{"title":"Political ideology-driven perceptions of experts and their claims.","authors":"Rodrigo Reyes Cordova","doi":"10.1177/09636625251372081","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>US conservatives are often seen as distrusting scientists, and liberals as more trusting. This article examines how alignment between an expert's field and individual political ideology affects claims perceptions. US adults (<i>N</i> = 1054) participated in a pre-registered (https://osf.io/9wnm2) online experiment, indicating their trust in five experts and evaluating the accuracy of four claims. Claims were attributed to experts from impact fields (focused on the consequences of industry and policy), production fields (industry-focused), scientists in general, or no source. Results show that liberals trust all experts more than conservatives and generally perceive claims as more accurate. However, the trust gap between liberals and conservatives is smaller for production experts. While no difference was found between the perceived accuracy of claims attributed to production versus impact experts, expert attribution increased some claims' perceived accuracy. These findings reveal some political-ideology preferences and that attributing a claim to an expert can improve its perception.</p>","PeriodicalId":48094,"journal":{"name":"Public Understanding of Science","volume":" ","pages":"9636625251372081"},"PeriodicalIF":3.3000,"publicationDate":"2025-09-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Public Understanding of Science","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09636625251372081","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"COMMUNICATION","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
US conservatives are often seen as distrusting scientists, and liberals as more trusting. This article examines how alignment between an expert's field and individual political ideology affects claims perceptions. US adults (N = 1054) participated in a pre-registered (https://osf.io/9wnm2) online experiment, indicating their trust in five experts and evaluating the accuracy of four claims. Claims were attributed to experts from impact fields (focused on the consequences of industry and policy), production fields (industry-focused), scientists in general, or no source. Results show that liberals trust all experts more than conservatives and generally perceive claims as more accurate. However, the trust gap between liberals and conservatives is smaller for production experts. While no difference was found between the perceived accuracy of claims attributed to production versus impact experts, expert attribution increased some claims' perceived accuracy. These findings reveal some political-ideology preferences and that attributing a claim to an expert can improve its perception.
期刊介绍：
Public Understanding of Science is a fully peer reviewed international journal covering all aspects of the inter-relationships between science (including technology and medicine) and the public. Public Understanding of Science is the only journal to cover all aspects of the inter-relationships between science (including technology and medicine) and the public. Topics Covered Include... ·surveys of public understanding and attitudes towards science and technology ·perceptions of science ·popular representations of science ·scientific and para-scientific belief systems ·science in schools
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