Conspiracist ideation as a predictor of climate-science rejection: an alternative analysis.

Reanalysis of the survey data sets of Lewandowsky, Oberauer, and Gignac (2013) and Lewandowsky, Gignac, and Oberauer (2013) indicates that the conclusions of those articles—that conspiracist ideation predicts skepticism regarding the reality of anthropogenic climate change—are not supported by the d...

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Main Authors: Dixon, R, Jones, J
Format: Journal article
Language:English
Published: SAGE Publications 2015
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author Dixon, R
Jones, J
author_facet Dixon, R
Jones, J
author_sort Dixon, R
collection OXFORD
description Reanalysis of the survey data sets of Lewandowsky, Oberauer, and Gignac (2013) and Lewandowsky, Gignac, and Oberauer (2013) indicates that the conclusions of those articles—that conspiracist ideation predicts skepticism regarding the reality of anthropogenic climate change—are not supported by the data. Nonlinear relationships were overlooked in both analyses, and this resulted in model misspecification. The authors used structural equation modeling (SEM) assuming linear relationships between the variables, and it is essential to test this assumption (Bentler and Chou, 1987, p. 86; Ullman, 2007, p. 683). In this Commentary, we show, using nonparametric local regression, that this assumption does not hold for the relationship between conspiracist ideation and views on climate science, the relationship that produced one of the central claims of both articles and the majority of the press interest (e.g., Corner, 2012; Pearlman, 2012).
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spelling oxford-uuid:d1c48215-a80e-42d8-9968-3750f8ea51362022-03-27T07:59:12ZConspiracist ideation as a predictor of climate-science rejection: an alternative analysis.Journal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:d1c48215-a80e-42d8-9968-3750f8ea5136EnglishSymplectic Elements at OxfordSAGE Publications2015Dixon, RJones, JReanalysis of the survey data sets of Lewandowsky, Oberauer, and Gignac (2013) and Lewandowsky, Gignac, and Oberauer (2013) indicates that the conclusions of those articles—that conspiracist ideation predicts skepticism regarding the reality of anthropogenic climate change—are not supported by the data. Nonlinear relationships were overlooked in both analyses, and this resulted in model misspecification. The authors used structural equation modeling (SEM) assuming linear relationships between the variables, and it is essential to test this assumption (Bentler and Chou, 1987, p. 86; Ullman, 2007, p. 683). In this Commentary, we show, using nonparametric local regression, that this assumption does not hold for the relationship between conspiracist ideation and views on climate science, the relationship that produced one of the central claims of both articles and the majority of the press interest (e.g., Corner, 2012; Pearlman, 2012).
spellingShingle Dixon, R
Jones, J
Conspiracist ideation as a predictor of climate-science rejection: an alternative analysis.
title Conspiracist ideation as a predictor of climate-science rejection: an alternative analysis.
title_full Conspiracist ideation as a predictor of climate-science rejection: an alternative analysis.
title_fullStr Conspiracist ideation as a predictor of climate-science rejection: an alternative analysis.
title_full_unstemmed Conspiracist ideation as a predictor of climate-science rejection: an alternative analysis.
title_short Conspiracist ideation as a predictor of climate-science rejection: an alternative analysis.
title_sort conspiracist ideation as a predictor of climate science rejection an alternative analysis
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