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Psychological inoculation has proven effective at reducing susceptibility to misinformation. We present a novel storytelling approach to inoculation against susceptibility to the conjunction fallacy (dmeta‐analysis = 0.82), a known cognitive predictor of conspiracy beliefs. In Study 1 (Pilot; N = 161), a narrative inoculation (vs. control) reduced susceptibility to conjunction errors, and in turn, conspiracy beliefs regarding government malfeasance. In Study 2 (main experiment; N = 141; pre‐registered), two separate narrative inoculations (vs. control) directly reduced susceptibility to conjunction errors, and indirectly reduced conspiracy beliefs regarding extra‐terrestrial cover‐ups. In addition, the inoculation messages improved detection of both real and fake news (‘truth discernment’). We discuss theoretical and practical implications, including the use of inoculation to induce critical thinking styles, and tailoring inoculations that may suit storytelling mediums.

Funder: Energy Foundation; Id: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100005710, Funder: MacArthur Foundation; Id: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100000870, Funder: 11th Hour Foundation, Despite Greta Thunberg's popularity, research has yet to investigate her impact on the public's willingness to take collective action on climate change. Using cross‐sectional data from a nationally representative survey of U.S. adults (N = 1,303), we investigate the “Greta Thunberg Effect,” or whether exposure to Greta Thunberg predicts collective efficacy and intentions to engage in collective action. We find that those who are more familiar with Greta Thunberg have higher intentions of taking collective actions to reduce global warming and that stronger collective efficacy beliefs mediate this relationship. This association between familiarity with Greta Thunberg, collective efficacy beliefs, and collective action intentions is present even after accounting for respondents’ overall support for climate activism. Moderated mediation models testing age and political ideology as moderators of the “Greta Thunberg Effect” indicate that although the indirect effect of familiarity with Greta Thunberg via collective efficacy is present across all age‐groups, and across the political spectrum, it may be stronger among those who identify as more liberal (than conservative). Our findings suggest that young public figures like Greta Thunberg may motivate collective action across the U.S. public, but their effect may be stronger among those with a shared political ideology. Implications for future research and for broadening climate activists’ appeals across the political spectrum are discussed.

The spread of misinformation through media and social networks threatens many aspects of society, including public health and the state of democracies. A wide range of individual-focused interventions aimed at reducing harm from online misinformation have been developed in the behavioral and cognitive sciences. We, an international group of 26 experts, introduce and analyze our toolbox of interventions against misinformation, which includes an up-to-date account of the interventions featured in 42 scientific papers. A resource for scientists, policy makers, and the public, the toolbox delivers both a conceptual overview of the breadth of interventions, including their target and scope, and a summary of the empirical evidence supporting the interventions, including the methods and experimental paradigms used to test them. The toolbox covers 10 types of interventions: accuracy prompts, debunking, friction, inoculation, lateral reading, media-literacy tips, rebuttals of science denialism, self-reflection tools, social norms, and warning and fact-checking labels.

No matter how important and valuable a message is, it will not yield the desired outcome if it does not reach its audience. This lesson is taught in many areas of our everyday life, such as in education or relationships. For communicating policies, there is no difference. To ensure that a message is understandable for the public, appropriate communication strategies must be adopted. Therefore, it is important for policymakers to know how different elements of a message can be used to deliver its content effectively. In this chapter, we focus on providing an overview of case studies that tested different elements of communication, largely related to message content. We suggest that the use of principles such as personalization, temporal distance, framing, participation, operational transparency, simplicity, and salience may result in better policy outcomes through increased public engagement. We highlight both the opportunities and potential pitfalls of implementing those strategies at scale. To show the practical value of these guidelines, we discuss different attempts at translating scientific findings into policy and engaging the public in new policies.

EnMAP Technical Report, The scope of the Science Plan is to describe the scientific background, applications, and activities of the Environmental Mapping and Analysis Program (EnMAP) imaging spectroscopy mission. Primarily, this document addresses scientists and funding institutions, but it may also be of interest to environmental stakeholders and governmental agencies. It is designed to be a living document that will be updated throughout the entire mission lifetime. Chapter 1 provides a brief overview of the principles and current state of imaging spectroscopy. This is followed by an introduction to the EnMAP mission, including its objectives and impact on international programs as well as major environmental and societal challenges. Chapter 2 describes the EnMAP system together with data products and access, calibration/validation, and synergies with other missions. Chapter 3 gives an overview of the major fields of application such as vegetation and forests, geology and soils, coastal and inland waters, cryosphere, urban areas, atmosphere and hazards. Finally, Chapter 4 outlines the scientific exploitation strategy, which includes the strategy for community building and training, preparatory flight campaigns and software developments. A list of abbreviations is provided in the annex to this document and an extended glossary of terms and abbreviations is available on the EnMAP website.

