Conversations on Climate
Season 1: Episode 3
Professor Sir. Andrew Likierman
“Too much information” on climate change triggers cognitive biases, claims Professor Sir Likierman.
The growing volume of scientific data may actually create challenges in building public consensus on climate change, according to Prof. Likierman, Professor of Management at London Business School. During his interview on the latest episode of Conversations on Climate, Professor Likierman questioned the ‘more is better’ approach to climate communication.
‘It’s very tough, if one doesn’t know about the scientific basis,’ to cope with the pace of data around such a ‘complicated, fraught issue,’ he said. ‘There’s a superfluity of information – so I guess what most people would do, understandably, is to go back to the question of: who do I trust?’
Likierman – whose own research analyses the subject of judgement in corporate decision-making – connected these problems of information and trust to a range of cognitive biases identified by academic psychologists, including:
- Confirmation bias: cherry-picking data or trusting intermediary authorities according to one’s existing beliefs
- Proximity bias: over-valuing our immediate surroundings when forming judgements, and under-valuing information from geographically distant locations
- Scepticism of ‘motivated information’ offered by emotionally-charged communicators
You can view Prof. Likierman's full interview as part of the Conversations on Climate podcast series below.
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