallacies and contrarian claims in climate change misinformation

Bibliographic Data

ID21297971
AuthorsRenee Lieu (Melbourne School of Psychological Science University of Melbourne Melbourne Victoria Australia), Oliver R Hayes (Melbourne School of Psychological Science University of Melbourne Melbourne Victoria Australia), John Cook (0000-0002-3330-5180, Melbourne Centre for Behaviour Change University of Melbourne Melbourne Victoria Australia, corresponding author)
Year2025
Publication date2025-12-29
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueBritish Journal of Psychology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0007-1269 • E-ISSN: 2044-8295
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/bjop.70049
PMID41462017
OpenAlexW7117596066
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited66

Climate misinformation reduces public acceptance of climate change and undermines support for mitigation policies. This study explored the impact of different types of climate misinformation, examining through content‐based and logic‐based frameworks. The content‐based framework was based on a taxonomy of contrarian claims consisting of five categories—it's not real, it's not us, it's not bad, climate solutions won't work and scientists are not reliable. The logic‐based framework examined six rhetorical techniques used in science denial arguments—misrepresentation, false equivalence, oversimplification, red herring, cherry picking and slothful induction. We experimentally tested 30 misinformation examples, crossing five content categories with six fallacies. Participants rated the perceived veracity of misinformation as well as the likelihood of interacting with it. We found no main effect of fallacy on perceived veracity or likelihood to interact but did find a main effect of content category, with the fourth category (climate solutions won't work) perceived as most veracious. We also found that content categories interacted with political ideology, replicating past research into the polarizing effect of climate misinformation. Specifically, the most polarizing categories of misinformation were those targeting climate solutions or attacking climate scientists. Our results highlight the need to prioritize combatting misinformation that targets solutions and scientists

Climate change · Contrarian · Credibility · Deception · Denial · Misinformation · Motivated reasoning · Perception · Salience (neuroscience) · Climate Change Communication and Perception · Educational Strategies and Epistemologies · Misinformation and Its Impacts

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