Feinberg & Willer XXXXXXXXXXstudied the effect of just-world beliefs on people’s willingness to accept the concept of global warming. They presented participants with material designed to prime them...

Feinberg & Willer (2011) studied the effect of just-world beliefs on people’s willingness to accept the concept of global warming. They presented participants with material designed to prime them toward or away from just-world beliefs, and then had them fill out a questionnaire concerning their skepticism toward global warming and their willingness to reduce their carbon footprint. They found the following path diagram for the model. (Note: The coefficients for the path from Skepticism to Willingness has also partialled out the effect of Just-World beliefs.) When the authors used both the Just-World Prime and Global Warming Skepticism as predictors, the standardized regression coefficients between Just-World Prime and Willingness to Reduce Carbon Footprint dropped to 20.16, with a standard error of 0.13. Those who were primed with statements that the world is just reported higher levels of skepticism than those primed with statements suggesting that the world was unjust. The authors suggest that fear-based appeals can actually undercut the effectiveness of the message. Test the decline in the regression coefficients as you did in exercise 15.40 and draw the appropriate conclusions