Motivation

While trust in scientists is moderately high globally (Cologna et al. 2025), climate scientists have consistently been found to be less trusted than scientists from other fields and scientists in general (Druckman et al. 2024; Ghasemi et al. 2025; Schrøder 2023; Schug, Bilandzic, and Kinnebrock 2024). Lower trust in climate scientists could hamper societies’ ability to address climate change, resulting in high personal and societal costs.

Strengthening trust in climate scientists matters: Across 55 countries, trust in climate scientists was the strongest predictor of belief in climate change and support for climate policy (Todorova et al. 2025).

Increasing trust in climate scientists may therefore be an important lever to accelerate climate action and strengthen societal resilience to climate change. There is currently only a small number of behavioral intervention studies on increasing trust in climate scientists. The Strengthening Trust in Climate Scientists Megastudy aims to fill this gap.

Survey process

Outcome(s)

Our main outcome of interest is people’s trust in climate scientists, along various dimensions (see Table 1). All intervention proposals should only target this outcome variable. In addition, we will also measure several other variables which remain to be determined.

Table 1: Multi-dimensional measure of trust in climate scientists. Answers are assessed with a slider from 0 to 100. Only the endpoints are labelled.

Dimension	Item	Response Options
	We are interested in your general opinion about climate scientists. In answering the following questions, think about climate scientists specifically in the context of their work/research.
Competence	How incompetent or competent are most climate scientists?	0 = Very incompetent … 100 = Very competent
	How unintelligent or intelligent are most climate scientists?	0 = Very unintelligent … 100 = Very intelligent
	How unqualified or qualified are most climate scientists?	0 = Very unqualified … 100 = Very qualified
Integrity	How dishonest or honest are most climate scientists?	0 = Very dishonest … 100 = Very honest
	How unethical or ethical are most climate scientists?	0 = Very unethical … 100 = Very ethical
	How insincere or sincere are most climate scientists?	0 = Very insincere … 100 = Very sincere
Benevolence	How unconcerned or concerned are most climate scientists about people’s wellbeing?	0 = Very unconcerned … 100 = Very concerned
	How uneager or eager are most climate scientists to improve others’ lives?	0 = Very uneager … 100 = Very eager
	How inconsiderate or considerate are most climate scientists of others’ interests?	0 = Very inconsiderate … 100 = Very considerate
Openness	How open, if at all, are most climate scientists to feedback?	0 = Not open … 100 = Very open
	How unwilling or willing are most climate scientists to be transparent?	0 = Very unwilling … 100 = Very willing
	How little or much attention do climate scientists pay to others' views?	0 = Very little attention … 100 = A great deal of attention

Interventions

For details on the interventions, please see the Collaborate page.

Participants

Sample size

Once we have selected interventions, we will run a power simulation to be included in our preregistration.

Recruitment

We will recruit a representative sample of the U.S. population based on several demographic variables.

Open science

Following best open-science research practices, a detailed overview of data collection procedures, research questions, and analyses will be preregistered on the Open Science Framework.

Upon publication, all data, code, and materials will be publicly available.

Timeline

References

Cologna, Viktoria, Niels G. Mede, Sebastian Berger, John Besley, Cameron Brick, Marina Joubert, Edward W. Maibach, et al. 2025. “Trust in Scientists and Their Role in Society Across 68 Countries.” Nature Human Behaviour, January, 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-024-02090-5.

Druckman, James N., Jonathan Schulman, Alauna C. Safarpour, Matthew Baum, Katherine Ognyanova, Mailbox Kenny, Kristin Lunz Trujillo, et al. 2024. “Continuity and Change in Trust in Scientists in the United States: Demographic Stability and Partisan Polarization.” https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4929030.

Ghasemi, Omid, Viktoria Cologna, Niels G Mede, Samantha K Stanley, Noel Strahm, Robert Ross, Mark Alfano, et al. 2025. “Gaps in Public Trust Between Scientists and Climate Scientists: A 68 Country Study.” Environmental Research Letters 20 (6): 061002. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/add1f9.

Schrøder, Thor Bech. 2023. “Don’t Tell Me What I Don’t Want to Hear! Politicization and Ideological Conflict Explain Why Citizens Have Lower Trust in Climate Scientists and Economists Than in Other Natural Scientists.” Political Psychology 44 (5): 961–81. https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12866.

Schug, Markus, Helena Bilandzic, and Susanne Kinnebrock. 2024. “Public perceptions of trustworthiness and authenticity towards scientists in controversial scientific fields.” Journal of Science Communication 23 (9): A03. https://doi.org/10.22323/2.23090203.

Todorova, Boryana, David Steyrl, Matthew J. Hornsey, Samuel Pearson, Cameron Brick, Florian Lange, Jay J. Van Bavel, Madalina Vlasceanu, Claus Lamm, and Kimberly C. Doell. 2025. “Machine Learning Identifies Key Individual and Nation-Level Factors Predicting Climate-Relevant Beliefs and Behaviors.” Npj Climate Action 4 (1): 46. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44168-025-00251-4.