Public agreement with misinformation about wind farms

The study investigates how widespread agreement with misinformation about wind farms is within the general public and what psychological factors predict such agreement. Against the backdrop of nations needing to expand wind energy to meet net-zero targets, public resistance could impede deployment, making community support crucial. The authors distinguish legitimate local concerns (e.g., visual impact, real estate prices) from broader scientific misinformation, defined as misleading public claims contrary to scientific consensus. They examine diverse contrarian claims (e.g., conspiracies by decision-makers, health harms, inefficacy, environmental harms) and situate the issue within a broader history of organized misinformation around science. Drawing parallels with vaccination misinformation, they note that anti-science beliefs can be amplified by elites and social media and linked to conspiracist worldviews. The research aims to quantify prevalence, test whether agreement reflects a monological belief system (high correlations across disparate claims), and compare the predictive power of worldviews (conspiracy mentality, ecological worldview, political orientation, environmental identity) versus epistemological variables (education, science knowledge).

Prior work documents organized misinformation around scientific issues (e.g., tobacco, climate change) and recent shifts by conservative think tanks toward undermining climate-friendly policies and renewables. Anti-wind lobby groups and political leaders have amplified unsupported claims (e.g., wind turbines cause cancer), and social media discourse has magnified perceptions of health and safety risks. German surveys showed conspiracy mentality as a strong predictor of opposition to wind farms, surpassing political ideology and education. While educational and debunking strategies can sometimes reduce anti-science beliefs, resistance often aligns more with values and worldviews than with knowledge deficits. High correlations among unrelated contrarian beliefs (a monological pattern) suggest belief systems tied by worldview rather than logic. The New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) relates to pro-environmental behavior and may reduce contrarianism; right-wing orientation often correlates with climate skepticism (especially in the US and Australia); conspiracy mentality predicts broader science rejection.

Two preregistered cross-national survey studies were conducted with nationally quota-based samples (age, gender, education) in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia, recruited via Cint online panels. Ethical approval: Leibniz-Institut für Wissensmedien IRB (LEK 2019/001). Analyses used IBM SPSS v29. Data and code are available via PsychArchives. Pilot: Contrarian claims were sourced from media, literature, experts, anti-wind groups, and an open-ended German survey (N=109), then pretested in Germany (N=501), showing high agreement and intercorrelations. Study 1 (September 2023): N=3000 (1000 per country) after exclusions for failed attention checks and duplicate participation. Participants rated 16 contrarian wind-farm claims on a 1–5 Likert scale. Agreement was defined as responses 4 or 5. Predictors: conspiracy mentality, political orientation, NEP, environmental self-identity, education (categorical), science knowledge (9-item true/false quiz). Gender coded −1 male, +1 female. Analytic plan included exploratory factor analysis (EFA) of claims and multiple regression predicting the contrarian-claims index, with preregistration (https://aspredicted.org/cs97x.pdf). Additional regressions assessed variance explained by each predictor beyond a baseline (age, gender). Study 2 (March 2024): N=3008 (US: 1000; UK: 1004; AU: 1004), similar quotas and exclusions. Materials refined: 13 contrarian claims that were strictly false/implausible (fact-checked) and 4 true (positive) claims; removed double-barrelled items. Added outcomes: intention to engage in collective action against wind farms and policy support for wind energy. Predictors: conspiracy mentality, NEP, political orientation, education, science knowledge (environmental identity dropped due to weak predictive value in Study 1). Conducted confirmatory factor analysis (varimax) to distinguish contrarian vs true claims, computed reliability, and ran multiple regressions predicting agreement with contrarian claims (and exploratory regressions for true-claims agreement). Additional analyses examined the predictive power of agreement with contrarian and true claims for collective action intentions and policy support. Preregistration: https://aspredicted.org/iy37h.pdf.

