Faith in Scientific Progress Decreases Eco-Friendly Behavior

[bananas]

http://www.psmag.com/navigation/nature-and-technology/faith-scientific-progress-decreases-eco-friendly-behavior-87692/

Faith in Scientific Progress Decreases Eco-Friendly Behavior

By Tom Jacobs • August 07, 2014

A new study finds affirming belief in scientific progress appears to reduce the likelihood of acting in environmentally responsible ways.

Advocates for environmental action also tend to be strong believers in science. Could this explain why they’ve had so little success in persuading people to change their behaviors?

That provocative question is raised by a newly published paper, which suggests faith in science takes some of the pressure off of us to behave responsibly.

“When media outlets paint a picture of omniscient science and unconditional and ongoing progress, one consequence may be that people become passive and less motivated to behave in environmentally friendly ways,” University of Amsterdam researchers Marijn Meijers and Bastiaan Rutjens write in the European Journal of Social Psychology.

“Looking more critically at the power of science and the limits of progress could—somewhat ironically—encourage people to take matters into their own hands and make environmentally friendly choices.”

<snip>

Meijers and Rutjens attribute these results to compensatory control theory, which states that humans have a strong desire to see the world as “meaningful, ordered, and structured.” According to this school of thought, if we’re convinced some powerful force—be it God or science—has things under control, we can comfortably remain passive. But fear of chaos leads us to take things into our own hands, increasing our motivation to take action.

<snip>

The article is paywalled at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ejsp.2009/abstract
and unpaywalled at http://bastiaanrutjens.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/meijers_rutjens2014affirming_science_ejsp.pdf

[bananas]

1. Affirming belief in scientific progress reduces environmentally friendly behaviour

Special issue article: The social psychology of climate change

Affirming belief in scientific progress reduces environmentally friendly behaviour

Marijn H. C. Meijers1,* and Bastiaan T. Rutjens2

Article first published online: 5 JUL 2014
DOI: 10.1002/ejsp.2009
Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Abstract

Many people are reluctant to behave in environmentally friendly ways. One possible explanation might be that the motivation to behave in environmentally friendly ways is undermined by the way scientific progress is overstated in the popular media. Four experiments show that portraying science as rapidly progressing—and thus enabling society to control problems related to the natural environment and human health in the not-too-distant future—is detrimental to environmentally friendly behaviour because such a frame affirms perceptions of an orderly (vs chaotic) world. This in turn negatively affects the likelihood of engaging in environmentally friendly behaviour. Simultaneously, communication that questions (vs affirms) scientific progress leads to lower perceptions of order and consequential increases in environmentally friendly behaviour. These findings show that when the aim is to promote environmentally friendly attitudes and behaviour, it helps to not overstate scientific progress.

[hedda_foil]

2. What problematic findings

There's something way off base here. I wonder how this research was conducted. We know that the folks who don't believe in science are mostly teabaggers and fundamentalist xtians. Among the scientific fields that they really,really don't believe in, environmentalism ranks right up there with evolution. The questions must have been very interesting to get this kind of result.

[bemildred]

3. Faith in scientific progress is not science. Science has nothing to do with faith, or belief.

Science, in a nutshell. is empiricism, trial and error, experiment, observation to be the master of theory.

Edit: so it makes perfect sense that belief in scientific progress leads to a decline in rational thinking.

[Bill USA]

4. what bullshit. Wonder how they selected people for "faith in scientific progress" ... people who

have an appreciation for the accomplishments of and therefor the effectiveness of the scientific method are far more likely to listen to the scientists who are saying we need to be doing something about Global Warming.

This 'study' alleges to have shown people who "have faith in scientific progress" also are not listening to the overwhelming weight of science based conclusions re Global Warming - that we need to do something about it!