Does expert trust and factual knowledge shape individual's perception of science?

Abstract

AbstractExplaining how individuals form their risks and benefit perceptions with regard to new technologies is a key issue in order to understand how new information disseminates. This paper examines the effect of knowledge, social values and trust in experts as shaping perceptions of risks and benefits of new technologies. Given that individual's perceptions of a technology is affected by unobserved heterogeneity, we use a methodology to disentangle the effect of a joint estimation of risks and benefit perceptions, namely seemingly unrelated probit, and we draw upon evidence from a representative survey carried out in Spain. Our findings suggest that factual knowledge and trust in experts increase perceptions of benefit of new technology developments and jointly reduce the perceptions of risk. Furthermore, reliance on traditional social values only appears to affect perceptions of benefits but does not influence risk perceptions.