Causal knowledge promotes behavioral self-regulation: An example using climate change dynamics

Abstract

Adopting successful climate change mitigation policies requires the public to choose how to balance the sometimes competing goals of managing CO2 emissions and achieving economic growth. It follows that collective action on climate change depends on members of the public to be knowledgeable of the causes and economic ramifications of climate change. The existing literature, however, shows that people often struggle to correctly reason about the fundamental accumulation dynamics that drive climate change. Previous research has focused on using analogy to improve people’s reasoning about accumulation, which has been met with some success. However, these existing studies have neglected the role..