Building Public Support for Science Spending Misinformation, Motivated Reasoning, and the Power of Corrections

While most Americans support scientific research, few favor an increase in federal investment. This opposition is driven in large part by misinformation about the actual level of governmental support for science. Employing an experiment embedded on a nationally representative survey, we find that mo...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inScience communication Vol. 39; no. 1; pp. 77 - 100
Main Authors Goldfarb, Jillian L., Kriner, Douglas L.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.02.2017
SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
Subjects
Federal budget
Investment
Public buildings
Science
survey experiment
science budget
public opinion
misinformation
motivated reasoning
federal government
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Summary:While most Americans support scientific research, few favor an increase in federal investment. This opposition is driven in large part by misinformation about the actual level of governmental support for science. Employing an experiment embedded on a nationally representative survey, we find that most Americans significantly overestimate the share of the federal budget allocated to scientific research. Correcting this misperception significantly increases support for additional science spending. We find little evidence that subjects engage in motivated reasoning when confronted with this correction. Information about the low level of existing funding increased support for investment in science across partisan and ideological divides.
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ISSN:1075-5470
1552-8545
DOI:10.1177/1075547016688325