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Association for Consumer Research ASSOCIATION FOR CONSUMER RESEARCH Association for Consumer Research, University of Minnesota Duluth, 115 Chester Park, 31 West College Street Duluth, MN 55812 Emotion, Scientific Reasoning, and Judgments of Scientific Evidence Caitlin Drummond, University of Michigan, USA Baruch Fischhoff, Carnegie Mellon University, USA We examine how consumers’ ability to reason about and emotional reactions to scientific evidence relate to their judgments of it. In an online study, reasoning ability and emotional reactions to controversial research separately predicted understanding of it, judgments of its quality, and trust in the scientists who conducted it. [to cite]: Caitlin Drummond and Baruch Fischhoff (2018) ,"Emotion, Scientific Reasoning, and Judgments of Scientific Evidence", in NA - Advances in Consumer Research Volume 46, eds. Andrew Gershoff, Robert Kozinets, and Tiffany White, Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 115-120. [url]: http://www.acrwebsite.org/volumes/2412349/volumes/v46/NA-46 [copyright notice]: This work is copyrighted by The Association for Consumer Research. For permission to copy or use this work in whole or in part, please contact the Copyright Clearance Center at http://www.copyright.com/. Consuming Science: Knowledge, Acceptance, and Judgements of Scientific Information and Technology Chairs: Nicholas Light, University of Colorado Boulder, USA Philip Fernbach, University of Colorado Boulder, USA Paper #1: A Taxonomy of Opposition to Genetically Modified naturalness, or acceptability in Christian doctrine. These findings Foods suggest that attitudes are based on the moralization of GM foods. Philip Fernbach, University of Colorado Boulder, USA In the third paper, the authors examine how consumers’ ability Nicholas Light, University of Colorado Boulder, USA to reason about—and emotional reactions to—scientific evidence re- late to their judgments. They find that reasoning ability and emotion- Paper #2: Moral Arguments Are Most Persuasive in Changing al reactions to controversial research separately predicts understand- Attitudes of Opponents of Genetically Modified Foods ing, judgments of quality, and trust in the scientists who conducted it. Sydney E. Scott, Washington University in St. Louis, USA In the final paper, the authors explore whether people judge Yoel Inbar, University of Toronto, Canada electricity differently due to its generating source. They demonstrate Paul Rozin, University of Pennsylvania, USA a bias among participants’ evaluations of renewable versus non-re- Paper #3: Emotion, Scientific Reasoning, and Judgments of newable electricity in hypothetical scenarios, when observing light in Scientific Evidence a dark or lit room, and when physically experiencing electric shocks. Caitlin Drummond, University of Michigan, USA With this session, we hope to bring the topic of public accep- Baruch Fischhoff, Carnegie Mellon University, USA tance of science into the field of consumer research, and we believe Paper #4: Green Biases: Consumer Evaluations of Renewable the field is uniquely positioned to take it on. With science, consump- and Non-Renewable Energy Sources tion has heightened societal and commercial importance. We believe Nathan Dhaliwal, University of British Columbia, Canada the session fits well with this year’s conference theme, “Consuming David J. Hardisty, University of British Columbia, Canada in a Post Trust World,” because of clear implications for trust in sci- Jiaying Zhao, University of British Columbia, Canada ence and scientists. The proposed session will appeal to researchers interested in judgement and decision making, policy, consumer well- SESSION OVERVIEW being, emotions, morality, and metacognition. Scientists work to develop knowledge or technologies that can improve the world. In order to have an impact, scientific advance- A Taxonomy of Opposition to Genetically Modified Foods ments must be adopted—or at least tacitly supported—by the people they are designed to help. However, some people oppose scientific EXTENDED ABSTRACT advancements that could objectively improve their lives, despite a Public discourse today is unsettling, either insular or excessive- clear scientific consensus to the contrary. ly hostile. Some people maintain vociferous, unshakeable attitudes The proposed session explores two broad research questions: about complex issues that they do not understand deeply (Caplan, 1. What are the psychological underpinnings of acceptance 2011). Nowhere is this more apparent than in disputes around divi- of—or opposition to—scientific information and technolo- sive scientific topics. In this work, we build on evidence that many gies? people have strong, enduring attitudes about genetically modified 2. What interventions