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Age Differences in Biased Processing of Climate Change Evidence

Dr. Julia Nolte

Tilburg University

j.nolte@tilburguniversity.edu

julianolte.org

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Judgment and Decision Making

Aging changes how decision makers pass judgments and make choices, across a wide variety of topics (e.g., in health-related, financial, social, consumer, environment and other contexts). This interest group brings together scholars, clinicians and other stakeholders to provide research, education, mentoring, outreach and other opportunities centering on age-related differences relating to judgment and decision making. Contact: Julia Nolte, j.nolte@tilburguniversity.edu; Corinna Loeckenhoff, cel72@cornell.edu; Ryan Best, ryan.best@mail.wvu.edu

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Judgment and Decision Making

Aging changes how decision makers pass judgments and make choices, across a wide variety of topics (e.g., in health-related, financial, social, consumer, environment and other contexts). This interest group brings together scholars, clinicians and other stakeholders to provide research, education, mentoring, outreach and other opportunities centering on age-related differences relating to judgment and decision making. Contact: Julia Nolte, j.nolte@tilburguniversity.edu; Corinna Loeckenhoff, cel72@cornell.edu; Ryan Best, ryan.best@mail.wvu.edu

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Older Adults

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Older Adults

Pillemer et al. (2021; 2022); also see Pillemer et al. (exp. 2026)

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Older Adults

Pillemer et al. (2021; 2022); also see Pillemer et al. (exp. 2026)

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Older Adults

pro-environmental views

Pillemer et al. (2021; 2022); also see Pillemer et al. (exp. 2026)

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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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N₁ = 206 & N₂ = 487

Economy

Environment

(Nolte, Shavit & Ng, in prep.)

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N₁ = 206 & N₂ = 487

Economy

Environment

(Nolte, Shavit & Ng, in prep.)

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, in prep.)

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Anti- vs. Pro-Environmental Arguments

Economy

Environment

(Nolte, Shavit & Ng, in prep.)

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Economy

Environment

(Nolte, Shavit & Ng, in prep.)

N₁ = 206 & N₂ = 487

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Search

Persuasion

Choice

Bias

corrected α = .017

(Nolte, Shavit & Ng, in prep.)

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Search

Persuasion

Choice

Bias

corrected α = .017

(Nolte, Shavit & Ng, in prep.)

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

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

Is this finding

specific

to climate

change?

What

mechanisms

explain this

tendency?

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Is older adults’ confirmation bias specific

to climate change?

(N = 348, Nolte, in prep.)

suspect

victim

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Is older adults’ confirmation bias specific

to climate change?

(N = 348, Nolte, in prep.)

suspect

victim

“The suspect makes a remark about Catherine and Anthony swiftly gives a witty reply.”

“Soon after that, Anthony is attacked and abused. The police think that the suspect, after having said goodbye to Joseph and Simon, has followed Anthony and Catherine.”

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Is older adults’ confirmation bias specific

to climate change?

(N = 348, Nolte, in prep.)

suspect

victim

guilty

innocent

7

investigations

7

investigations

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Guilty- vs. Innocent-Leaning Investigations

Guilty

Innocent

How good is the relationship between the victim and his girlfriend?

Is it possible that Catherine ordered the beating up of Anthony for some reason?

Although the crime scene has been studied, investigators have not yet examined the victim’s (Anthony) and his girlfriend’s clothes and belongings for DNA traces of the suspect.

Such investigation could still be initiated.

(N = 348, Nolte, in prep.)

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N = 348

Search

Bias

(Nolte, in prep.)

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N = 348

Search

Bias

(Nolte, in prep.)

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

Is this finding specific to climate change?

No – not belief-/knowledge-based!

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

Is this finding specific to climate change?

No – not belief-/knowledge-based!

What mechanisms

explain this tendency?

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Covariates

Demographics

Life Goals

Subjective Health

Personality

Need for Closure

Background

(Nolte, Shavit & Ng, in prep.; Nolte, in prep.)

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Covariates

Demographics

Life Goals

Subjective Health

Personality

Need for Closure

Background

Socio-emotional

Subjective Emotional Health

Baseline Affect

Post-exposure Affect

Subjective Life Position

(Nolte, Shavit & Ng, in prep.; Nolte, in prep.)

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Covariates

Demographics

Life Goals

Subjective Health

Personality

Need for Closure

Background

Cognition

Working Memory

Subjective Cognition

Numeracy

Need for Cognition

Fuzzy-processing preference

Socio-emotional

Subjective Emotional Health

Baseline Affect

Post-exposure Affect

Subjective Life Position

(Nolte, Shavit & Ng, in prep.; Nolte, in prep.)

