Ideology, scientific literacy, and climate change: the case of Spain

Abstract

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This paper builds on previous literature that suggests ideological orientation is a moderating variable in the relationship between scientific knowledge and belief in anthropogenic climate change (ACC) in the USA. We conduct an exploratory investigation of this causal relationship in Spain, a country characterized by widespread social and political support for the fight against ACC. We sample 604 Spanish citizens and use the OSI 2.0 scale to assess the level of science literacy. Results, checked with regression analysis and a neural network, indicate that the intensity of belief in ACC increases with science literacy for left-leaning individuals, remaining practically unaffected on average for center- or right-leaning ones. However, this lack of an average effect for center- or right-leaning individuals hides the existence of two subgroups: in one, as scientific literacy increases, belief in ACC decreases, and in the other, the exact opposite is true. Thus, we confirm that even in a country with considerable support for the fight against ACC, political ideology plays a moderating role in the relationship between scientific culture and the level of belief in ACC.