The ideological basis of antiscientific attitudes: Effects of authoritarianism, conservatism, religiosity, social dominance, and system justification
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13 septembre 2021
- ISIDORE Id: 10670/1.373567...
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Group Processes & Intergroup Relations -- 1368-4302 -- 1461-7188
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ , public , info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
Mots-clés
article ScholarlyArticle ddc:300 ddc:150 authoritarianism political ideology scientific attitudes social dominance system justification trust in expertiseSujets proches
Conservativism Right (Political science) Neo-conservatism New RightCiter ce document
Bastiaan T. Rutjens et al., « The ideological basis of antiscientific attitudes: Effects of authoritarianism, conservatism, religiosity, social dominance, and system justification », Digitale Bibliothek Thüringen, ID : 10670/1.373567...
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Résumé
Serious concerns about public distrust of scientific experts and the spread of misinformation are growing in the US and elsewhere. To gauge ideological and psychological variability in attitudes toward science, we conducted an extensive analysis of public opinion data based on a nationally representative survey of U.S. adults ( N = 1,500) and a large replication sample ( N = 2,119). We estimated the unique effects of partisanship, symbolic and operational forms of political ideology, right-wing authoritarianism (RWA), social dominance orientation (SDO), and general system justification (GSJ), after adjusting for demographic factors. Multiverse analyses revealed that (a) conservatism and SDO were significant predictors of distrust of climate science in > 99.9% of model specifications, with conservatism accounting for 80% of the total variance; (b) conservatism, RWA, religiosity, (male) sex, (low) education, (low) income, and distrust of climate science were significant predictors of skepticism about science in general (vs. faith) in > 99.9% of model specifications; (c) conservatism, RWA, (low) education, and distrust of climate science were significant predictors of trust in ordinary people (over scientific experts) > 99.9% of the time; and (d) GSJ was a significant predictor of trust in scientific experts (over ordinary people) 81% of the time, after adjusting for all other demographic and ideological factors. Implications for the role of science in democratic society are discussed.
