Standard Research Grant: Public Interpretations of and Responses to Scientific Disputes

标准研究补助金：科学争议的公众解释和回应

• 批准号: 1455867
• 负责人: Branden Johnson
• 金额: $ 29.85万
• 依托单位: Decision Science Research Institute
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-03-01 至 2019-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1455867&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Standard; Research; Grant; Public; Interpretations

Disputes are usually deemed fruitful to scientific process, but can confuse publics who learn about and attend to such disputes as to "the truth," regardless of contenders' relative numbers or persuasive evidence, so that disagreements among experts may individually or collectively undermine lay trust in and support for science and scientists. Potential outcomes may include misconstruing the true nature of a field's uncertainties, ignoring expert advice on protecting oneself, or reducing support for use of science in polic ymaking or education. This research systematically assesses across varied topics how laypeople interpret, process, and are affected by scientific disputes: 1) How do lay people interpret disagreements among scientists in terms of dispute origins and cues to which of the contending sides is most credible?; 2) What beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors about the disputed topic or science stem from these lay interpretations?; and 3) How malleable are such interpretations and responses to interventions (e.g., education on scientific process)? This project advances theory in public understanding of science, including conditions that alter public interpretations of and responses to expert disputes; helps scientists tailor their messages to remove ambiguities, reduce errors among observers, and enhance public discourse on science and science-based policy; and makes a novel and substantial contribution to our understanding of the place of science in contemporary society.This research shows public samples scenarios involving two-sided mass disputes on topics varying in public salience, impacts, and familiarity, such as the nature of dark matter, desirable dietary salt intake, or nanotechnology. Focus groups probe people's reactions to sample scenarios, and their rationales for how they determine answers to such questions as which side is "correct," and why experts might disagree. An experiment then probes how people's responses (e.g., trust, intentions to comply with expert advice, support for federal funding of science) vary according to whether experts are split 50-50, are 99% in support of one side, or somewhere in between, to determine if different proportions drive shifts from one response to another. A survey probes the relative role of knowledge, values, self-interest, history, and vote-counting (i.e., the proportion of support for a given side in the dispute) as factors in lay beliefs about why scientific disputes occur (e.g., self-interest, incompetence, inherent complexity of the topic), cues to disputants' credibility (e.g., perceived uncertainty of the field, credentials, salient value similarity, self-interest), and lay responses to disputes among scientists. A subsequent experiment manipulates several of these factors to further test the causal relationship between dispute attributes and public responses.

争议通常被认为对科学进程富有成效，但无论争论者的相对数量或有说服力的证据如何，都可能使了解并关注此类争议的公众对“真相”感到困惑，因此专家之间的分歧可能会单独或集体破坏外行的信任对科学和科学家的支持和支持。潜在的结果可能包括误解某个领域不确定性的真实性质，忽视专家关于保护自己的建议，或者减少对在政策制定或教育中使用科学的支持。这项研究系统地评估了不同主题的非专业人士如何解释、处理科学争议以及如何受到科学争议的影响：1）非专业人士如何解释科学家之间在争议起源和线索方面的分歧，以及哪一方最可信？ 2) 这些非专业解释源于对争议话题或科学的哪些信念、态度和行为？ 3）这种解释和对干预措施（例如科学过程教育）的反应有多大的可塑性？ 该项目推进了公众对科学理解的理论，包括改变公众对专家争议的解释和反应的条件；帮助科学家调整他们的信息，以消除歧义，减少观察者之间的错误，并加强对科学和基于科学的政策的公众讨论；并为我们理解科学在当代社会中的地位做出了新颖而重大的贡献。这项研究展示了涉及双方大规模争议的公共样本场景，这些争议的主题在公众显着性、影响力和熟悉度方面各不相同，例如暗物质的性质、理想的膳食盐摄入量或纳米技术。焦点小组探讨人们对示例场景的反应，以及他们如何确定诸如哪一方是“正确的”以及专家可能不同意等问题的答案的理由。然后进行一项实验，探讨人们的反应（例如，信任、遵守专家建议的意愿、对联邦科学资助的支持）如何根据专家的比例是 50-50、99% 支持一方还是介于两者之间而变化，以确定不同比例的驱动力是否从一种响应转变为另一种响应。一项调查探讨了知识、价值观、自身利益、历史和计票（即争议中某一方的支持比例）作为关于科学争议发生原因的非专业信念的因素（例如，自我-兴趣、无能、主题固有的复杂性）、争论者可信度的线索（例如，感知到的领域的不确定性、资历、显着价值相似性、自身利益），以及对科学家之间争论的普遍回应。随后的实验操纵了其中几个因素，以进一步测试争议属性与公众反应之间的因果关系。