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Gateway belief model

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The gateway belief model (GBM) suggests that public perception of the degree of expert or scientific consensus on an issue functions as a so-called "gateway" cognition.[1][2] Perception of scientific agreement is suggested to be a key step towards acceptance of related beliefs.[3] Increasing the perception that there is normative agreement within the scientific community can increase individual support for an issue. A perception of disagreement may decrease support for an issue.[1][2]

Norm perception as a vehicle for social change

The basic mechanism of the gateway belief model involves realigning people's (mis)perception of the degree of group consensus with the factual degree of consensus. This parallels research in social psychology on leveraging norm-perception as a vehicle for social change.[4]

For example, early research[5] showed that college students frequently misperceive the social consensus on campus binge drinking. Through a method known as "estimate and reveal", social psychologists have attempted to reveal the discrepancy between students' subjective perceptions of the drinking norm among their peers and the actual norm (which is typically much lower). Social norm communication campaigns indeed evidence that increasing awareness of the actual drinking norm has positive subsequent impacts on students' own attitudes and behavior towards binge drinking.[6]

While excessive binge drinking is often harmful to the individual, large-scale societal misperceptions of scientific agreement on social dilemmas such as climate change or vaccines can be collectively harmful. When the consensus intervention involves experts rather than peers, the social influence process is referred to as obedience.[7]

Role of misinformation

The "sticky" nature of myths and the spread of misinformation is often cited as a major cause of public confusion over the nature of scientific consensus.[8][9][10] Prominent examples include autism-vaccine controversies,[11] the causal link between smoking and lung cancer[12] and the role of carbon dioxide emissions in driving global warming.[13][14]

People's perception of expert consensus has generally shown to be sensitive to anecdotal evidence and misinformation.[15][8][16] Vested-interest groups, sometimes referred to as "merchants of doubt",[14] deliberately try to undermine public understanding of the scientific consensus on these topics through organized disinformation campaigns.[17][15][8][16]

Other related concepts include the false-consensus effect[18] and pluralistic ignorance.

Other theories

The "cultural cognition of scientific consensus" thesis[19] advocated by Dan Kahan stands in contrast to the gateway belief model (GBM)[20] but has not been supported by empirical results.[21] The cultural cognition thesis suggests that people will credit or dismiss empirical evidence based on whether it coheres or conflicts with their cultural or political values, a process known as "identity-protective cognition".[10][20] Because people are committed to the types of beliefs that define their everyday socio-political relations, the cultural cognition thesis predicts that exposing people to consensus information on contested issues will therefore increase attitude polarization.[19]

The empirical results of the gateway belief model contradict the prediction of the "cultural cognition of scientific consensus".[21][22][23] Notably, an emphasis on scientific consensus does not backfire, and can reduce or neutralize belief polarization between (political) groups.[24][25][22][26][8][16] Related research has also shown that conveying scientific agreement can reduce directional motivated reasoning,[21][27] although other research on this topic has revealed more mixed results.[28][29][23]

One explanation for these findings is that changing beliefs about what other groups think (so-called "meta-beliefs") does not require a full and immediate adjustment of one's own worldview. Perceived consensus can therefore be seen as a "non-identity threatening" cognition,[30] especially when a norm is described among a neutral out-group (scientists).[21] Kahan has a notable on-going scholarly debate in the literature with van der Linden and Lewandowsky on the role of perceived consensus and cultural cognition.[10][22][31][32][33]

