IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v12y2020i9p3782-d354649.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

How Is Climate Change Knowledge Distributed among the Population in Singapore? A Demographic Analysis of Actual Knowledge and Illusory Knowledge

Author

Listed:
  • Xiaodong Yang

    (School of Journalism and Communication, Shandong University, Jinan 250100, China)

  • Lai Wei

    (School of Journalism and Communication, Shandong University, Jinan 250100, China)

  • Qi Su

    (School of Journalism and Communication, Shandong University, Jinan 250100, China)

Abstract

Due to the crucial role of knowledge in promoting public engagement with climate change, this study made an in-depths examination of the distribution of climate change knowledge among different demographic groups. Guided by information deficit model and cognitive miser model, two types of knowledge were investigated, including actual knowledge and illusory knowledge. Using a nationally representative survey in Singapore, this study found demographic effects in climate change knowledge distribution. Specifically, a series of independent sample t -test revealed that the males had more actual knowledge of climate change than the females. The middle aged and elderly adults had less actual knowledge but more illusory knowledge of climate change than the young adults. Compare to the more educated people, the less educated people had more illusory knowledge but less actual knowledge of climate change. People from low-income households reported lower levels of actual knowledge but higher levels of illusory knowledge than those from high-income households. Regarding these significant differences in climate change knowledge among different demographic groups, possible reasons for these variations and implications for designing public education programs are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Xiaodong Yang & Lai Wei & Qi Su, 2020. "How Is Climate Change Knowledge Distributed among the Population in Singapore? A Demographic Analysis of Actual Knowledge and Illusory Knowledge," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(9), pages 1-13, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:9:p:3782-:d:354649
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/9/3782/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/9/3782/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Eroglu, Cuneyt & Croxton, Keely L., 2010. "Biases in judgmental adjustments of statistical forecasts: The role of individual differences," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 116-133, January.
    2. Tversky, Amos & Kahneman, Daniel, 1992. "Advances in Prospect Theory: Cumulative Representation of Uncertainty," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 5(4), pages 297-323, October.
    3. P. Sol Hart & Erik C. Nisbet & Teresa A. Myers, 2015. "Public attention to science and political news and support for climate change mitigation," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 5(6), pages 541-545, June.
    4. Mina Daraei & Artmiz Mohajery, 2013. "The Impact of Socioeconomic Status on Life Satisfaction," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 112(1), pages 69-81, May.
    5. Brucks, Merrie, 1985. "The Effects of Product Class Knowledge on Information Search Behavior," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 12(1), pages 1-16, June.
    6. Pothitou, Mary & Hanna, Richard F. & Chalvatzis, Konstantinos J., 2016. "Environmental knowledge, pro-environmental behaviour and energy savings in households: An empirical study," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 184(C), pages 1217-1229.
    7. Wen Shi & Changfeng Chen & Jie Xiong & Haohuan Fu, 2019. "What Framework Promotes Saliency of Climate Change Issues on Online Public Agenda: A Quantitative Study of Online Knowledge Community Quora," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(6), pages 1-24, March.
    8. Kate Levin & Torbjorn Torsheim & Wilma Vollebergh & Matthias Richter & Carolyn Davies & Christina Schnohr & Pernille Due & Candace Currie, 2011. "National Income and Income Inequality, Family Affluence and Life Satisfaction Among 13 year Old Boys and Girls: A Multilevel Study in 35 Countries," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 104(2), pages 179-194, November.
    9. Owens, Susan & Driffill, Louise, 2008. "How to change attitudes and behaviours in the context of energy," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(12), pages 4412-4418, December.
    10. Pete Ladwig & Kajsa E. Dalrymple & Dominique Brossard & Dietram A. Scheufele & Elizabeth A. Corley, 2012. "Perceived familiarity or factual knowledge? Comparing operationalizations of scientific understanding," Science and Public Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 39(6), pages 761-774, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Liat Ayalon & Natalie Ulitsa & Hanan AboJabel & Shelly Engdau, 2022. "Older Persons’ Perceptions concerning Climate Activism and Pro-Environmental Behaviors: Results from a Qualitative Study of Diverse Population Groups of Older Israelis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(24), pages 1-13, December.
