This month we published two papers looking at partisan polarization in US climate policy attitudes and mitigation behavior.

Gustafson et al. show that opinion polarization on the Green New Deal developed rapidly due to decreasing support among Republicans, which was associated with exposure to conservative media and increasing familiarity with the policy. (Nature Climate Change)

Mildenberger et al. show that ideological differences in solar uptake are a function of neighbourhood composition, not differential partisan uptake within a given neighborhood. Read the story behind the paper here. (Nature Energy)

Other research published this month:

Lyons et al. show that lobbyists with higher social status are more likely to overrate their own success. (Nature Human Behaviour)

Simon et al. develop a neural framework of sleep-loss-induced anxiety that emphasizes NREM sleep as a therapeutic target for anxiety amelioration. (Nature Human Behaviour)

Lees & Cikara find a negativity bias in group meta-perception across multiple competitive (but not cooperative) intergroup contexts. (Nature Human Behaviour)

Gomez & Lazer show that clustering people of similar knowledge maintains solution diversity and increases long run system collective performance in an agent-based model of problem-solving. (Nature Communications)

McWalter & McDermott describe a perceptual illusion in which sound textures are heard to continue, even though they have in fact been replaced by white noise. (Nature Communications)

Rao et al. build bottom-up assessments of energy required for decent living using gaps in decent living standards in India, Brazil and South Africa and scenarios of future energy use. (Nature Energy)

Rahwan et al. failed to replicate a previous study showing that bankers behaved more dishonestly when reminded of their profession. (Nature)

Mayfield et al. estimate the cumulative effects of the shale gas boom in the Appalachian basin from 2004 to 2016 on air quality, climate change and employment. (Nature Sustainability)

Schleicher et al.estimate the societal impact of the ambitious "Half Earth" proposal, in which half the Earth would be set aside for conservation purposes. (Nature Sustainability)

Bellmund et al. use immersive virtual reality combined with successor representation modelling to show that environmental geometry distorts human spatial memory. Read the story behind the paper here. (Nature Human Behaviour)

Li et al. show that coauthoring a paper with a top-cited scientist early in one's career predicts lasting increases in career success, especially for researchers affiliated with less prestigious institutions. (Nature Communications)

Rao et al. show that male migration and women’s poor working conditions combine with either institutional failure or poverty to constrain women’s agency, which limits their adaptive capacity. Read the story behind the paper here. (Nature Climate Change)

Carter et al. find that in China over one-third and one-fifth of participants suspended use of solid fuel for cooking and heating, respectively, during the past 20 years. (Nature Sustainability)