The link between climate change attitudes and subsequent misinformation endorsement: The moderating effect of individual differences

The Continued Influence Effect (CIE) describes the phenomenon whereby people continue to believe misinformation even after it has been corrected. Evidence suggests that discomfort explains the link between prior attitudes and the subsequent endorsement of attitude-relevant misinformation post-retraction (Susmann & Wegener, 2021). We tested the link between prior climate change denial attitudes, discomfort, and misinformation endorsement. We also examined the moderating effect of three theoretically relevant individual differences factors on the links between attitudes, discomfort, and endorsement. These were Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA), General Bullshit Receptivity (GBR), and Cognitive Reflection (CRT). Participants (N = 787) from the UK completed our study online. All participants completed a measure of climate change attitudes, then read a scenario in which climate change relevant misinformation was presented and then later corrected. Participants rated their discomfort after the misinformation was corrected, and their endorsement of the original misinformation. We found that attitudes reflective of climate change denial predicted stronger misinformation endorsement, an effect that was explained by increased discomfort post-correction. Further, both RWA and GBR moderated the strength of the association between climate change denial and discomfort. The implications of these findings for trait-consistent interventions to address inaction on climate change will be discussed.