can be designed to successfully bring foods despite a remarkably shallow understanding of the mecha- consumers closer to the scientific consensus? nisms at play (National Science Board, 2016; Ranney, 2016). There There is a growing body of literature examining public attitudes is widespread agreement among scientists that genetically modified toward science. For instance, opposition to scientific information and (GM) foods are safe to consume (AAAS 2012; European Commis- technologies has been attributed to lack of scientific literacy (Ran- sion 2010) and have the potential to provide substantial benefits to ney and Clark 2016), perceptions of unnaturalness (Scott, Inbar, and humankind (Sharma, Kaur, and Singh 2017). Rozin 2016), fears about health risks (Laros and Steenkamp 2004), The conventional account of this failure to communicate, the and values espoused by individuals’ social groups (Kahan, Jenkins- “deficit model,” appeals to lack of information (Bodmer, 1986): The Smith, and Braman 2011). idea is that people are too ignorant to appreciate counter-arguments, Our session contains four papers that build on this work to shed ignorance leads to reliance on loud voices, which in turn leads to new light on the consumption of science in the domains of geneti- polarization and failure to understand. The standard method to try cally modified food, renewable energy, and the perceived causes of to overcome these deficits is to use education to change attitudes. cancer. Each paper offers evidence to identify anti-science biases, Recently, however, the deficit model has been challenged on the judgments, beliefs, emotions, and behaviors. grounds that educational efforts rarely work (Miller, 2001). In the first paper, the authors set out to taxonomize the psycho- One critical element that governs discourse but is not a focus logical underpinnings of opposition to genetically modified foods. of the deficit model is that people are not merely ignorant, but they Using open-ended participant responses, they find five dominant lay often fail to realize their ignorance. Asking people to try to explain reasons. They experimentally test mechanisms related to these un- how a policy works causes them to not only reduce their estimate of derlying psychologies, and end by suggesting differential interven- their own understanding (Rozenblit and Keil, 2002), but also to mod- tions tailored to each. erate the extremity of their attitude. In other words, causal explana- In the second paper, the authors take a different approach to the tion causes people to become aware that they don’t fully understand, same problem. They examine which types of arguments cause oppo- reducing both hubris and extremism (Fernbach et al., 2013; Sloman nents of genetically modified foods to change their minds. Moral ar- & Fernbach, 2017). guments shift opponents’ attitudes more than arguments about safety, This ignorance and lack of awareness suggests that opposition to genetically modified foods may be caused or exacerbated by gaps Advances in Consumer Research 115 Volume 46, ©2018 116 / Consuming Science: Knowledge, Acceptance, and Judgements of Scientific Information and Technology between subjective and objective knowledge. It also suggests that • Social or political concerns (17 participants) people may have specific false beliefs or unfounded concerns that • Unintelligible responses (55 participants) can be targeted with specific interventions (as opposed to broad edu- This taxonomy suggests that the psychology of GM food op- cation efforts). position is complex. Therefore it is not surprising that “one size fits In our first study, we surveyed a nationally-representative sam- all” educational interventions have not been successful in mitigating ple of U.S. adults (N = 501) to test if subjective-objective knowl- the prevalence of false, anti-science beliefs. Taken together, these edge gaps contribute to GM food opposition. Participants were first studies suggest that more specific interventions, tailored to different asked two questions to measure attitudes: extremity of opposition to psychological concerns, may be more effective at decreasing con- genetically modified foods (1 = no opposition, 7 = extreme opposi- cern about and opposition to genetically modified foods. They also tion), and concern (1 = no concern, 7 = extreme concern). Responses suggest that calibration of subjective and objective knowledge may to these two questions were highly correlated (r=.88), and we av- play an important role in opponents’ openness to educational inter- eraged them to form a measure we call “extremity of opposition”. ventions—if those who know the least think they know the most, Next, participants were asked to judge their understanding of GM they may be unwilling to engage
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