By Joop de Boer and Harry Aiking.
Photo credit: Unsplash
“Viruses have been produced in government laboratories to control our freedom”.
Conspiratorial anti-science beliefs such as the previous statement mix two related categories of unwarranted beliefs and attitudes: That of conspiratorial ideas and that of anti-science attitudes. The very existence and diffusion of such beliefs highlights an opposition between “the common people” versus “the social elite,” including academics, scholars, and experts, but this opposition shows itself in a variety of ways.
The beliefs combine a mistreatment of the people with an image of science that seriously contradicts the cultural values of intellectual autonomy, egalitarianism, and commitments to the welfare of others. In European countries, the importance of these values is associated with national wealth and women’s political representation. Hence, characteristics of both individuals and countries are important to clarify the responses to the beliefs.
Our work
In this blog post, we present some results of our work. We used survey data, gathered from 37,079 citizens in 38 European countries in Spring 2021, to clarify their responses to conspiratorial anti-science beliefs. Our survey showed that degrees of public opposition or support for these beliefs are related to a number of factors.
Opposition or support was determined by an individual’s science-specific knowledge, preferred science communication sources, social evaluations of scientists and attitudes toward science products (e.g. vaccines), and general individual characteristics – including, degrees of political (dis)satisfaction, religiosity and spirituality, and years of education. Also playing a role are contextual differences between countries associated with indicators of national cultural values (national wealth and women’s political representation).
Salient result
Although the survey was not intended to measure effects of the COVID pandemic, we find that the citizens’ recent pandemic experiences play an important role. The specific association between citizens’ responses to conspiratorial anti-science beliefs and their attitude towards vaccines is much stronger in higher-income countries than in medium- and lower-income countries.
Those who have positive expectations about the impacts of vaccines are more often than the others opposed to conspiratorial anti-science beliefs. This may reflect their recent experiences and is in line with the cultural values of intellectual autonomy and egalitarianism in their countries. On the other hand, there is some support for the beliefs from those who anticipate negative effects of vaccines, often in association with political dissatisfaction. The latter is present in almost every country, be it to a different degree.
Implications
Our survey results highlight the fact that many citizens have an adequate level of scientific literacy to understand what’s going on in the world. However, their attitudes and cultural values are also important.
Countries where the opposition to conspiratorial anti-science beliefs is low are vulnerable to the consequences of future exposure to false information. For a number of countries across Europe, this prospect is a real reason for concern.
Although the evidence is based primarily on statistical associations, the negativity towards science can be avoided by consistent policies and actions that highlight the rationality of science as a source of orientation and legitimization for societal change. These policies also need to be responsive to the needs of all citizens. Finally, it would likely be helpful if politicians themselves had a better understanding of science.
Read the original article: Citizens and conspiratorial anti-science beliefs: Opposition versus support in 38 countries across Europe
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Joop de Boer (social psychologist) is retired but continues to work as guest researcher at the Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM-VU) in Amsterdam. In this context of multidisciplinary research teams, he has worked on a variety of themes, including risk communication, emerging technologies, such as new applications of biotechnology, and culturally sensitive food issues, such as the partial replacement of animal protein by plant protein. Much of his work was written in close collaboration with his natural science colleague Harry Aiking.
Harry Aiking, with an MSc in biochemistry and a PhD in microbiology, worked as a research associate at Indiana University in Bloomington, USA. Subsequently, he became a KWF (Royal Dutch Cancer Fund) Fellow at the Central Blood Bank Laboratory in Amsterdam before joining IVM-VU. There, he has been leading dozens of multidisciplinary projects on the interface of natural and social sciences. He has been Advisor to the Dutch Attorney General in cases of industrial soil pollution 1987–2014 and a European Registered Toxicologist (ERT) 1997–2018. During 1999–2005, he led the Dutch Research Council (NWO) program PROFETAS (Protein Foods, Environment, Technology And Society). After his formal retirement from the Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM-VU) in 2014, he remains affiliated as an associate professor.