Genesis or Evolution of Gender Differences? Worldview-based Dilemmas in The Processing of Scientific Information

Abstract

Some issues that have been settled by the scientific community, such as evolution, the effectiveness of vaccinations, and the role of CO2 emissions in climate change, continue to be rejected by segments of the public. This rejection is typically driven by people's worldviews, and to date most research has found that conservatives are uniformly more likely to reject scientific findings than liberals across a number of domains. We report a large (N>1,000) preregistered study that addresses two questions: First, can we find science denial on the left?Endorsement of pseudoscientific complementary and alternative medicines (CAM) has been anecdotally cited as being more consonant with liberals than conservatives. Against this claim, we found more support for CAM among conservatives than liberals. Second, we asked how liberals and conservatives resolve dilemmas in which an issue triggers two opposing facets of their worldviews. We probed attitudes on gender equality and the evolution of sex differences---two constructs that may create conflicts for liberals (who endorse evolution but also equality) and conservatives (who endorse gender differences but are sceptical of evolution). We find that many conservatives reject both gender equality and evolution of sex differences, and instead embrace ``naturally occurring'' gender differences. Many liberals, by contrast, reject evolved gender differences, as well as naturally occurring gender differences, while nonetheless strongly endorsing evolution.

Corrections of political misinformation: no evidence for an effect of partisan worldview in a US convenience sample

“…However, this presents future research with a conundrum, because a number of studies have now aimed but failed to find rejection of scientific evidence on the left (e.g. [78][79][80]). For example, Lewandowsky et al [80] reported that vaccine-hesitancy and endorsement of alternative medicine-both anecdotally associated with a liberal worldview-were in fact more prevalent in right-wing libertarians and conservatives.…”

“…[78][79][80]). For example, Lewandowsky et al [80] reported that vaccine-hesitancy and endorsement of alternative medicine-both anecdotally associated with a liberal worldview-were in fact more prevalent in right-wing libertarians and conservatives. Based on additional evidence from a task that required reasoning about scientific evidence 'dilemmas' that featured both worldview-consistent and inconsistent aspects, Lewandowsky et al concluded that partisans on both ends of the spectrum show biased processing of evidence, but that science denial was nevertheless a mainstay of the political right.…”