NESS SEMINAR
Professor Matthew Hornsey
Date: Wednesday 1st June 2022
Time: 12 – 1pm
Location: Online via zoom
In Australia, the biggest predictor of people’s beliefs about climate change is their political affiliation (“left” versus “right”). How did climate science get so politicized in Australia? And is there an exit strategy from the climate science culture wars? In this talk I examine these questions, drawing on history, my own data on the psychology of climate scepticism over the last decade, and the “tealquake” in the May 21 election.
Professor Matthew Hornsey is Director of the Business Sustainability Initiative at UQ Business School. Supported by 15 ARC grants, he has published extensively on themes of intergroup communication; trust and trust repair; and sustainability and climate change. His most recent work focuses on understanding (and reducing) people’s motivations to reject scientific consensus (e.g., the psychology of climate skeptics and the vaccine-hesitant). His work has been highlighted in hundreds of media articles, including in the NY Times, LA Times, The Guardian, and Huffington Post. In 2018 he was elected as a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia.
