Abstract: "Give and Take: Can Dialogue Change Climate Attitudes?"
Climate change is one of the most serious challenges of the 21st century. We propose an experimental design that investigates the causal effects of interpersonal communication on attitudes towards climate change mitigation. Although prior literature suggests that such an intervention may be a promising vehicle for changing climate attitudes, this treatment is underexplored compared to messages from elites and the mass media.

Our study focuses on two forms of exchange that have been influential in changing attitudes in other issue domains: perspective taking (when an individual hears an alternative perspective from someone affected by the issue), and perspective giving (when a person expresses their views to a nonjudgmental listener). In contrast to previous research, which has examined these processes in isolation, we contend that it is the combination of perspective taking and perspective giving that has the greatest potential for invoking attitude change—particularly among people who are uncertain about climate change mitigation.

Short bio
Jennifer Jerit is professor in the Department of Government at Dartmouth University. She studies public opinion and political communication, focusing on features of media coverage that influence how people learn about the political world. Her research explores how information (from elected leaders, journalists, and other citizens) influences people’s attitudes as well as their knowledge about the political world. In addition to political knowledge, Jennifer Jerit studiesmisinformation and techniques for correcting this problem.

Several of her current projects examine best practices for the measurement of public opinion through survey and experimental methods. Jerit is Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Experimental Political Science and was a co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of Political Psychology (3rd ed.). Her research has been published in American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, Public Opinion Quarterly, Journal of Experimental Political Science, and other scholarly journals. She received her PhD from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 2002. Read more here: https://sites.dartmouth.edu/jerit/