Prevalence and structure:

• Study 1 (N=3000): Agreement with individual contrarian claims ranged approx. 16.6%–47.4% across countries. About 76%–80% agreed with at least one claim; about 24.5%–29.4% agreed with half or more; ~4.1%–5.4% agreed with all. EFA indicated a single factor (eigenvalue >1) explaining >50% variance (US 52.79%, UK 54.09%, AU 53.17%), with high reliability (α=0.94; ωhierarchical ≈0.84–0.87), consistent with a monological belief system.
• Study 2 (N=3008): Agreement with contrarian claims ranged roughly 14.7%–45.7%; 71.5%–78.4% agreed with at least one; 17.6%–31.4% agreed with half or more; 2.8%–10.5% agreed with all. Confirmatory factor analysis supported two factors (contrarian vs true) with explained variance ~39%–45% and ~11%–13% respectively; contrarian index reliability α=0.92–0.94 (ωhierarchical=0.84–0.91). Agreement with true claims had lower internal consistency (α=0.59–0.69). Predictors (multiple regression, standardized βs):
• Study 1: Conspiracy mentality was the strongest positive predictor (β=0.33–0.40); NEP negatively predicted agreement (β=−0.18 to −0.27); lower science knowledge predicted higher agreement (β=−0.08 to −0.12). Smaller, less consistent effects for age (younger higher agreement), gender (women higher), political orientation (more right-wing higher in US and AU), and education (positive in UK only). Incremental variance beyond age+gender: conspiracy mentality ΔR^2≈11.3%–17.8%; NEP ΔR^2≈4%–8%.
• Study 2: Replicated pattern. Conspiracy mentality strongest (β=0.36–0.41); NEP negative (β=−0.20 to −0.31); lower science knowledge associated with higher agreement (β=−0.09 to −0.15). Age (younger) and gender (women) predicted higher agreement in all countries; education and political orientation effects were smaller/inconsistent. When predicting agreement with true claims, epistemological variables were relatively stronger: higher education (β≈0.07–0.16) and lower science knowledge (β≈−0.10 to −0.15) predicted agreement with true claims. Outcomes (Study 2):
• Collective action intention against wind farms was strongly predicted by higher agreement with contrarian claims (β≈0.69–0.75) and weakly by lower agreement with true claims (β≈−0.08 to −0.17).
• Policy support for wind energy was more strongly predicted by higher agreement with true claims (β≈0.50–0.67) and also by lower agreement with contrarian claims (β≈−0.32 to −0.42). All effects noted were statistically significant as reported. Overall prevalence summary: Averaged across samples, 27.7% (US), 21.1% (UK), and 30.4% (AU) agreed with half or more contrarian claims; some specific misinformation (e.g., secret arrangements, CO2 claims) had >30%–40% endorsement.

Findings show that agreement with misinformation about wind farms is widespread and organized around a coherent, monological belief system: endorsement of one contrarian claim predicts endorsement of others regardless of content. This structure and the predictive dominance of worldviews—especially conspiracy mentality and, inversely, a pro-ecological worldview (NEP)—indicate that contrarianism is not primarily due to knowledge or education deficits. Lower science knowledge had a small, consistent association but explained far less variance than worldviews. The affect heuristic alone is insufficient to explain results, as agreement with contrarian and true claims was not strongly negatively correlated. Importantly, agreement with contrarian claims relates to real-world consequences: higher intentions to protest and lower support for pro-wind policies. These outcomes highlight risks to scaling wind energy required for decarbonization, where even a vocal minority can impede local approvals and broader policy momentum. The results parallel patterns in vaccine misinformation, suggesting that addressing underlying values and conspiracy worldviews may be necessary alongside information provision.

This work provides large-scale, cross-national evidence that misinformation about wind farms has mainstream traction, that endorsements of diverse contrarian claims form a unified belief system, and that conspiracist and ecological worldviews are the principal predictors of agreement—far outweighing epistemological factors. The studies highlight the challenge for science communication: purely informational or debunking approaches may be insufficient unless they also address underlying worldviews and identity-based motivations. Future research should (1) extend beyond Western, industrialized nations to assess global generalizability; (2) examine misinformation surrounding other green innovations (e.g., electric vehicles, heat pumps, urban mobility measures); and (3) develop and rigorously test interventions that either inoculate against or reduce the influence of conspiracist worldviews and align climate action with diverse ideological values.

Samples, while quota-based on age, gender, and education, may underrepresent minority ethnic and religious groups and were not quota-balanced for income, region, or employment. Online panel recruitment may exclude individuals not registered or less digitally engaged. The studies were restricted to Western, industrialized democracies (US, UK, Australia), limiting generalizability to other cultural contexts. Educational attainment showed inconsistent associations, and science knowledge was measured with a brief quiz capturing only one facet of science literacy. All contrarian statements were false and all pro-wind statements were true in Study 2, which may leave some ambiguity in factor interpretation despite evidence against response bias.