Published: 14 June 2021

Conservation is predominantly an exercise in trying to change human behaviour – whether that of consumers whose choices drive unsustainable resource use, of land managers clearing natural habitats, or of policymakers failing to deliver on environmental commitments. Yet conservation research and practice have made only limited use of recent advances in behavioural science, including more novel behaviour change interventions. Instead conservationists mostly still rely on traditional behaviour change interventions – education, regulation and material incentivisation – largely without applying recent insights from behavioural science about how to improve such approaches. This paper explores how behavioural science could be more widely and powerfully applied in biodiversity conservation. We consider the diverse cast of actors involved in conservation problems and the resulting breadth of behaviour change that conservationists might want to achieve. Drawing on health research, we present a catalogue of types of interventions for changing behaviour, considering both novel, standalone interventions and the enhancement of more traditional conservation interventions. We outline a framework for setting priorities amongst interventions based on their likely impact, using ideas developed for climate change mitigation. We caution that, despite its promise, behavioural science is not a silver bullet for conservation. The effects of interventions aimed at changing behaviour can be modest, temporary, and context-dependent in ways that are as-yet poorly understood. We therefore close with a call for interventions to be tested and the findings widely disseminated to enable researchers and practitioners to build a much-needed evidence base on the effectiveness and limitations of these tools.

This dataset is composed of three-season simulated EnMAP mosaics for the Lake Tahoe region, USA. HyspIRI Airborne Campaign AVIRIS imagery from spring, summer and fall formed the basis for simulating EnMAP data with 30 m spatial resolution and 195 spectral bands ranging from 420 to 2450 nm. The mosaics are provided as Analysis-Ready-Datasets (tiled surface reflectance products) to be used for regional-scale and multi-season hyperspectral image analysis of California’s diverse ecoregions. The dataset primarily intends to support the development of processing algorithms and to demonstrate spaceborne hyperspectral data capabilities during the pre-launch activities of the forthcoming EnMAP mission. This dataset was processed in line with companion simulated EnMAP mosaics for the San Francisco Bay Area and for the Santa Barbara region.

This dataset is composed of three-season simulated EnMAP mosaics for the Santa Barbara region, USA. HyspIRI Airborne Campaign AVIRIS imagery from spring, summer and fall formed the basis for simulating EnMAP data with 30 m spatial resolution and 195 spectral bands ranging from 420 to 2450 nm. The mosaics are provided as Analysis-Ready-Datasets (tiled surface reflectance products) to be used for regional-scale and multi-season hyperspectral image analysis of California’s diverse ecoregions. The dataset primarily intends to support the development of processing algorithms and to demonstrate spaceborne hyperspectral data capabilities during the pre-launch activities of the forthcoming EnMAP mission. This dataset was processed in line with companion simulated EnMAP mosaics for the San Francisco Bay Area and for the Lake Tahoe region.

This study finds that the online “fake news” game, Bad News, can confer psychological resistance against common online misinformation strategies across different cultures. The intervention draws on the theory of psychological inoculation: analogous to the process of medical immunization, we find that “prebunking,” or preemptively warning and exposing people to weakened doses of misinformation, can help cultivate “mental antibodies” against fake news. We conclude that social impact games rooted in basic insights from social psychology can boost immunity against misinformation across a variety of cultural, linguistic, and political settings.

This dataset is composed of simulated EnMAP mosaics for the San Francisco Bay Area, USA. Hyperspectral imagery used for the EnMAP simulation was collected across three time periods (Spring, Summer, and Fall) in 2013 with the AVIRIS-Classic sensor flown as part of the HyspIRI Preparatory Campaign. Flight lines were simulated to EnMAP-like data using the EnMAP end-to end Simulation tool to produce 30 x 30 m imagery with 195 bands (after band removal) ranging from 423 to 2439 nm. Secondary geometric correction was applied using automatically generated tie points, and a class-wise empirical across track brightness correction was implemented to mitigate brightness gradients.