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The Problem of European Misperceptions in Politics, Health, and Science: Causes, Consequences, and the Search for Solutions

Objective

While some people may simply lack relevant factual knowledge, others may actively hold incorrect beliefs. These factual beliefs that are not supported by clear evidence and expert opinion are what scholars call misperceptions (Nyhan and Reifler 2010). This project is principally about misperceptions—the “facts” that people believe that simply are not true. What misperceptions do Europeans hold on issues like immigration, vaccines, and climate change? Who holds these misperceptions? What demographic and attitudinal variables are correlated with holding misperceptions? And ultimately, what can be done to help reduce misperceptions?

Misperceptions are an important topic for study because they distort public preferences and outcomes. This research program investigating misperceptions is currently at the state of the art in political science. To date, only a handful of published studies by political scientists have examined how corrective information changes underlying factual beliefs. The results of these studies are uniformly troubling—among those vulnerable to holding a given misperception, corrective efforts often make misperceptions worse or decrease the likelihood to engage in desired behaviors.

This ambitious project has three primary objectives. First, the project will assess levels of misperceptions in Europe on three specific issues (immigration, vaccines, and climate change) that represent three different substantive domains of knowledge (politics, health, and science). Second, the project will examine a variety of approaches and techniques for combatting misperceptions and generating effective corrections. Third, the project will take what is learned from the first two stages and transmit the findings back to relevant academic and policy-maker audiences in order to aid policy design and communication efforts on important policy issues.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/euroscivoc.

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Keywords

Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)

Programme(s)

Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.

Topic(s)

Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.

Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

ERC-COG - Consolidator Grant

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Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) ERC-2015-CoG

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Host institution

THE UNIVERSITY OF EXETER
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 1 931 730,00
Address
THE QUEEN'S DRIVE NORTHCOTE HOUSE
EX4 4QJ Exeter
United Kingdom

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Region
South West (England) Devon Devon CC
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
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Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 1 931 730,00

Beneficiaries (1)

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