Conservatives are known for their opposition to climate science and now new research purports to explain why.
According to a new study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, researchers found that Republicans tend to reject climate science when they believe it is being used to support policy solutions they don't agree with,
The Washington Post reported.
So-called "solution aversion" colors conservatives' thinking about the science itself, the research found.
The researchers say they tested the theory using four different experiments.
In one experiment, two different groups of subjects across the political spectrum were given articles to read, one which talked about a government regulatory policy solution to climate change while another discussed a free market solution.
While Democrats in both groups viewed the science of climate change equally regardless of which article they read, the percentage of Republicans who believed the climate change was caused by humans was much lower among those who read about the regulatory solution.
"The new paper definitely adds to the mountain of evidence suggesting that conservatives reject modern climate science because they think that it implies a series of policies that they find unacceptable," the Post said.
The Post noted that liberals were found to have changed their view of the facts on the issue of gun control depending on what they thought would be the policy outcomes.
Specifically, supporters of gun control were less likely to take seriously the threat of violent home invasion if they read an essay with an anti-gun control point of view.
The Post said that the research appears to prove "solution aversion" even if there are some weaknesses in the study.
"It is very useful to bear in mind that often, when we appear to be debating science and facts, what we're really disagreeing about is something very different," the Post concluded.
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