Proximity (Mis)perception: Public Awareness of Nuclear, Refinery, and Fracking Sites.

Whether on grounds of perceived safety, aesthetics, or overall quality of life, residents may wish to be aware of nearby energy sites such as nuclear reactors, refineries, and fracking wells. Yet people are not always accurate in their impressions of proximity. Indeed, our data show that only 54% of Americans living within 25 miles of a nuclear site say they do, and even fewer fracking-proximal (30%) and refinery-proximal (24%) residents respond accurately.

Processing the papal encyclical through perceptual filters: Pope Francis, identity-protective cognition, and climate change concern.

Previous research suggests that when individuals encounter new information, they interpret it through perceptual 'filters' of prior beliefs, relevant social identities, and messenger credibility. In short, evaluations are not based solely on message accuracy, but also on the extent to which the message and messenger are amenable to the values of one's social groups. Here, we use the release of Pope Francis's 2015 encyclical as the context for a natural experiment to examine the role of prior values in climate change cognition.

The influence of weight-of-evidence strategies on audience perceptions of (un)certainty when media cover contested science.

Controversy in science news accounts attracts audiences and draws attention to important science issues. But sometimes covering multiple sides of a science issue does the audience a disservice. Counterbalancing a truth claim backed by strong scientific support with a poorly backed argument can unnecessarily heighten audience perceptions of uncertainty.