Group-based science rejection: How social identities shape the way we perceive, evaluate, and engage with science

Regardless of whether it concerns the reduction of greenhouse gases or the prevention of aggression and violence among young people, possible solutions to today's social problems are based on scientific research and data. But precisely those scientific studies that have implications for important social issues are particularly often opposed by laypersons that fundamentally reject these scientific studies. The present dissertation examines whether such a principle opposition to certain research results can be attributed to a threatened social identity ("group-based science rejection"). Social identity describes the part of our self-concept, which is based on our group memberships. On the basis of social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1979, 1986) the present thesis assumes that when research results have negative evaluative implications for social or societal groups (i.e. represent a social identity threat), group members respond to those results derogatively and dismissively. In addition, this devaluation should be particularly pronounced for group members who strongly identify with the group threatened by the scientific finding. Three manuscripts consisting of seven studies (Ns = 347, 97, 199, 84, 655, 459, & 138) confirm these assumptions. The results show that group members evaluate social identity threatening scientific studies worse than non-threatening studies and that this effect is particularly pronounced for strongly identified group members (manuscripts # 1 and # 2). In addition, group members perceive authors of threatening studies as incompetent and untypical for the group of scientists compared to authors of non-threatening studies (manuscript # 3). The results further show that the devaluation of threatening scientific studies is explained by group-based processes (such as stigmatization and social identity affirmation). Additionally, alternative explanations that do not require reference to a group concept were ruled out (e.g., explanations relying on self-affirmation theory [Steele, 1988] or attitude-inconsistency effects [Kunda, 1990]). Whereas manuscript # 1 and # 2 investigated these phenomena in the context of the violent video games debate, manuscript # 3 employed a "minimal group" paradigm (Tajfel, 1970). In summary, the results of all three manuscripts consistently show that scientific laypersons evaluate research findings fundamentally negative and take action against findings when these findings constitute a threat to laypersons’ social identity. These results have implications for how scientific findings should be communicated to the public and under which circumstances a strong involvement of laypersons in science-based policy-making is useful.