University of Exeter, UK.
University of Utah, USA.
Public Underst Sci. 2023 Aug;32(6):761-780. doi: 10.1177/09636625231154131. Epub 2023 Mar 14.
In a national sample of 5087 Spaniards, we examine the prevalence of 10 specific misperceptions over five separate science and health domains (climate change, 5G technology, genetically modified foods, vaccines, and homeopathy). We find that misperceptions about genetically modified foods and general health risks of 5G technology are particularly widespread. While we find that partisan affiliation is not strongly associated with any of the misperceptions aside from climate change, we find that two distinct dimensions of an anti-elite worldview-anti-expert and conspiratorial mindsets-are better overall predictors of having science and health misperceptions in the Spanish context. These findings help extend our understanding of polarization around science beyond the most common contexts (e.g. the United States) and support recent work suggesting anti-elite sentiments are among the most important predictors of factual misperceptions.
在一项针对 5087 名西班牙人的全国性抽样调查中，我们研究了五个不同科学和健康领域（气候变化、5G 技术、转基因食品、疫苗和顺势疗法）中 10 种特定误解的流行程度。我们发现，关于转基因食品和 5G 技术对一般健康风险的误解尤其普遍。虽然我们发现，除了气候变化之外，党派关系与任何误解都没有很强的关联，但我们发现，反精英世界观的两个不同维度——反专家和阴谋心态——在西班牙背景下，是更好的预测出现有科学和健康误解的总体指标。这些发现有助于我们超越最常见的语境（例如美国）来理解科学领域的极化问题，并支持最近的研究工作，该研究工作表明，反精英情绪是最重要的错误事实认知预测因素之一。
