Threatening experts: Correlates of viewing scientists as a social threat.

Despite widespread trust in scientists, efforts to curtail their influence suggest some Americans distrust scientists and may even perceive them to be a social threat. Using panel survey data, we examine who holds this viewpoint and potential implications of threat perceptions. Results suggest Republicans and Evangelical identifying individuals perceived more social threat from scientists. News media uses were associated with threat perceptions in divergent ways. Threat perceptions were strongly associated with inaccurate science beliefs, support for excluding scientists from policy-making, and retributive actions toward scientists. Findings highlight the importance of social identity considerations amid concerns about partisan social sorting and politicization of science.

How Different Uses of Social Media Inform Perceptions of Offline Social Norms and Changes in Vaccine Intentions.

As the boundaries between our online and offline lives are increasingly blurred, it is important to attend to the ways in which online behaviors shape our offline perceptions and actions. While a great deal of health communication research has examined the effects of exposure to specific social media content, it is also important to investigate how broader patterns of everyday social media use may affect perceptions of health norms and behaviors in different ways. In this panel survey, we explored how using social media for informational, connection, and aspirational purposes affected perceptions of COVID-19 vaccination norms and changes in vaccine intentions between December 2020 and March 2021 in the US Using social media to seek information and to connect with others positively influenced vaccine intentions via strengthening perceptions of offline social norms supporting vaccination. These findings highlight how social media use is integrated with and informs our offline lives, as well as the important role apolitical social media use plays in shaping attitudes toward politicized science.

Conversion messages and attitude change: Strong arguments, not costly signals.

A conversion narrative recounts the process that led the speaker to reject one belief for a different, usually incompatible, alternative. However, researchers know little about whether, when, and, if so, how such messages affect audience attitudes about controversial science. Using a general US population-sample experiment, we assessed the attitudinal impact of three versions of a statement by Mark Lynas, an environmental activist who converted from opposing to championing genetically modified crops. Participants were exposed to (1) a one-sided pro-genetically modified message by Lynas, (2) a two-sided pro-genetically modified message in which Lynas indicates but does not detail his conversion, or (3) a two-sided pro-genetically modified message in which Lynas explains the process that prompted his conversion. We find that his conversion messages influenced attitudes by way of perceived argument strength, but not speaker credibility. This finding implies such messages induce greater elaboration, which may lead to durable attitudes that predict behavior.

Processing the papal encyclical through perceptual filters: Pope Francis, identity-protective cognition, and climate change concern.

Previous research suggests that when individuals encounter new information, they interpret it through perceptual 'filters' of prior beliefs, relevant social identities, and messenger credibility. In short, evaluations are not based solely on message accuracy, but also on the extent to which the message and messenger are amenable to the values of one's social groups. Here, we use the release of Pope Francis's 2015 encyclical as the context for a natural experiment to examine the role of prior values in climate change cognition. Based on our analysis of panel data collected before and after the encyclical's release, we find that political ideology moderated views of papal credibility on climate change for those participants who were aware of the encyclical. We also find that, in some contexts, non-Catholics who were aware of the encyclical granted Pope Francis additional credibility compared to the non-Catholics who were unaware of it, yet Catholics granted the Pope high credibility regardless of encyclical awareness. Importantly, papal credibility mediated the conditional relationships between encyclical awareness and acceptance of the Pope's messages on climate change. We conclude by discussing how our results provide insight into cognitive processing of new information about controversial issues.

Using decision pathway surveys to inform climate engineering policy choices.

Over the coming decades citizens living in North America and Europe will be asked about a variety of new technological and behavioral initiatives intended to mitigate the worst impacts of climate change. A common approach to public input has been surveys whereby respondents' attitudes about climate change are explained by individuals' demographic background, values, and beliefs. In parallel, recent deliberative research seeks to more fully address the complex value tradeoffs linked to novel technologies and difficult ethical questions that characterize leading climate mitigation alternatives. New methods such as decision pathway surveys may offer important insights for policy makers by capturing much of the depth and reasoning of small-group deliberations while meeting standard survey goals including large-sample stakeholder engagement. Pathway surveys also can help participants to deepen their factual knowledge base and arrive at a more complete understanding of their own values as they apply to proposed policy alternatives. The pathway results indicate more fully the conditional and context-specific nature of support for several "upstream" climate interventions, including solar radiation management techniques and carbon dioxide removal technologies.