Public attitudes that are in opposition to scientific consensus can be disastrous and include rejection of vaccines and opposition to climate change mitigation policies. Five studies examine the interrelationships between opposition to expert consensus on controversial scientific issues, how much people actually know about these issues, and how much they think they know. Across seven critical issues that enjoy substantial scientific consensus, as well as attitudes toward COVID-19 vaccines and mitigation measures like mask wearing and social distancing, results indicate that those with the highest levels of opposition have the lowest levels of objective knowledge but the highest levels of subjective knowledge. Implications for scientists, policymakers, and science communicators are discussed.
Evans and Over (1996) made a seminal contribution to the cognitive sciences by describing two different routes humans take to reason toward their goals, one associated with intuition, the other with deliberation. We show how knowledge provided by our communities influences both routes. Many methods of outsourcing cognitive effort– taking advantage of information that one does not know but assumes that someone else can supply—show the hallmarks of intuitive reasoning. Effective outsourcing requires fast and efficient ways of identifying what must be outsourced, and which individual or group of people is most likely to have the relevant expertise. Research has identified several fallible heuristics like the degree of entrenchment of a term in a community of use that help people figure out what needs to be outsourced (content heuristics), and a different group of heuristics that allow us to find experts, for instance, through associations with certain environments and disciplines (expertise heuristics). In contrast, deliberation is primarily concerned with facilitating intentional collaboration with others toward joint goals, often using natural language. This division of labor between two interacting but distinct systems allows humans to leverage the representational and computational capacities of their communities to achieve ever more sophisticated goals.
We present a new framework that allows understanding those we deem irrational in the climate debate. Realizing if the issue is one of information, beliefs, values or means opens the door for more constructive dialogue. Decision-makers diverge in their responses to the urgent need for action on climate and biodiversity. Action gaps are fueled by the apparent inability of decision-makers to respond efficiently to the mounting threats described by scientists—and increasingly recognized by society. Surprisingly, with the growing evidence and the accumulation of firsthand experiences of the impacts of environment crises, the gap is not only a problem of conflicting values or beliefs but also a problem of inefficient strategies. Bridging the gap and tackling the growing polarization within society calls for decision-makers to engage with the full complexity of the issues the world is facing. We propose a framework characterizing five archetypes of decision-makers to help us out of the current impasse by better understanding the behavior of others. Dealing with the complexity of environmental threats requires decision-makers to question their understanding of who wins and who loses, and how others make decisions. This requires that decision-makers acknowledge complexity, embrace uncertainty, and avoid falling back on simplistic cognitive models. Understanding the complexity of the issue and how people make decisions is key to having a fighting chance of solving the climate crisis.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.