References

  1. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference Gundersen was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference Hulme was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Hope, Debra A.; Bevins, Rick A. (26 September 2018). Change and Maintaining Change. Springer. ISBN 978-3-319-96920-6.
  4. ^ Tankard, Margaret; Paluck, Betsy (2016). "Norm perception as a vehicle for social change". Social Issues and Policy Review. 10 (1): 181–211. doi:10.1111/sipr.12022. S2CID 13100893.
  5. ^ Prentice, Deborah; Miller, Dale (1993). "Pluralistic ignorance and alcohol use on campus: some consequences of misperceiving the social norm". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 64 (2): 243–256. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.64.2.243. PMID 8433272. S2CID 24004422.
  6. ^ Haines, Michael; Spear, Sherilynn (1996). "Changing the Perception of the Norm: A Strategy to Decrease Binge Drinking among College Students". American Journal of College Health. 45 (3): 134–140. doi:10.1080/07448481.1996.9936873. PMID 8952206.
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference Tom was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ a b c d van der Linden, Sander; Leiserowitz, Anthony; Rosenthal, Seth; Maibach, Ed (2017). "Inoculating the Public Against Misinformation About Climate Change". Global Challenges. 1 (2): 1600008. Bibcode:2017GloCh...100008V. doi:10.1002/gch2.201600008. PMC 6607159. PMID 31565263.
  9. ^ Lewandowsky, Stephan; Ecker, Ullrich; Seifert, Colleen; Schwarz, Norbert; Cook, John (2012). "Misinformation and its Correction: Continued Influence and Successful Debiasing". Psychological Science in the Public Interest. 13 (3): 106–131. doi:10.1177/1529100612451018. PMID 26173286. S2CID 42633.
  10. ^ a b c Rosenberg, Paul (19 April 2014). "Why climate deniers are winning: The twisted psychology that overwhelms scientific consensus". Salon.
  11. ^ Clarke, Chris; Dixon, Graham (2013). "Heightening uncertainty around certain science media coverage, false balance, and the autism-vaccine controversy". Science Communication. 35 (3): 358–382. doi:10.1177/1075547012458290. S2CID 144473062.
  12. ^ Cappella, Joseph N.; Maloney, Erin; Ophir, Yotam; Brennan, Emily (2015). "Interventions to Correct Misinformation About Tobacco Products". Tobacco Regulatory Science. 1 (2): 186–197. doi:10.18001/TRS.1.2.8. ISSN 2333-9748. PMC 4849128. PMID 27135046.
  13. ^ Pierre, Jeffrey; Neuman, Scott (27 October 2021). "How decades of disinformation about fossil fuels halted U.S. climate policy".
  14. ^ a b Oreskes, Naomi; Conway, Erik (2010). Merchants of Doubt. Bloomsbury Press. ISBN 978-1-59691-610-4.
  15. ^ a b Koehler, D (2016). "Can journalistic "false balance" distort public perception of consensus in expert opinion?". Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied. 22 (1): 24–38. doi:10.1037/xap0000073. PMID 26752513.
  16. ^ a b c Cook, J; Lewandowsky, S; Ecker, U (2017). "Neutralizing misinformation through inoculation: Exposing misleading argumentation techniques reduces their influence". PLOS ONE. 12 (5): e0175799. Bibcode:2017PLoSO..1275799C. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0175799. PMC 5419564. PMID 28475576.
  17. ^ Cite error: The named reference Stephan was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  18. ^ Wilson, Chris (2016). "Most Americans Think Their Opinion on Guns is Widely Shared". Time.
  19. ^ a b Kahan, Dan; Jenkins-Smith, H; Braman, D (2011). "Cultural cognition of scientific consensus". Journal of Risk Research. 14 (2): 147–174. doi:10.1080/13669877.2010.511246. hdl:10.1080/13669877.2010.511246. S2CID 216092368.
  20. ^ a b Kahan, Dan (2015). "Climate‐science communication and the measurement problem". Political Psychology. 36: 1–43. doi:10.1111/pops.12244.
  21. ^ a b c d van der Linden, S; Leiserowitz, A; Maibach, E (2017). "Scientific agreement can neutralize politicization of facts". Nature Human Behaviour. 2 (1): 2–3. doi:10.1038/s41562-017-0259-2. PMID 30980051. S2CID 3287707.
  22. ^ a b c Mooney, Chris. "How to Convince a Republican: Use a Pie Chart!". Mother Jones.
  23. ^ a b Dixon, Graham (2016). "Applying the Gateway Belief Model to Genetically Modified Food Perceptions: New Insights and Additional Questions". Journal of Communication. 66 (6): 888–908. doi:10.1111/jcom.12260.
  24. ^ Cite error: The named reference Gateway Belief Model was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  25. ^ Lewandowsky, Stephan; Gilles, Gignac; Vaughan, Samuel (2013). "The Pivotal Role of Perceived Scientific Consensus in Acceptance of Science". Nature Climate Change. 3 (4): 399–404. Bibcode:2013NatCC...3..399L. doi:10.1038/nclimate1720.
  26. ^ van der Linden, Sander; Leiserowitz, Anthony; Feinberg, Geoffrey; Maibach, Edward (2015). "How to communicate the scientific consensus on climate change: Plain facts, pie charts or metaphors?". Climatic Change. 126 (1–2): 255–262. doi:10.1007/s10584-014-1190-4. S2CID 3644017.
  27. ^ Bolsen, Toby; Druckman, James (2015). "Counteracting the politicization of science". Journal of Communication. 65 (5): 745–769. doi:10.1111/jcom.12171.
  28. ^ Cook, John; Lewandowsky, Stephan (2016). "Rational Irrationality: Modeling Climate Change Belief Polarization Using Bayesian Networks". Topics in Cognitive Science. 8 (1): 160–179. doi:10.1111/tops.12186. PMID 26749179.
  29. ^ Deryugina, T; Shurchkov, O (2016). "The Effect of Information Provision on Public Consensus about Climate Change". PLOS ONE. 11 (4): e0151469. Bibcode:2016PLoSO..1151469D. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0151469. PMC 4827814. PMID 27064486.
  30. ^ van der Linden, Sander (6 May 2016). "Why We Don't Worry More about Climate Change". The Huffington Post.
  31. ^ van der Linden, Sander (2016). "A Conceptual Critique of the Cultural Cognition Thesis". Science Communication. 38 (1): 128–138. doi:10.1177/1075547015614970. S2CID 220673944.
  32. ^ van der Linden, S; Leiserowitz, T; Maibach, E (2017). "Gateway Illusion or Cultural Cognition Confusion?". Journal of Science Communication. 16 (5): A04. doi:10.22323/2.16050204.
  33. ^ Mooney, Chris. "How Do You Get People to Give a Damn about Climate Change". Mother Jones.
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