Think Again

going to do anything about it, why should I bother? When they become
aware of just how many people are concerned about climate change, they’re
more prepared to do something about it.

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As consumers of information, we have a role to play in embracing a
more nuanced point of view. When we’re reading, listening, or watching,
we can learn to recognize complexity as a signal of credibility. We can
favor content and sources that present many sides of an issue rather than
just one or two. When we come across simplifying headlines, we can fight
our tendency to accept binaries by asking what additional perspectives are
missing between the extremes.
This applies when we’re the ones producing and communicating
information, too. New research suggests that when journalists acknowledge
the uncertainties around facts on complex issues like climate change and
immigration, it doesn’t undermine their readers’ trust. And multiple
experiments have shown that when experts express doubt, they become
more persuasive. When someone knowledgeable admits uncertainty, it
surprises people, and they end up paying more attention to the substance of
the argument.
Of course, a potential challenge of nuance is that it doesn’t seem to go
viral. Attention spans are short: we have only a few seconds to capture
eyeballs with a catchy headline. It’s true that complexity doesn’t always

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make for good sound bites, but it does seed great conversations. And some
journalists have found clever ways to capture it in few words.
A few years ago, the media reported on a study of the cognitive
consequences of coffee consumption. Although their headlines were drawn
from the same data, some newspapers praised the benefits of coffee, while
other outlets warned about the costs:
The actual study showed that older adults who drank a daily cup or two
of coffee had a lower risk of mild cognitive impairment, relative to
abstainers, occasional consumers, and heavier consumers. If they increased
their consumption by another cup or more per day, they had a higher risk
than those who stayed at or below a single cup a day. Each of the one-sided
headlines took seven to twelve words to mislead the reader about the effects
of drinking coffee. A more accurate headline needed just twelve words to
serve up a jolt of instant complexity:
Imagine if even this kind of minimal nod to complexity appeared in
articles on climate change. Scientists overwhelmingly agree about its
human causes, but even they have a range of views on the actual effects—
and the potential remedies. It’s possible to be alarmed about the situation
while recognizing the variety of ways to improve it.
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Psychologists find that people will ignore or even deny the existence of
a problem if they’re not fond of the solution. Liberals were more dismissive
of the issue of intruder violence when they read an argument that strict gun
control laws could make it difficult for homeowners to protect themselves.
Conservatives were more receptive to climate science when they read about
a green technology policy proposal than about an emissions restriction
proposal.

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Featuring shades of gray in discussions of solutions can help to shift
attention from why climate change is a problem to how we can do
something about it. As we’ve seen from the evidence on the illusion of
explanatory depth, asking “how” tends to reduce polarization, setting the
stage for more constructive conversations about action. Here are examples
of headlines in which writers have hinted at the complexity of the solutions: