Motivated reasoning and climate change: Comparing news sources, politicization, intensification, and qualification in denier versus believer subreddit comments

Abstract

Motivated reasoning explains how climate change deniers can maintain their beliefs in the face of disconfirming evidence, suggesting that, compared to believers, the online comments of climate change deniers are more likely to (a) reference independent and social media websites advocating ideologically congruent positions, (b) politicize the issue, and (c) use intensifiers (e.g., definitely, undoubtedly). Automated text analysis of 156,844 comments from subreddit communities with opposing perspectives on climate change identified the internet domains associated with hyperlinks and the frequencies of political terms and intensifiers in user comments. Results were consistent with motivated reasoning by climate change deniers. In addition, climate change believers were more likely than deniers to use qualifiers in their comments.