Climate Change Consensus Messages May Cause Reactance in Conservatives, But There is No Meta-Analytic Evidence That They Backfire

Recent studies suggest climate change consensus messages may cause psychological reactance for conservatives. However, it remains unknown how much this impacts the effectiveness of messaging. Using data from a recent meta-analysis on interventions, current paper seeks to add context debate over reactance. We integrated 20 experiments (N = 19,200 participants) that test (compared control condition) impact attitudes. The effect attitudes was small yet statistically significant and positive (g 0.09), not significantly moderated by political affiliation. Moreover, moderating role affiliation similar compared other interventions While conservatives experience resistance messages, there is little meta-analytic evidence backfire.