Scott Pruysers is an associate professor in the political science department at Dalhousie University and the lead author of the study, published in March in the journal Climatic Change.
He says understanding the personality roots of climate skepticism can help develop more effective strategies to encourage environmentally conscious behavior. "The precursor to developing good policy or understanding why people care about this issue is understanding who doesn't care about it, who remains skeptical," he said. "And so we're going to have to get kind of creative and smarter with the messaging."