When experts matter: variations in consensus messaging for vaccine and genetically modified organism safety

Lyons, Benjamin A., Mérola, Vittorio, Reifler, Jason, Spälti, Anna Katharina, Stedtnitz, Christine ORCID: 0000-0002-1174-3577 and Stoeckel, Florian (2024) When experts matter: variations in consensus messaging for vaccine and genetically modified organism safety. Public Understanding of Science, 33 (2). 210 - 226. ISSN 0963-6625

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Abstract

Does consensus messaging about contested science issues influence perceptions of consensus and/or personal beliefs? This question remains open, particularly for topics other than climate change and samples outside the United States. In a Spanish national sample (N = 5087), we use preregistered survey experiments to examine differential efficacy of variations in consensus messaging for vaccines and genetically modified organisms. We find that no variation of consensus messaging influences vaccine beliefs. For genetically modified organisms, about which misperceptions are particularly prevalent in our sample, we find that scientific consensus messaging increases perception of consensus and personal belief that genetically modified organisms are safe, and decreases support for a ban. Increasing degree of consensus did not have consistent effects. Although individual differences (e.g. a conspiratorial worldview) predict these genetically modified organism beliefs, they do not undercut consensus message effects. While we observe relatively modest effect sizes, consensus messaging may be able to improve the accuracy of beliefs about some contentious topics.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	https://journals.sagepub.com/home/PUS
Additional Information:	© 2023 The Author(s)
Divisions:	Government
Subjects:	Q Science > Q Science (General)
Date Deposited:	27 Aug 2024 10:00
Last Modified:	12 Dec 2024 04:26
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/124666

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