Abstract
In the United States, the wide ideological divergence in public confidence in science poses a potentially significant problem for the scientific enterprise. We examine the behavioral consequences of this ideological divide for Americans’ contributions to medical research. Based on a mass survey of American adults, we find that engagement in a wide range of medical research activities is a function of a latent propensity to participate. The propensity is systematically higher among liberals than among conservatives. A substantial part of this ideological divide is due to conservative Americans’ lower confidence in science. These findings raise important issues for the recruitment of subjects for medical studies and the generalizability of results from such studies.
Highlights
In the United States, the wide ideological divergence in public confidence in science poses a potentially significant problem for the scientific enterprise
The ideological divide should be relevant for how Americans engage medical research because that vast majority of Americans consider the field of medicine as central to the scientific e nterprise[7]
Consistent with our expectation, we show that confidence in science mediates the effect of political ideology on the propensity to participate, with conservatives less likely to participate than liberals due, in part, to their lower confidence in science
Summary
In the United States, the wide ideological divergence in public confidence in science poses a potentially significant problem for the scientific enterprise. A substantial part of this ideological divide is due to conservative Americans’ lower confidence in science These findings raise important issues for the recruitment of subjects for medical studies and the generalizability of results from such studies. Americans with a conservative political ideology gradually lost confidence in the scientific community over the last thirty y ears[1]. This decline resulted from several sources of conflict between science and conservative values. Given the number and political importance of conservatives, and the relative stability of Americans’ ideological commitments, this divide could portend significant obstacles for the practice, advance, and influence of science in the United S tates[6]. An ideological divide could threaten the generalizability of medical studies, since important types of health behaviors (e.g., smoking) vary with Americans’ political ideology[11,12,13,14]
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