Catherine Chen
2023–24 Dissertation Fellowship
Perceptions of national problem seriousness matter in democratic societies because politicians are more likely to address problems that the public perceives to be serious. Identifying the roots of problem seriousness judgments, therefore, helps researchers to understand the mechanisms at work as Americans' political agenda-setting shifts over time. The current study tested propositions derived from the Attitude-Certainty-Existence (ACE) Model about the causes of problem seriousness judgments, with a focus on global warming. Consistent with the model, cross-lagged panel regressions implemented using national survey data collected between 1997 and 1998 showed that changes in national seriousness judgments over a period of three months were predicted by four pre-existing constructs: beliefs about the existence of global warming, the certainty of the existence beliefs, attitudes toward global warming, and beliefs about whether global warming has been caused by human activity. Furthermore, mediational analyses of repeated cross-sectional surveys conducted between 2009 and 2020 showed that changes in national seriousness judgments were predicted by all four posited causes, most often by the belief that humans have been responsible for inducing global warming. This evidence constitutes important new support for the ACE model and sets the stage for applying it in other domains besides climate change.
Testing the Propositions of the Attitude-Certainty-Existence (ACE) Model
2023-24 American Democracy Fellowship
All countries today face multiple problems simultaneously in the domains of healthcare, environmental protection, jobs, national security, etc. No country can address all problems at the same time, so decisions must be made regarding which issues to prioritize. In democratic societies, legislators are more likely to pay attention to issues that the public considers to be most serious. Such seriousness perception lifts the problem to higher agenda prominence. When the public considers a problem to be more serious, government is more likely to address it.
In 2006, Krosnick and colleagues proposed the Attitude-Certainty-Existence (ACE) Model to explain the psychological principles citizens bear in mind when they make judgments regarding which issues are most important for the nation. The model suggested that the perception that an issue is important for the nation can be predicted by four constructs: beliefs about the existence of an alleged problem, certainty about the existence of the problem, attitudes toward the problem, and beliefs about the causes of the problem. However, in their 2006 paper, Krosnick et al. only relied on cross-sectional data to test the propositions of the model. And the methods they used, primarily regressions, suffered from limitations such as restrained abilities to imply cause-and-effect relationships. Therefore, more work is needed to evaluate the causal claims made by the ACE model.
The current project seeks to test the following hypotheses with Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs):
- People who are more certain about the existence of Global Warming (GW) are more likely to perceive GW to be a serious problem for the nation.
- People who perceive GW to be more negative are more likely to perceive GW to be a serious problem for the nation.
- People who perceive GW to be caused by humans (relative to something natural) are more likely to perceive GW to be a serious problem for the nation.
Do People Lie When Reporting Their Beliefs on Global Warming and Support for Green Policies? A Test Using the Item Count Technique
2020 American Democracy Fellowship
Catherine's research agenda is to understand the psychological mechanisms of changes in public opinion on climate change and to seek effective ways to communicate and intervene. The goal of such communication and intervention is 1) making the public aware of their responsibilities, and 2) making the public willing to take action. Previous research has indicated that people may answer questions in ways that they think are socially admirable. Her work through the Center for American Democracy at IRiSS investigates whether people hide their true opinions when responding to poll questions on climate change-related issues.