Designing and Testing Effective Science Messaging
Drawing on insight from our audience analysis research as well as relevant social science theories, we develop and test messages designed to motivate people to engage with science issues. We study how these messages impact – or fail to impact - issue-related interest, emotion, beliefs, behavior, and policy support, among other outcomes.
Examples of current projects include:
- Studying how Americans respond to messages about the public health impacts of climate change and fossil fuels.
- Effectively communicating the scientific consensus on human-driven climate change as well as combatting climate misinformation.
* Denotes current Mason personnel
John Cook, Research Assistant Professor in Mason’s Center for Climate Change Communication, has spent the last few years quantifying and communicating the scientific consensus on human-caused climate change. Highlights of his research are provided below.
Cook, J.*, Oreskes, N., Doran, P.T., Anderegg, W.R., Verheggen, B., Maibach, E.W.* et al. (2016). Consensus on consensus: A synthesis of consensus estimates on human-caused global warming. Environmental Research Letters, 11(4), 048002.
Cook, J.*, van der Linden, S., Maibach, E.*, & Lewandowsky, S. (2018). The Consensus Handbook. Fairfax, VA: Center for Climate Change Communication.
The Consensus on Consensus Messaging – a compilation of existing cross-sectional survey and experiment-based studies that focus on conveying the scientific consensus on climate change to different audiences.