Public Understanding of Science

How science and technology attitudes vary across the United States, China, South Korea and Japan – all of which top Bloomberg’s list of high-tech centralization – is explored through data from the sixth wave of the World Values Survey (2010–2014). The following study examines the presence of different types of attitudinal groups using latent profile analysis. Not only do unique attitudinal groups exist in each country, but each group is uniquely influenced by select demographic characteristics, including education, age, gender, religiosity, employment status and individual interaction with technology. The findings provide insight into public attitudes towards science and technology across social and cultural contexts and generate nuanced understandings of similar and different attitudinal groups in East Asia and the United States.

Arenas where experts interact with publics are useful platforms for communication and interaction between actors in the field of public health: researchers, practitioners, clinicians, patients, and laypersons. Such coalitions are central to the analysis of knowledge coproduction. This study investigates an initiative for assembling expert and other significant knowledge which seeks to create better interventions and solutions to addiction-related problems, in this case codependency. But what and whose knowledge is communicated, and how? The study explores how processes of repetition, claim-coupling, and enthusiasm produce a community based on three boundary beliefs: (1) victimized codependent children failed by an impaired society; (2) the power of daring and sharing; and (3) the (brain) disease model as the scientific representative and explanation for (co)dependence. These processes have legitimized future hopes in certain suffering actors, certain lived and professional expertise and also excluded social scientific critique, existing interventions, and alternative accounts.

While most Americans recognize the importance of funding scientific research, many are satisfied with status quo funding, and only a minority see a need for increased federal support. This poses a potential challenge to scientists’ abilities to address complex policy problems, like climate change. Previous correlational research suggests that public opposition to science funding is (at least in part) the result of low levels of knowledge about the basics of science. Leveraging panel data from two nationally representative studies (2008–2014), I show that people who become more interested in science over time but not those who become more knowledgable are more likely to favor increasing public support for scientific research. These results hold when controlling for other known correlates of science funding attitudes (e.g. political ideology, religiosity). I conclude by discussing the potential benefits of prioritizing science communication and science education efforts to increase public science interest.

This article examines contemporary representations of female and male scientists in The New York Times with a particular emphasis on stereotypes related to gender and science as a profession. The selected series of profiles is approximately proportional in its representation of women in science and generally gives a rounded and diverse picture of their subjects. Traditionally ‘masculine’ characteristics (e.g. individual drive and brilliance) as well as ‘feminine’ communal skills (e.g. collaboration, communication and teamwork) are attributed to both male and female scientists. Nevertheless, textual and image analyses reveal that some differences remain in the treatment of male and female subjects, particularly in the unequal focus on combining family and career. This research identifies progress in media representations of scientists in comparison to previous studies. However, there is still room for improvement, especially in the representation of scientists from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.

News value theory rates geographical proximity as an important factor in the process of issue selection by journalists. But does this apply to science journalism? Previous observational studies investigating whether newspapers preferentially cover scientific studies involving national scientists have generated conflicting answers. Here we used a database of 123 biomedical studies, 113 of them involving at least one research team working in eight countries (Australia, Canada, France, Ireland, Japan, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States). We compiled all the newspaper articles covering these 123 studies and published in English, French, and Japanese languages. In all eight countries, we found that newspapers preferentially covered studies involving a national team. Moreover, these “national” studies on average gave rise to a larger number of newspaper articles than “foreign” studies. Finally, our study resolves the conflict with previous conclusions by providing an alternative interpretation of published observations.

In this study, we explore the effect of diversity among people who share a story about a scientific discovery, on the recipient’s credibility assessment regarding that story. The data used in this study were gathered in two phases. Initial data were collected through the Twitter application program interface. The data were then used in an experimental setting: We manipulated the level of diversity of real-life Twitter followings, supposedly retweeting a story to our participants (n = 274). Each of our participants was then asked to complete a paper-based survey. Our findings show that social diversity can enhance the perceived credibility of a shared item. This effect is amplified among individuals with high digital literacy, as well as individuals with high need for cognition. The study offers a deeper understanding of credibility assessment mechanisms within Twitter and other social networking sites.

In this work, using experiments, we investigate the role of the name of a technology on the informed evaluation of that technology. We argue that a name can influence interpretations by activating cognitive structures. Using genomics-accelerated breeding as a case, we show that the name ‘genomics’ makes people evaluate related information as similar to genetic modification. Replacing the name ‘genomics’ with ‘natural crossing’ causes evaluations similar to those for traditional breeding. The results show that a name can have a strong influence on public attitudes, and we call for more consideration in choosing a name for a technology.

Research has shown that the form and content of science communications can influence individuals’ responses. This study examines whether individuals’ perceptions of scientific research are influenced by the discipline to which the research is attributed. Two vignette experiments find that neither the perceived scientific-ness nor trustworthiness of a study originating from sociology is affected by attributing the study to a different social science or to a natural or medical science. These null findings contrast with surveys showing sizable disciplinary differences in public attitudes. It is possible that disciplinary attribution is a less salient cognitive shortcut when presented in longer communications as compared to survey questions that only provide the name of a discipline. We conclude with suggestions for further research on the role of disciplinary attribution on public perceptions of science.