Imperfect Cognitions

This is part of a series of posts on the new journal, Memory, Mind & Media . Today's post is by Stephan Lewandowsky (University of Bristol) and Peter Pomerantsev (Johns Hopkins University). Their forthcoming article ‘Technology and democracy: a paradox wrapped in a contradiction inside an irony’ will be published shortly as part of the journal inaugural collection . Stephan Lewandowsky Numerous indicators suggest that democracy is in retreat globally. Even countries that had been considered stable democracies have recently witnessed events that are incompatible with democratic governance and the rule of law, such as the armed assault on the U.S. Capitol in 2021 and the unlawful suspension of the British parliament in 2019.  Although the symptoms and causes of democratic backsliding are complex and difficult to disentangle, the Internet and social media are frequently blamed in this context. For example, social media has been identified as a tool of autocrats , and so...

The following post is by Astrid Kause  (pictured above), who recently completed her PhD at the University of Konstanz, in South of Germany. She continues her research  at the University of Leeds (UK), investigating  how individuals grasp and behave in face of uncertain phenomena like climate change. In this post, she discusses from a psychological perspective why this uncertain and complex problem does not require a complex solution – but how simple prescriptive decision strategies might help us to behave better in face of climate change . Climate change is considered one of the most challenging problems humanity has to solve in the 21st century ( van der Linden, 2015 ). What makes it so particularly difficult to grasp climate change? After all, we experience changes in extreme weather like rainfall, learn about climate change consequences like rising sea levels, hear scientists and politicians call for action against climate change or rather sceptic voices downplayi...