Repetition increases belief in climate-skeptical claims, even for climate science endorsers.

Does repeated exposure to climate-skeptic claims influence their acceptance as true, even among climate science endorsers? Research with general knowledge claims shows that repeated exposure to a claim increases its perceived truth when it is encountered again. However, motivated cognition research suggests that people primarily endorse what they already believe. Across two experiments, climate science endorsers were more likely to believe claims that were consistent with their prior beliefs, but repeated exposure increased perceptions of truth for climate-science and climate-skeptic claims to a similar extent. Even counter-attitudinal claims benefit from previous exposure, highlighting the insidious effect of repetition.

Positive school climate and strong school identification as protective factors of adolescent mental health and learning engagement: A longitudinal investigation before and during COVID-19.

The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in significant disruptions for children and youth around the world, especially given school closures and shifts in teaching modes (on-line and hybrid). However, the impact of these disruptions remains unclear given data limitations such as a reliance on cross-sectional and/or short-interval surveys as well as a lack of broad indicators of key outcomes of interest. The current research employs a quasi-experimental design by using an Australian four-year longitudinal survey with student responses from Grade 7 to 10 (aged 12-15 years old) (N = 8,735 from 20 schools) in one education jurisdiction. Responses are available pre-pandemic (2018 and 2019) and during the pandemic (2020 and 2021). Importantly the survey included measures of well-being, mental health and learning engagement as well as potential known school-environment factors that could buffer against adversity: school climate and school identification. The findings were generally in line with key hypotheses; 1) during COVID-19 students' learning engagement and well-being significantly declined and 2) students with more positive school climate or stronger school identification pre-COVID-19 fared better through the disruption of the pandemic. However, these same students suffered from a steeper decline in well-being and engagement which may be explained through the impact of losing meaningful social or group connections. This decline was evident after controlling for gender, academic grade (as a proxy of age), parental education, and socioeconomic status. It is concluded that investing in the social environment of schools is important in crisis preparedness and can facilitate better crisis response among youth.