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Older Adults are More Biased when Engaging with Climate-Related Arguments

Dr. Julia Nolte

Tilburg University

Dr. Yochai Shavit

Stanford Center on Longevity

Dr. Wee Qin Ng

Singapore Management University

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No (potential) conflict

of interests

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OLDER ADULTS

pro-environmental views

I chose the topic of climate change not only because it presents such a current and big societal problem but also because people tend to have strong views about it, which makes it ideal for studying confirmation bias.

In the existing research as well as the sample I am presenting on today, older adults tend to express less positive views toward the environment, and I was wondering whether this is the case because they do not fully engage with climate evidence.

We know that older adults search for less information before making choices, tend to have more knowledge and shorter time horizons, which makes new information less useful for them, tend to struggle to overrule existing knowledge with new information, and show more active information avoidance when the information is uncomfortable to engage with. Hence, I hypothesize that older adults may show higher levels of confirmation bias as well.

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OLDER ADULTS

pro-environmental views

information search

utility derived from new information

ability to integrate new information

information avoidance

Deng et al. (2022), Hertwig et al. (2021), Mata & Nunes (2010), Nolte et al. (2021), Okun & Rice (2001), Rice & Okun (1994), Special Eurobarometer 459 (2017)

I chose the topic of climate change not only because it presents such a current and big societal problem but also because people tend to have strong views about it, which makes it ideal for studying confirmation bias.

In the existing research as well as the sample I am presenting on today, older adults tend to express less positive views toward the environment, and I was wondering whether this is the case because they do not fully engage with climate evidence.

We know that older adults search for less information before making choices, tend to have more knowledge and shorter time horizons, which makes new information less useful for them, tend to struggle to overrule existing knowledge with new information, and show more active information avoidance when the information is uncomfortable to engage with. Hence, I hypothesize that older adults may show higher levels of confirmation bias as well.

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Confirmation Bias

Search

Persuasion

Choice

Do older adults exhibit more confirmation bias in climate contexts?�

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N = 482 (M = 52.80 years, 46% women)

Economy

Environment

(Nolte, Shavit & Ng, under review)

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Economy

Environment

(Nolte, Shavit & Ng, under review)

N = 482 (M = 52.80 years, 46% women)

In a next step, we told participants that there was a state election and they could vote for one of six fictious US candidates on the basis of abbreviated social media posts each candidate made. Participants saw two blocks of six posts, from three pro-economy candidates and three pro-environment candidates, and could choose which 2 posts within each block they wanted to read in more detail before casting their vote. Importantly, regardless of the candidate’s stance on climate change, all posts were based on factually true information about our environment.

For example:

CON: There are too many protected nature areas in our state. We can use them as a simple solution to the real problems of food security and healthy produce to provide people with more locally grown fresh fruits and vegetables. More investment in agriculture is the most obvious answer to hunger while fighting unemployment. Natural spaces could also tackle our growing populations’ housing shortages! A true win-win!

PRO: The scale and rate of human manipulation of nature is unprecedented. The ways in which we have changed our natural environment in the past 200 years are unlike anything in human history.

Why are people willingly turning a blind eye to the damage we are causing to our planet? Deforestation and river re-routing are unsustaim

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Anti- vs. Pro-Environmental Arguments

Economy

(Nolte, Shavit & Ng, under review)

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Anti- vs. Pro-Environmental Arguments

Economy

Environment

(Nolte, Shavit & Ng, under review)

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Economy

Environment

(Nolte, Shavit & Ng, under review)

N = 482

1–7 scale

“How convincing?”

