Study: “Women exhibit more scientifically accurate climate change knowledge than do men” — even though men think they know more
I suspect the results of “The effects of gender on climate change knowledge and concern in the American public” will come as no surprise to at least half of my readers. Or perhaps it will, since the Population and Environment study finds that:
While women exhibit greater assessed climate change knowledge than do men, men report greater perceived understanding than do women….
Yet, women nevertheless underestimate their climate change knowledge more than do men.
Don’t you just love sociological studies?
Anyway, if you want a sociological explanation for this from the author, Aaron M. McCright, he offers a bunch here. I’m not quite certain that the relatively small disparities are large enough to warrant a great deal of opining on the causes. But then, that’s what comments are for….
Related Post:
Previous in TP Climate Progress
Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
Smarter than the men in every way!
http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=women+are+smarter+grateful+dead&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
Moving beyond gender differences for a second, any word yet on the intelligence of our species?
Because if we go extinct, and the jellyfish and ants survive, do we automatically lose the contest? Because we may be ahead right now, but if we are decimated, then how can we declare ourselves smart?
maybe so…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/13/AR2010091306555.html
Harry Belafonte knew it all along.
Richard, I don’t know if you’re being serious but you are conflating intelligence with survivability. By any reasonable metric it is obvious that humans are more intelligent than ants or jellyfish. It could very well be (seems more likely by the day) that intelligence doesn’t benefit survival in the long run.
Penn, one good definition of intelligence is survival.
Humans’ problem is that pschopathology is embedded in our genes, because it had survival value during bottlenecks such as 70,000 years ago, or when agricultural productivity gains created population explosions. Revered generals like Lee, Napoleon, and Haig were acting out this quality. Recent manifestations of this pathology are the Kochs and Rockefellers. Disequilibrium either way provides fertile ground.
Women don’t exhibit this bad wiring nearly as much, though it’s not unknown (see Ann Coulter and Sarah Palin).
#5 Penn. Yes, I am being childishly provocative.
Can we say that the saber-tooth tiger, the woolly mammoth and the dodo bird were smart? Maybe they were brilliant and just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Certainly possible.
But homo sapiens have declared ourselves to be knowledgeable tool makers – with lots of complex problem-solving skills. Are we now failing in our own definition? We seem to be not very perceptive, seem to have made the wrong tools and over used them, we continue to make our problem worse and we are not doing much to solve the situation. I know some cats and dogs that act smarter than that.
If our species is supposed to be the smart, adaptable problem-solver beings as opposed to a “dumb” species that fits into a narrow eco-niche — then how do we measure our success? By our art and music? Video games and cell phones? To whom do we showcase that definition intelligence?
Otherwise, how would you say that we are different from other species who seem to survive for millions of years?
One way to demonstrate the brilliance of our DNA is by surviving. Or we could just change our DNA and start a new path.
Not surprising. Women are also more likely to be politically liberal.
The perceived understanding of global warming statistics are mainly a reflection of the Dunning-Kruger effect. The less you know about a subject, the more you overestimate your understanding.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning-Kruger_effect
Too bad women can be so influenced by religion (and men) – if they were more skeptical, they would see birth control in the correct light, as a means to reduce our planetary impact. Instead, they allow the old patriarchial men of religion tell them what to do, planet be damned.
I try not to make generalizations based on flimsy evidence, like this study, but women are no less intelligent than men and this study indicates they may have an edge in understanding global climate disruption.
That said, we also know of many women who are proud to be completely ignorant of the danger greenhouse gasses pose to our climate and the survivability of our species.
The study does cut off at 2008.
I think females are generally more intuitive than men. I know climate change is real; I’ve been concerned about it for many, many years. However, it has more to do with my intuition than reason.
another sociological study that is of interest about how people interact with “scientific consensus.”
http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=117697&WT.mc_id=USNSF_51&WT.mc_ev=click
I guess we can wonder how much of the result is due to men (or at least American men) being less informed, or more detached on average, or more prone to selfishness and the convenient beliefs that support it. Etc. But the more interesting question is whether the difference is great enough to translate to much difference in action. Apparently, we don’t yet have enough men OR women willing to exert media and political pressure along those lines. And maybe it’s not the best indicator, but women in my area seem just as likely to drive gas guzzlers. So possibly a slight disconnect there.
