“Psychology provides insight into why people doubt climate change” plus 1 more |
| Psychology provides insight into why people doubt climate change Posted: 19 Sep 2010 10:20 AM PDT Many people don't believe in global warming because everyday life may have trained them to doubt it, according to a new University of NSW study that brings together climate science and cognitive psychology. As the physical science underpinning human-induced climate change has grown more and more solid, more people have been growing sceptical of it, according to the paper The Psychology of Global Warming, published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. ''Simply presenting the facts and figures about global warming has failed to convince large portions of the general public, journalists and policy makers about the scale of the problem and the urgency of required action,'' the paper says. ''From a psychologist's perspective, this is not surprising.'' Two Sydney researchers, psychology lecturer Ben Newell and climate scientist Professor Andy Pitman, identified different classes of perfectly normal psychological phenomena that can tend to turn people into so-called climate ''deniers''. The first concerns ''sampling issues'' - the idea that people normally try to refer to real-life examples to draw conclusions and may be heavily influenced by recent media coverage. ''For example, if you read or hear opinions from climate change sceptics about 50 per cent of the time then this could lead to a bias in the perception of the balance of evidence in your mind - that is, that the science is only about 50 per cent certain,'' Dr Newell said. People are also heavily influenced by ''framing issues'' - dealing with how information is presented to them. The figure 0.2 means the same as 20 out of 100, but the latter proportion makes the information seem much more concrete. People construct mental models which they use to judge new information, and these models are usually built only on a few fragments of information, the study said. It used the analogy of most people's understanding of the link between cancer and smoking, which is not completely understood by most researchers yet widely accepted by the general public. ''By contrast, understanding how and why an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide leads to warming and how and what we do as individuals and communities affects the composition of the atmosphere is much harder,'' Dr Newell said. The authors drew on dozens of studies into people's reactions to news about climate change, some of which suggest that certain types of people are more likely to find the evidence for human-induced climate change less convincing than others.
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| Psychology: Parents should instill a love of reading Posted: 19 Sep 2010 04:52 AM PDT My wife and I recently returned from baby-sitting our three preschool-age grandchildren for three days. While we were there, we observed the numerous gadgets available to entertain them: television, video games, DVDs and battery-operated toys. Despite all the competition, we were able to entice them to accept our offers to read books with them, and this resulted in 5-year-old twins and a 3-year-old crawling enthusiastically into our laps for story time. We attributed their interest in books mainly to our children's decision to spend time reading to them. The following are methods that can help children establish an interest in reading: • Read aloud to your children. Stop to discuss interesting and important passages to stimulate their imagination and involvement in the story. Encourage them to sharpen their skills in visual imagery by closing their eyes and telling you how the characters feel, how a soft bunny's fur feels to the touch, and what a barking dog sounds like. • Serve as a good model. How much time do you spend reading as opposed to watching television, talking on the phone or sitting at your computer? • Start reading to children in infancy. Snuggle up at bedtime with a good story, or pick out a time after they awaken from a nap and read a story while they are fresh and alert. Don't read too long, and notice for signs of restlessness and diminishing interest. Parents can increase the children's attention span by gradually increasing the amount of time spent reading to them. • Be patient and willing to explain words they might not understand. Respect the children's personal preferences and allow them to choose the books they want to read. Give your children one of the most valuable gifts in life: the love of reading. Hap LeCrone, a Cox News Service columnist, is a clinical psychologist. Write him at 4555 Lake Shore Dr., Waco, TX 76710; or send e-mail. hlecrone@aol.com This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
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