Development and validation of the anthropogenic climate change dissenter inventory

Individuals are exposed to misleading or outright false anthropogenic climate change (ACC) information. The goals of this study are to identify ACC dissenter messages, and to develop an instrument that quantifies the extent to which individuals agree with these messages. The instrument was developed using a sequential mixed methods design. A qualitative analysis of YouTube videos produced a bank of dissenter messages. A Likert-type survey was derived from these statements and completed by adults who reside in the United States of America (N = 133) via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. Parametric and non-parametric tests were used to explore the data, determine relations, and test the instrument’s validity and reliability. Dissenter statements factored into five unique categories. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (N = 151) was used to validate the instrument. Results suggest this instrument will be useful for understanding how different segments of the public, as measured by demographic variables, agree with misleading climate material.