    2. Fockaert, Lysander & Mathijs, Erik & Vranken, Liesbet, 2021. "Local Support for Agri-Environmental Measures and the Role of Knowledge and Environmental Attitudes," 2021 Conference, August 17-31, 2021, Virtual 315153, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    3. Carlos Durán Gabela & Bernardo Trejos & Pablo Lamiño Jaramillo & Amy Boren-Alpízar, 2022. "Sustainable Agriculture: Relationship between Knowledge and Attitude among University Students," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(23), pages 1-11, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Wang, Yacan & Hazen, Benjamin T., 2016. "Consumer product knowledge and intention to purchase remanufactured products," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 181(PB), pages 460-469.
    2. Berger, Paul D & Smith, Gerald E, 1998. "The Impact of Prospect Theory Based Framing Tactics on Advertising Effectiveness," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 26(5), pages 593-609, October.
    3. Heribert Gierl & Hans Höser, 2002. "Der Reihenfolgeeffekt auf Präferenzen," Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, Springer, vol. 54(1), pages 3-18, February.
    4. Pengya Ai & Wu Li & Wuyue Yang, 2021. "Adolescents’ Social Media Use and Their Voluntary Garbage Sorting Intention: A Sequential Mediation Model," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(15), pages 1-12, July.
    5. Petropoulos, Fotios & Fildes, Robert & Goodwin, Paul, 2016. "Do ‘big losses’ in judgmental adjustments to statistical forecasts affect experts’ behaviour?," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 249(3), pages 842-852.
    6. Inwon Kang & Deokhee Cheon & Matthew Shin, 2011. "Advertising strategy for outbound travel services," Service Business, Springer;Pan-Pacific Business Association, vol. 5(4), pages 361-380, December.
    7. Oliver Linton & Esfandiar Maasoumi & Yoon-Jae Wang, 2002. "Consistent testing for stochastic dominance: a subsampling approach," CeMMAP working papers 03/02, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    8. van den Bergh, J.C.J.M. & Botzen, W.J.W., 2015. "Monetary valuation of the social cost of CO2 emissions: A critical survey," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 33-46.
    9. Rahman, Abul & Khanam, Tahamina & Pelkonen, Paavo, 2017. "People’s knowledge, perceptions, and attitudes towards stump harvesting for bioenergy production in Finland," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 107-116.
    10. Heiko Karle & Georg Kirchsteiger & Martin Peitz, 2015. "Loss Aversion and Consumption Choice: Theory and Experimental Evidence," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 7(2), pages 101-120, May.
    11. Shoji, Isao & Kanehiro, Sumei, 2016. "Disposition effect as a behavioral trading activity elicited by investors' different risk preferences," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 104-112.
    12. Muhammad Kashif & Thomas Leirvik, 2022. "The MAX Effect in an Oil Exporting Country: The Case of Norway," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 15(4), pages 1-16, March.
    13. Jonathan Meng & Feng Fu, 2020. "Understanding Gambling Behavior and Risk Attitudes Using Cryptocurrency-based Casino Blockchain Data," Papers 2008.05653, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2020.
    14. Daniel Fonseca Costa & Francisval Carvalho & Bruno César Moreira & José Willer Prado, 2017. "Bibliometric analysis on the association between behavioral finance and decision making with cognitive biases such as overconfidence, anchoring effect and confirmation bias," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 111(3), pages 1775-1799, June.
    15. Robert Gazzale & Julian Jamison & Alexander Karlan & Dean Karlan, 2013. "Ambiguous Solicitation: Ambiguous Prescription," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 51(1), pages 1002-1011, January.
    16. Boone, Jan & Sadrieh, Abdolkarim & van Ours, Jan C., 2009. "Experiments on unemployment benefit sanctions and job search behavior," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(8), pages 937-951, November.
    17. Castro, Luciano de & Galvao, Antonio F. & Kim, Jeong Yeol & Montes-Rojas, Gabriel & Olmo, Jose, 2022. "Experiments on portfolio selection: A comparison between quantile preferences and expected utility decision models," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    18. Maw–Der Foo & Marilyn A. Uy & Charles Murnieks, 2015. "Beyond Affective Valence: Untangling Valence and Activation Influences on Opportunity Identification," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 39(2), pages 407-431, March.
    19. Jos'e Cl'audio do Nascimento, 2019. "Behavioral Biases and Nonadditive Dynamics in Risk Taking: An Experimental Investigation," Papers 1908.01709, arXiv.org, revised Apr 2023.
    20. Baecke, Philippe & De Baets, Shari & Vanderheyden, Karlien, 2017. "Investigating the added value of integrating human judgement into statistical demand forecasting systems," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 191(C), pages 85-96.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:9:p:3782-:d:354649. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.