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Covariates

Demographics

Life Goals

Subjective Health

Personality

Need for Closure

Background

Cognition

Utility

Working Memory

Subjective Cognition

Numeracy

Need for Cognition

Fuzzy-processing preference

Climate Views

Attitude Certainty

Subjective Knowledge

Objective Knowledge

Socio-emotional

Subjective Emotional Health

Baseline Affect

Post-exposure Affect

Subjective Life Position

(Nolte, Shavit & Ng, in prep.; Nolte, in prep.)

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Covariates

Background

Cognition

Utility

Socio-emotional

Subjective Emotional Health

Baseline Affect

Subjective Life Position

(Nolte, Shavit & Ng, in prep.; Nolte, in prep.)

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Covariates

Background

Cognition

Utility

Socio-emotional

Subjective Emotional Health

Baseline Affect

Subjective Life Position

(Nolte, Shavit & Ng, in prep.; Nolte, in prep.)

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What mechanisms explain this tendency?

(N = 51, Nolte, in prep.)

Economy

Environment

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What mechanisms explain this tendency?

(N = 51, Nolte, in prep.)

Economy

Environment

persuasiveness

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What mechanisms explain this tendency?

(N = 51, Nolte, in prep.)

Argument number

Argument strength

Bias

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What mechanisms explain this tendency?

(N = 51, Nolte, in prep.)

Argument number

Argument strength

Bias

Age

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What mechanisms explain this tendency?

(N = 51, Nolte, in prep.)

Argument number

Argument strength

Bias

Age

Strength of belief-consistent arguments

r_s= .32*

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

Is this finding specific to climate change?

No – not belief-/knowledge-based!

What mechanisms explain this tendency?

Affect + Argument strength

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Limitations & Next Steps

information: factual (no misinformation); voting context (not science)

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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Thank You!

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

Yochai Shavit

Stanford Center on Longevity

Wee Qin Ng

Nanyang Technological University

Corinna Loeckenhoff, Yi Lu, Tess Wild &

Healthy Aging Lab

(Cornell University)

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

45

29-7-20XX

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Search

Persuasion

Choice

corrected α = .017

(Nolte, Shavit & Ng, in prep.)

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Oriëntatie werknemer

47

29-7-20XX

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Search

Persuasion

Choice

Age

corrected α = .017

N = 206

N = 206 (Nolte, Shavit & Ng, in prep.)

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Search

Persuasion

Choice

Age

corrected α = .017

r_s = .16

p = .018

N = 206 (Nolte, Shavit & Ng, in prep.)

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Search

Persuasion

Choice

Age

corrected α = .017

r_s = .08

p = .229

r_s = .16

p = .018

N = 206 (Nolte, Shavit & Ng, in prep.)

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Age

corrected α = .017

r_s = .17

p = .016

Search

Persuasion

Choice

r_s = .16

p = .018

r_s = .08

p = .229

N = 206 (Nolte, Shavit & Ng, in prep.)

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Julia Nolte, Ph.D.�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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N = 206 (Nolte, Shavit & Ng, in prep.)

Search

Persuasion

Choice

Subjective Mental Health (+)

Subjective Knowledge (+)

Baseline Arousal (–)

Baseline Valence (–)

Post-exposure Arousal (–)

Agreeableness (–)

Learning Ability (+)

Objective Knowledge (+)

Income (+)

Physical Health (–)

Extraversion (–)

Agreeableness (–)

Index

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N = 206 (Nolte, Shavit & Ng, in prep.)

Search

Persuasion

Choice

Subjective Mental Health (+)

Subjective Knowledge (+)

Baseline Arousal (–)

Baseline Valence (–)

Post-exposure Arousal (–)

Agreeableness (–)

Learning Ability (+)

Objective Knowledge (+)

Income (+)

Physical Health (–)

Extraversion (–)

Agreeableness (–)

Index

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Search

Persuasion

Choice

Index

Bias

> 0

V = 14096

p < .001

-9 to +9

M = 2.47 (6.47)

corrected α = .017

> 0

V = 7684

p < .001

-4 to +4

M = 0.86 (2.41)

> 0

V = 13138

p < .001

-4.5 to +6

M = 0.84 (2.09)

(Nolte, Shavit & Ng, in prep.)

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Search

Persuasion

Choice

Index

Bias

> 0

V = 7684

p < .001

-4 to +4

M = 0.86 (2.41)

corrected α = .017

(Nolte, Shavit & Ng, in prep.)

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Search

Persuasion

Choice

Index

Bias

> 0

V = 13138

p < .001

-4.5 to +6

M = 0.84 (2.09)

corrected α = .017

> 0

V = 7684

p < .001

-4 to +4

M = 0.86 (2.41)

(Nolte, Shavit & Ng, in prep.)