Topic: Denial and Psychology

The American Denial of Global Warming. Naomi Oreskes, via youtube.

The Hoax of Climate Change Denial. Naomi Oreskes, via nakedcapitalism. Jun 17, 2015.

Unearthing America's Deep Network of Climate Change Deniers. Bloomberg. Nov 30, 2015.

New research for the first time has put a precise count on the people and groups working to dispute the scientific consensus on climate change. A loose network of 4,556 individuals with overlapping ties to 164 organizations do the most to dispute climate change in the U.S., according to a paper published today in Nature Climate Change. ExxonMobil and the family foundations controlled by Charles and David Koch emerge as the most significant sources of funding for these skeptics.

Understand faulty thinking to tackle climate change. George Marshall, New Scientist. Aug 13, 2014.

The amorphous nature of climate change creates the ideal conditions for human denial and cognitive bias to come to the fore

Daniel Kahneman is not hopeful. “I am very sorry,” he told me, “but I am deeply pessimistic. I really see no path to success on climate change.”

Kahneman won the 2002 Nobel prize in economics for his research on the psychological biases that distort rational decision- making. One of these is “loss aversion”, which means that people are far more sensitive to losses than gains. He regards climate change as a perfect trigger: a distant problem that requires sacrifices now to avoid uncertain losses far in the future. This combination is exceptionally hard for us to accept, he told me. 

Kahneman’s views are widely shared by cognitive psychologists. As Daniel Gilbert of Harvard University says: “A psychologist could barely dream up a better scenario for paralysis.

Your brain on climate change: why the threat produces apathy, not action. The Guardian. Nov 10, 2014.

With so much at stake, why do people fail to act? What’s happening inside their brains? Thanks to decades of collaboration between neuroscientists and psychologists – bolstered by the advent of imaging technologies, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging, which allows them to see exactly how the brain makes choices – we’re beginning to understand just why people behave so irrationally. 

Why Trump and Clinton Voters Won’t Switch: It’s in Their Brains. Natalie Jacewicz, Scientific American. May 3, 2016.
Neural images show it takes more than logic and facts to win a political argument

And to change opinions, candidates will have to contend with neurobiology. Scientists say there’s a tension in the brain between responding to new information and resisting overwhelming amounts of conflicting data—and the latter can prevent opinion change. Altering opinion depends on using different psychological methods tailored to different types of belief, according to research. “There’s not much convincing people,” even when the beliefs in question are purely false, says psychiatrist Philip Corlett of Yale University School of Medicine.

Antiscience Beliefs Jeopardize U.S. Democracy. Shawn Lawrence Otto, Scientific American. Nov 1, 2012.
The United States faced down authoritarian governments on the left and right. Now it may be facing an even greater challenge from within