Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Information Perception And Climate Change Adaptation, Ji Won Sung

Undergraduate Economic Review

Despite 97% of scientists believing that climate change is occurring, a far smaller proportion of ordinary citizens agree with this statement and the proportion of those who do greatly diverge by political affiliation. This paper lays out a dynamic information updating model with adaptation choice as the final outcome, linking information perception, belief perception, and behavioral implementation. Furthermore, this paper examines how various behavioral and environmental factors affect the agent’s adaptation choices by means of such cognitive processes. This research has implications for further research on climate change preference formation and effective communication strategies, such as informative or normative nudges.