Who supports science-related populism? A nationally representative survey on the prevalence and explanatory factors of populist attitudes toward science in Switzerland

Abstract

Science and its epistemology have been challenged by science-related populism—a variant of populism suggesting that a virtuous “ordinary people,” and not allegedly corrupt academic elites, should determine the “production of truth.” Yet almost no studies have assessed the prevalence of science-related populist attitudes among the population and explanatory factors thereof. Based on a nationally representative survey in Switzerland, our study shows that only a minority of the Swiss exhibit science-related populist attitudes. Comparisons with reference studies suggest that these attitudes may be less prevalent in Switzerland than political populist attitudes. Those who hold stronger science-related populist attitudes tend to have no university education, less personal contact with science, lower scientific literacy, and higher interest in science. Additional analyses show that left-leaning citizens are less likely to hold science-related populist attitudes than moderate and right-leaning citizens. Our findings contribute to current debates about a potential fragmentation of science communication audiences and call for further research on the sociodemographic and attitudinal profiles of people with skeptical orientations toward science.

Anti-intellectualism amid the COVID-19 pandemic: The discursive elements and sources of anti-Fauci tweets

“…In other countries with lower affective polarization and high positive public views on science (e.g. Switzerland) ( Mede et al, 2022 ), questioning the knowledge of scientists may be more prevalent than questioning their motivation in anti-intellectual discourse. As Merkley (2020) pointed out, anti-intellectualism is also related to several other reasons, such as religious fundamentalism, ideology, and individual characteristics (such as the tendency for rational thinking).…”

“…Science-related populism has three key components: people-scientist antagonism, science-related decision-making sovereignty, and truth-speaking sovereignty ( Mede and Schäfer, 2020 : 473). Although science-related populism and anti-intellectualism both distrust and dislike academic elites, decision-making sovereignty and truth-speaking sovereignty are prerequisites for science-related populism conceptually ( Mede et al, 2022 ). Therefore, we adapted from science-related populist components and proposed three discursive elements as the key components of anti-intellectual discourses: people-scientist antagonism, delegitimizing the motivation, and the knowledge of scientists.…”

Perceptions of Science, Science Communication, and Climate Change Attitudes in 68 Countries: The TISP Dataset

“…There are different ways to aggregate responses to the eight items of the SciPop Scale 24 into a single score that indicates affinity or opposition to science-related populism, such as taking the average of all response values ("Bollen approach") or classifying participants as populist vs. non-populist based on their responses ("Sartori approach") 80 . The authors of the SciPop Scale recommend the "Goertz approach" 81 .…”

“…This approach suggests that the smallest of the four dimension scores determines someone's net support for science-related populism, regardless of the magnitude of the other three dimension scores. It accounts for the conceptual premise that all components of science-related populism have to be concurrently present within a person to diagnose science-related populist attitudes, whereas the absence of one or more components would disqualify someone to be classified as a proponent of science-related populism (see Mede et al 80 and Wuttke et al 81 for more details). The Goertz approach has thus become a preferred procedure in research on both science-related and political populism 11,[82][83][84] .…”

What if some people just do not like science? How personality traits relate to attitudes towards science

“…Science attitudes refer broadly to attitudes about science and technology, interest in science, and perceptions of the societal role of science. A broad range of attitudinal constructs have been proposed and investigated through the history of the Public Understanding of Science literature, from the classic measure of promise of science (Miller et al, 1997), to recent developments in trustworthiness of scientists (Besley et al, 2021;Hendriks et al, 2015;Reif & Guenther, 2021) and science-related populism (Mede et al, 2022). Existing knowledge on how personality traits affect science attitudes is, however, scant.…”