A Darkening Spring: How Preexisting Distrust Shaped COVID-19 Skepticism

Despite widespread communication of the health risks associated with the COVID-19 virus, many Americans underestimated its risks and were antagonistic regarding preventative measures. Political partisanship has been linked to diverging attitudes towards the virus, but the cognitive processes underlying this divergence remain unclear. Bayesian models fit to data gathered through two preregistered, online surveys administered before (March 13, 2020, N = 850) and during the first-wave (April-May, 2020, N = 1610) of cases in the United States, reveal two preexisting forms of distrust––distrust in Democratic politicians and in medical scientists––that drove initial skepticism about the virus. During the first-wave of cases, additional factors came into play, suggesting that skeptical attitudes became more deeply embedded within a complex network of auxiliary beliefs. These findings highlight how mechanisms that enhance cognitive coherence can drive anti-science attitudes.

Stakes of Knowing the Truth: A Motivational Perspective on the Popularity of a Controversial Scientific Theory

The aim of this article is to provide a different perspective on people's beliefs regarding controversial scientific information. We emphasize that, although people generally aim at getting a fair representation of reality, accuracy about scientific issues only matters to the extent that individuals perceive it as useful to achieve their own goals. This has important consequences in terms of how anti-science attitudes as well as epistemically questionable beliefs must be interpreted, which has consequences for addressing misinformation. We argue that most people who endorse scientific misinformation are not truly interested in its accuracy, and rather that plausibility at face value often suffices when it is meant to be used for social purposes only. We illustrate this view with the example of hydroxychloroquine, which was considered as potential treatment for Covid-19, and which has been the subject of much media hype and public concern, particularly in France.

Socioeconomic Correlates of Anti-Science Attitudes in the US

Successful responses to societal challenges require sustained behavioral change. However, as responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in the US showed, political partisanship and mistrust of science can reduce public willingness to adopt recommended behaviors such as wearing a mask or receiving a vaccination. To better understand this phenomenon, we explored attitudes toward science using social media posts (tweets) that were linked to counties in the US through their locations. The data allowed us to study how attitudes towards science relate to the socioeconomic characteristics of communities in places from which people tweet. Our analysis revealed three types of communities with distinct behaviors: those in large metro centers, smaller urban places, and rural areas. While partisanship and race are strongly associated with the share of anti-science users across all communities, income was negatively and positively associated with anti-science attitudes in suburban and rural areas, respectively. We observed that emotions in tweets, specifically negative high arousal emotions, are expressed among suburban and rural communities by many anti-science users, but not in communities in large urban places. These trends were not apparent when pooled across all counties. In addition, we found that anti-science attitudes expressed five years earlier were significantly associated with lower COVID-19 vaccination rates. Our analysis demonstrates the feasibility of using spatially resolved social media data to monitor public attitudes on issues of social importance.

Associations between conspiracism and the rejection of scientific innovations

Public opinion regarding scientific developments such as genetically modified food can be mixed. We suggest such science-based technological innovations are rejected by some because they are perceived to be advanced as part of a conspiracy. In nationally representative samples (Australia n = 1011; New Zealand n = 754), we report the associations between five conspiracism facets and anti-science attitudes. Results indicate broad public opposition to genetically modified food and use of nuclear power, but more acceptance of renewable power, potable recycled water, 5G networks, and childhood vaccinations. There were small to moderate associations between the rejection of scientific innovations and conspiracism. Multivariate models estimating unique associations of conspiracism facets with anti-science attitudes suggested several novel and important relationships, particularly for childhood vaccination, genetically modified food, and 5G networks. We discuss the importance of examining factors such as conspiracism in understanding what may motivate and sustain rejection of scientific evidence-based claims about socially contentious technological innovations.

Emotion and humor as misinformation antidotes

Many visible public debates over scientific issues are clouded in accusations of falsehood, which place increasing demands on citizens to distinguish fact from fiction. Yet, constraints on our ability to detect misinformation coupled with our inadvertent motivations to believe false science result in a high likelihood that we will form misperceptions. As science falsehoods are often presented with emotional appeals, we focus our perspective on the roles of emotion and humor in the formation of science attitudes, perceptions, and behaviors. Recent research sheds light on how funny science and emotions can help explain and potentially overcome our inability or lack of motivation to recognize and challenge misinformation. We identify some lessons learned from these related and growing areas of research and conclude with a brief discussion of the ethical considerations of using persuasive strategies, calling for more dialogue among members of the science communication community.

Associations Between Conspiracism and the Rejection of Scientific Innovations

Public opinion regarding scientific developments such as genetically modified (GM) food can be mixed. We suggest such science-based technological innovations are rejected by some because they are perceived to be advanced as part of a conspiracy. In nationally representative samples (Australia n=1,011; New Zealand n=754) we report the associations between five conspiracism facets and anti-science attitudes. Results indicate broad public opposition to GM food and use of nuclear power, but more acceptance of renewable power, potable recycled water, 5G networks, and childhood vaccinations. There were small to moderate associations between the rejection of scientific innovations and conspiracism. Multivariate models estimating unique associations of conspiracism facets with anti-science attitudes suggested several novel and important relationships, particularly for childhood vaccination, GM food, and 5G networks. We discuss the importance of examining factors such as conspiracism in understanding what may motivate and sustain rejection of scientific evidence-based claims about socially contentious technological innovations.

Examining the relationship between gene editing knowledge, value predispositions, and general science attitudes among U.S. farmers, scientists, policymakers, and the general public

Science communication scholars have debated over what factors are related to public support for science and technology. This study examines the relationship between factual knowledge of gene editing technologies, value predispositions, and general science attitudes among four major U.S. agricultural stakeholder groups: farmers, scientists, policymakers, and the general public. Understanding these factors will aid in guiding message strategies for engagement with stakeholder groups. Findings indicate that gene editing knowledge was positively associated with science attitudes for all four groups, while conservative ideology was negatively associated with science attitudes among three of the groups. Implications and limitations are discussed.

Political Partisanship and Anti-Science Attitudes in Online Discussions about COVID-19 (Preprint)

BACKGROUND The novel coronavirus pandemic continues to ravage communities across the US. Opinion surveys identified importance of political ideology in shaping perceptions of the pandemic and compliance with preventive measures. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to measure political partisanship and anti-science attitudes in the discussions about the pandemic on social media, as well as their geographic and temporal distribution. METHODS We analyze a large set of tweets related to the pandemic collected between January and May of 2020 and develop methods to classify the ideological alignment of users along the moderacy (hardline vs moderate), political (liberal vs conservative) and science (anti-science vs pro-science) dimensions. RESULTS We find that polarization along the science and political dimensions are correlated. Moreover, politically moderate users are more aligned with the pro-science views, while hardline users are more aligned with anti-science views. Contrary to expectations, we do not find that polarization grows over time; instead, we see increasing activity by moderate pro-science users. We also show that anti-science conservatives tend to tweet from the Southern and Northwestern US, while anti-science moderates from the Western states. The proportion of anti-science conservatives are found to correlate with COVID-19 cases. CONCLUSIONS Our findings shed light on the multi-dimensional nature of polarization, and the feasibility of tracking polarized opinions about the pandemic across time and space through social media data.