Psychology Colloquia Series: Professor Marie Juanchich

Time: 11.30am - 12.30pm
Price: free
Speaker(s): Professor Marie Juanchich, University of Essex

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All are welcome to the Psychology Colloquia, where distinguished guest speakers present talks encompassing a diverse array of topics within the field of Psychology and beyond.

This week's speaker is Professor Marie Juanchich, University of Essex. Over the past fourteen years, Marie's work has been aimed at empowering people to make better decisions. She is especially interested in climate change risk communication.

Abstract: Psychological consequences of reframing climate change uncertainty

Uncertainty communication is a difficult art requiring to balance information about what is most likely while acknowledging more remote possibilities. It is especially challenging for climate change, where uncertainty can be taken as a form of weakness and trust easily lost. As climate black swan events become more prevalent, one has to carefully consider how to inform the public about the most remote (and most extreme) events. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change prescribes that scientists should describe the probabilities of climate change-related events using a predefined set of words quantifying degrees of certainty (i.e., verbal probabilities). The panel advises that events that are less than 66% likely should be described using a set of negative verbal probabilities (e.g. "it is very unlikely", "it is unlikely"). We argue that the use of these negative verbal probabilities is suboptimal because it attracts attention to the non-occurrence of the target outcome. Instead, we propose considering positive alternatives – verbal probabilities that attract attention to the outcome occurrence (e.g., there is a small probability). While positive and negative verbal probabilities convey the same underlying probability from a semantic standpoint, we hypothesise that they elicit different psychological responses, impacting recipients' judgments and decision. The talk will cover a series of experiments testing the effect of negative (vs. positive) verbal probabilities on probability perception, attention, decision, trust and perception of scientific consensus. We will explore the implications of these findings for effectively communicating risks related to climate change and beyond.

Marie Juanchich is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Essex. Over the past fourteen years, Marie's work has been aimed at empowering people to make better decisions. She is especially interested in climate change risk communication.

This event will be held on Teams.

The series is organised by Dr. Simona Cantarella (s.cantarella@kingston.ac.uk) and Dr. Goffredina Spano (g.spano@kingston.ac.uk) from the Psychology Department. If you would like more information about the event, please feel free to email either of them. 

All events in this series

Psychology Colloquia Series: Dr Matteo De Marco, 31 Jan 2024
Psychology Colloquia Series: Dr Amanda Rotella, 23 Feb 2024
Psychology Colloquia Series: Dr Lucy Cragg, 28 Feb 2024
Psychology Colloquia Series: Dr Melania Calestani, 13 March 2024
Psychology Colloquia Series: Dr Joanne Bower, 22 March 2024
Psychology Colloquia Series: Professor Marie Juanchich, 15 May 2024
Psychology Colloquia Series: Dr Anne Van Hoogmoed, 21 May 2024
Psychology Colloquia Series: Dr Jayne Morriss, 14 June 2024

For further information about this event:

Contact: Lucy Raymond (Events Officer - please email for any logistical enquiries)
Email: lucy.raymond@kingston.ac.uk