"The cause of the greenhouse effect is a hole in the atmosphere": Naive thinking against one's better judgment

The title of this paper quotes a statement that predominantly met with appr oval within the International Social Survey Program (1993) even though it i s objectively wrong. The correlative findings presented in this article now supply evidence for a real misconception which proved to be quite widespre ad among highschool and university students, above all the female subjects of our samples. Thus, despite frequent representation of the correct facts in science lessons and public media, an astonishingly large number of subje cts had constructed a false mental model of the greenhouse effect that expl ained the global increase in temperature with a rising amount of sumrays th at pass through an atmosphere which is getting more and more pervious. In a specific learning experiment, this misconception also proved to be widely resistant to instruction, even when the presentation of an instructional te xt about the greenhouse effect was preceded by an explicit hint about the, aforesaid misconception and its falseness (= induction of a cognitive confl ict). The relatively strong subjective plausibility of the misconception is discussed as a probable cause for its amazing and ecopedagogically relevan t stability - on the one hand referring to every-day primary experiences (m ore sun = increase in temperature), on the other hand based on its 'reasona ble' metacognitive quality. The misconception is analyzed as a problem-solv ing strategy operating with objectively insufficient terms but that neverth eless proves to be intelligible and to carry a high subjective plausibility . With respect to this analysis we revisited Gestalt-psychological concepts and interpretation procedures developed by Duncker that, in our opinion, m ight provide us with substantial contributions to the problem of conceptual change.