Updating beliefs about climate change is crucial for behavioral change. Metacognition—insight into the accuracy of one's beliefs—influences belief polarization. This study investigated the role of domain-general and domain-specific metacognition in updating climate change beliefs across varying levels of skepticism, considering textual and visuo-textual communication. Two large US samples (Study 1: n=364; Study 2: n=335) completed a perceptual decision-making task (assessing domain-general metacognition) and a belief-updating task (exposed to good/bad news about climate change). Results showed that climate change skepticism correlates with differences in domain-general and domain-specific metacognitive abilities. Lower domain-general metacognition decreased belief updating, especially with negative evidence. The study highlights the role of metacognitive failures in maintaining erroneous climate change beliefs.

Sophie De Beukelaer, Neza Vehar, Max Rollwage, Stephen M. Fleming, Manos Tsakiris