George Mason University, USA.
University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA.
Public Underst Sci. 2017 Oct;26(7):843-860. doi: 10.1177/0963662516636040. Epub 2016 Mar 8.
In this article, we focus on a key strategic objective of scientific organizations: maintaining the trust of the public. Using data from a nationally representative survey of American adults ( n = 1510), we assess the extent to which demographic factors and political ideology are associated with citizens' trust in general science and climate science research conducted by US federal agencies. Finally, we test whether priming individuals to first consider agencies' general science research influences trust in their climate science research, and vice versa. We found that federal agencies' general science research is more trusted than their climate science research-although a large minority of respondents did not have an opinion-and that political ideology has a strong influence on public trust in federal scientific research. We also found that priming participants to consider general scientific research does not increase trust in climate scientific research. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.
在本文中，我们关注科学组织的一个关键战略目标：保持公众的信任。我们利用一项针对美国成年人（n=1510）的全国代表性调查的数据，评估人口统计学因素和政治意识形态与公民对美国联邦机构进行的一般科学和气候科学研究的信任程度之间的关系。最后，我们测试了是否预先提示个人首先考虑机构的一般科学研究是否会影响他们对气候科学研究的信任，反之亦然。我们发现，联邦机构的一般科学研究比其气候科学研究更受信任——尽管很大一部分受访者没有意见——而且政治意识形态对公众对联邦科学研究的信任有很大的影响。我们还发现，预先提示参与者考虑一般科学研究并不会增加对气候科学研究的信任。讨论了对理论和实践的影响。
