Developing and Testing the Psychological Distance to Science Model

Project Information

PSYDISC

Grant agreement ID: 849125

DOI

10.3030/849125

Project closed

EC signature date 15 January 2020

Start date 1 February 2020

End date 30 June 2025

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)

Total cost

€ 1 500 000,00

EU contribution

€ 1 500 000,00

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITEIT VAN AMSTERDAM
Netherlands

Periodic Reporting for period 4 - PSYDISC (Developing and Testing the Psychological Distance to Science Model)

Reporting period: 2024-08-01 to 2025-06-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Why do some people refute the reality of climate change, reject evolution, or display an unwillingness to get vaccinated? Public rejection of science represents one of the key societal challenges of the 21st century. Even though research on trust in science has been rapidly developing in recent years, state-of-the art understanding of psychological factors contributing to science skepticism remains somewhat fragmented and limited. Antecedents and domains of science skepticism are often studied in isolation, which renders comparison across science domains difficult. Moreover, many of the established antecedents of science skepticism are unmalleable individual difference factors such as ideological or religious beliefs. The current project aims to establish and test Psychological Distance to Science (PSYDISC) as a theory-informed construct that helps explain science rejection across science domains. Psychological distance to science refers to perceptions of science as a distant endeavor that is irrelevant to daily life. The central proposition of the project is that perceived psychological distance to science contributes to science rejection across various science domains. Using surveys, experiments, and field studies, the project results show that bringing science closer to the individual improves trust in science.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The project team has constructed and validated the PSYDISC scale, which captures individual differences in psychological distance to science. The PSYDISC scale showed excellent predictive validity in relation to science rejection. More specifically, after accounting for demographics and various ideological and knowledge predictors, PSYDISC predicted significant additional variance for climate change, vaccination, evolution, GM foods, and genetic editing skepticism. PSYDISC scores also predicted behavioral outcomes, namely COVID-19 vaccination status.

The team has also conducted several experimental studies in which PSYDISC was experimentally manipulated across various science domains. The results consistently show that reducing PSYDISC leads to lower science rejection.

Furthmore, the team has set up a research line exploring stereotypes about scientists and how these shape trust. Building on various social evaluation models, results show that perceptions of competence but particularly morality emerged as the most important predictors of trust, which in turn increased the willingness to grant scientists influence in tackling societal problems. Using a data-driven approach, this research line also finds that there are substantial differences in stereotypes of scientists across various scientific disciplines.

These results have resulted in various scientific articles and conference presentations by the team members. Two recent review articles - published in Advances in Experimental Social Psychology and Trends in Cognitive Sciences - summarize the results of the project. The results have also been shared with various societal stakeholders, including science communication professionals, high school teachers, science museums, and the Dutch Royal Academy of the Sciences. The PI has participated in panels and advisory boards and has written various op-ed pieces on trust in science. It has also sparked an interdisciplinary PhD project co-led by the PI in which the project results are applied to the context of citizen science projects.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The results of the project attest to the viability of PSYDISC as a construct that helps to understand and predict science rejection across domains. Moreover, the experimental evidence shows that PSYDSC can also be utilized as a tool to improve public trust in science. Finally, the team has recently performed a large-scale replication of the PSYDISC scale in Germany and The Netherlands, and we are currently analyzing and writing up the results of projects investigating A) the impact of repeated exposure to proximate science messages and B) the interaction of scientist stereotypes and social distance to science in shaping attitudes toward scientists.

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