Women’s perceived lack of participation in the climate change discussion may be due to the inherent prejudices embedded in our culture — as soon as they raise their voices, they are called strident, aggressive, shrill, bitchy, hysterical and worse.
These words perfectly describe the activities of many deniers like Mark Morano, but who says these things about him?
I will say that I have seen a strong tendency for men to get bogged down in endless discussions about numbers and equations on this blog and others, when a woman would be more likely to say, “Stop wasting time, get to the point and solve the damned problem.”
We have a couple of things that might be going on here. If I understand the changes of recent decades, women are not more highly educated than men (at least at the intermediate levels, say undergrad degree). Also men are more likely to buy into the American self-reliant ideal, as opposed to being part of a larger social group, with the attendant responsibilities, as well as rights. This later might explain the fact that women on average are more liberal (in the contemporary American sense) than men. And these days political affiliation has a large correlation with AGW attitudes.
The UK Guardian ran this one but I didn’t get chance to check it out before they shut down the comments!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2010/sep/15/climate-change-gender-divide-belief?showallcomments=true#comment-fold
My take on it is that our adversaries in the climate-related political scene are typically middle-aged to older, alpha males who have spent their lifetimes in short-term risk-taking – especially in finance/business. A commentator put it rather more bluntly:
“The petrolhead culture is masculine”
Cheers – John
#7 Thank you richard, I don’t know if humanity is smart, but your comment is, for sure!
#12 Ana: indeed the article is very interesting, but I would like to learn some technics or tips to avoid the cultural bias.
Well, we know that more men than women listen to Rush, right?
All I gotta say is, well, DUH.
re: 19
Anne, you are too funny! LOLOL
Because of their dominance in our economy, their miserable safety record, and their environmental destruction, we see the executives of the coal and petroleum industry in the news much more often than any other mining field. However, I think it is fair to say that the ENTIRE mining industry is dominated by men; probably white men at that. Whether it is clay used for fine china or gold for your investment portfolio the industry is run by men.
But let’s not forget Sister Sarah…she does have a rather large female following. Beware of soccer grizzlies protecting their crude!
wish they would start being more proactive and vocal on this issue!
I knew this all along ;)
Tenney, I’ve actually said something like that about Morano and others (although not “bitchy” :-) ). And it doesn’t help that climatology is very nuanced, with plenty of details (some important, some not) subject to haggling. Especially if there’s fear, knee-jerk contrarianism, or ideological resistance involved. That’s unlikely to change soon, so there’s a need to keep documenting and substantiating, and room for both the legitimately technical and the push for action (including writing and voting – the less strident activities we don’t see enough of).
Women control 60% of US wealth and probably vote in higher numbers. Seems like we need a targeted climate change ACTION campaign for them.
Ryan, if I was a woman you’d be case in point. Gas guzzlers and vehicles in general are not THE problem we’re facing, it’s a fraction. The biggest modern contributor as I understand it is commercial meat farming, which is also a major contributor to the global hunger crisis. Global warming is also schedukled to occur naturally according to the Milankovitch cycles although it’s very possible we may have thrown the natural climate change cycle into a tail spin. Time will tell.
I think the main obstacle to our survival is greed and ambivalence toward our fellow man. Why else would so many injustices be allowed to continue indefinitely?
And by injustices I don’t mean an Escalade in the bus lane.
Here’s a novel idea to combat global warming, whatever the cause:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35150462/ns/technology_and_science-science/
And as far as women being smarter than men, I think that’s a silly headline for this article. There is a pretty small margarine to be drawing any conclusions. Our knowledge of global warming is so limited anyhow, all we can do is measure it, and feebly attempt to predict what will happen next.
While it doesn’t address perceptions of climate science in particular, I’ve found a lot of useful insight into Americans’ attitudes and political inclinations in the social science research by Bob Altemeyer at the Univ. of Manitoba. His book “The Authoritarians” is available for free download in PDF format (first thing I loaded into the e-book reader “GoodReader” on my shiny new iPad!). It’s also available at low cost in paper format from Lulu.com, and as an audiobook on CD; all 3 are linked off his page:
http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/
His work sheds a lot of light on how and why ordinary folks get drawn into movements like the Moral Majority and today’s Tea Party movement. I haven’t yet read his latest commentary on the Tea Party (15 pp. PDF), but based on his earlier work it should be worth reading:
http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/drbob/Comment%20on%20the%20Tea%20Party.pdf