Summary by James R. Martin, Ph.D., CMA
Professor Emeritus, University of South Florida
Behavioral Issues and Culture Main |
Political Issues Main
The authors begin by saying that changing antiscience thinking requires overcoming a set of ingrained cognitive biases. The purpose of this paper is to discuss three types of obstacles or biases that stand in the way of clear scientific thought, and to provide some recommendations for countering their effects.
Three Key Obstacles or Biases
People engage in antiscience thinking because of three key obstacles or biases that include shortcuts or heuristics, confirmation bias, and social pressure and goals.
1. Shortcuts or Heuristics
Most people tend to rely on mental shortcuts or simple heuristics such as pronouncements of experts, or group consensus to develop and support an attitude. The authors use the term authority heuristic to describe how we are influenced by the opinions of doctors, or other professionals.
2. Confirmation Bias
Confirmation bias refers to the idea that people pay selective attention to information that supports their preexisting viewpoint.1 Studies of six issues (climate change, gun control, healthcare reform, immigration, nuclear power, and same-sex marriage) have shown that conservatives are more distrustful of scientific evidence than liberals. If a cursory inspection of the information supported a person's preexisting view, they would accept the information without additional evidence. On the other hand, if a cursory view of the information contradicted a person's beliefs, they tended to study the information more carefully searching for information that indicated the opposite view.
3. Social Pressure and Goals
Social pressure and goals provides motivation to conform to the group consensus. Nonconformity can be emotionally painful. Fear, sexual motives, and other social goals also tend to shape a person's views.
What to Do
Simple interventions are recommended as a way to counter shortcuts and heuristics. For example, providing more information and sufficient time for a person to switch from a heuristic to a systematic mode of thinking has been found to help counter anti-science thinking.
Confirmation bias can be overcome by changing a person's perspective, i.e., ask them to play the devils advocate.
Counteracting social pressures to conform to group opinion might be accomplished by finding someone in a group that disagrees with the consensus. This causes the consensus to break down.
Although the recommendations above provide relatively few ways of counteracting antiscience views, the authors indicate that there is a large amount of literature on persuasion and social influence that could be used for those who want to enhance their skills in this area.
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1 Hornsey and Fielding refer to this as motivated reasoning. See Hornsey, M. J. and K. S. Fielding. 2017. Attitude roots and Jiu Jitsu persuasion: Understanding and overcoming the motivated rejection of science. American Psychologist 72(5): 459-473. (Summary).
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