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Covariates

Demographics

Political Orientation

Life Goals

Personality

(Nolte, Shavit & Ng, under review)

Background

Cognition

Utility

Working Memory

Subjective Cognition

Numeracy

Need for

Closure

Climate Views

Subjective Knowledge

Objective Knowledge

Attitude Certainty

Affect & Well-being

Baseline Affect

Post-exposure Affect

Time Savoring

Subjective

Well-being

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Search

Persuasion

Choice

Index

Bias

corrected α = .017

(Nolte, Shavit & Ng, under review)

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Search

Persuasion

Choice

Index

Bias

> 0

V = 35,990

p < .001

-4 to +4

M = 0.67 (2.39)

corrected α = .017

(Nolte, Shavit & Ng, under review)

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Search

Persuasion

Choice

Index

Bias

> 0

V = 44,658

p < .001

-4.5 to +6

M = 0.61 (1.86)

corrected α = .017

(Nolte, Shavit & Ng, under review)

> 0

V = 35,990

p < .001

-4 to +4

M = 0.67 (2.39)

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Search

Persuasion

Choice

Index

Bias

> 0

V 61,288

p = .004

-9 to +9

M = 0.83 (6.78)

corrected α = .017

(Nolte, Shavit & Ng, under review)

> 0

V = 44,658

p < .001

-4.5 to +6

M = 0.61 (1.86)

> 0

V = 35,990

p < .001

-4 to +4

M = 0.67 (2.39)

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Search

Persuasion

Choice

corrected α = .017

r_s = .55

p < .001

r_s = .33

p < .001

r_s = .32

p < .001

(Nolte, Shavit & Ng, under review)

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Search

corrected α = .017

(Nolte, Shavit & Ng, under review)

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Search

Persuasion

corrected α = .017

(Nolte, Shavit & Ng, under review)

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Search

Choice

corrected α = .017

(Nolte, Shavit & Ng, under review)

Persuasion

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Covariates

(Nolte, Shavit & Ng, under review)

Background

Cognition

Utility

Affect & Well-being

Baseline Activation

Post-exposure Activation

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Limitations & Next Steps

replicates: N = 206

information: factual (no misinformation)

context: voting (not science) 🡪 incentive to look for a match?

motivation: ‘feeling good’ vs. ‘being right’

“climate change is real”

bad news =

negative affect

being right =

positive affect

To conclude this talk, it’s important to note that this was a small sample and that we are working to replicate our findings with more participants. The findings might be exclusive to the topic of climate change, and we don’t know if the same patterns would hold for other divisve topics or when using fabricated information. In addition, the fact that we assessed all three measures at once does make them interdependent and could overstate links between task types.

However, I am quite happy to demonstrate confirmation bias in climate and voting contexts, where surprisingly, confirmation bias has rarely been looked at to date. We successfully created three measures that can quantify individual variation in confirmation bias and to show first evidence of age differences.

Thank you for your time, thanks to my co-authors, and thanks to Tilburg seed funding to make this study possible.

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Belief-free Confirmation Bias (N = 348)

Post-decisional Information

Search

Bias

(Nolte, in prep.)

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Thank You!

Funding: DCC Grant (Department of Communication and Cognition at Tilburg University)

Yochai Shavit

Stanford Center on Longevity

Wee Qin Ng

Singapore Management University

j.nolte@tilburguniversity.edu

julianolte.org

To conclude this talk, it’s important to note that this was a small sample and that we are working to replicate our findings with more participants. The findings might be exclusive to the topic of climate change, and we don’t know if the same patterns would hold for other divisve topics or when using fabricated information. In addition, the fact that we assessed all three measures at once does make them interdependent and could overstate links between task types.

However, I am quite happy to demonstrate confirmation bias in climate and voting contexts, where surprisingly, confirmation bias has rarely been looked at to date. We successfully created three measures that can quantify individual variation in confirmation bias and to show first evidence of age differences.

Thank you for your time, thanks to my co-authors, and thanks to Tilburg seed funding to make this study possible.

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Oriëntatie werknemer

24

29-7-20XX

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2 x Free Aging Events @ Tilburg University!

Workshop on Decision Making Across the Lifespan

Monday, Oct 12 & Tuesday, Oct 13

Dr. Josh Weller (Leeds Business School)

Dr. Pär Bjälkebring (University of Gothenburg)

agingdecisions@tilburguniversity.edu

Aging Network Tilburg University (ANTU) Symposium

Wednesday, Oct 13

Dr. Gizem Hülür (University of Bamberg)

ANTU@tilburguniversity.edu

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Special Interest Group�Judgment & Decision Making

GSA Meeting