CAREER: Assessing the effect of source credibility on public perceptions of science and place-based conservation

当科学家被认为是为公众的最佳利益行事时，公众对科学对政策的影响力的支持就会增加。然而，大多数美国成年人对科学家的善意持怀疑态度（例如，对公益事业的承诺）。善意是来源可信度的一个关键方面，是公众用来解释科学发现和建议的捷径。尽管善意发挥着关键作用，但目前对善意如何产生、变化以及如何在个人和群体之间引起争议以激励（或不激励）循证行动知之甚少。该项目将通过确定感知技术科学（TS）源善意的关键驱动因素，并确定技术科学善意和沟通何时以及如何影响农业土地经营者对环境信息的反应（即，农民、林务员、牧场主）。研究结果将鼓励努力激励基于证据的土地管理，减少陆基气候排放，并最大限度地提高保护科学对人类和环境的好处。拟议的CAREER项目将确定一个改进的循证模型的因素，塑造公众对技术科学（TA）来源可信度的看法，并进一步努力衡量，测试和使用善意作为促进有效的公众沟通的手段。本研究采用潜在语义分析和混合方法内容分析来识别和比较农业土地经营者和TS来源的来源可信度的心理模型的社会文化信念。一个在线消息实验将被用来测试的影响，善意的信号和对冲的TS源的可信度和支持保护措施的看法对农业用地。此外，该职业项目将研究和教学与新的教育课程的开发和评估相结合，该课程使农业社区参与并培养自然资源专业人员，以表达善意并认识到文化现实，从而对基于证据的信息做出回应。因此，该项目将为改善科学传播培训、更有效和基于证据的环境信息以及增强农业社区和TS来源之间的善意提供基础。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Public support for scientific influence on policy increases when scientists are perceived as acting in the public’s best interests. Yet most U.S. adults are skeptical of scientists’ goodwill (e.g., commitment to public good). Goodwill is a key dimension of source credibility, a shortcut used by the public to interpret scientific findings and recommendations. Despite its key role, little is currently known about how goodwill emerges, varies and is contested across individuals and groups to motivate (or not) evidence-based action. This project will address this gap by identifying the key drivers of perceived technoscientific (TS) source goodwill and determining when and how technoscientific goodwill and communication shape responses to environmental messages among agricultural land operators (i.e., farmers, foresters, ranchers). Research findings will encourage efforts to incentivize evidence-based land stewardship that mitigates land-based climate emissions and maximizes the benefits of conservation science for people and the environment. The proposed CAREER project will identify an improved evidence-based model of the factors shaping public perceptions of technoscientific (TA) source credibility and further efforts to measure, test, and employ goodwill as a means of promoting effective public communication. This research uses latent semantic analysis and mixed-methods content analysis to identify and compare the socio-cultural beliefs undergirding agricultural land operators and TS sources’ mental models of source credibility. An online message experiment will be used to test the effects of goodwill signals and hedging on perceptions of TS source credibility and support for conservation practices on agricultural lands. Furthermore, this CAREER project integrates research and teaching with the development and evaluation of a novel educational curriculum that engages agricultural communities and prepares natural resource professionals to signal goodwill and recognize the cultural realities informing responses to evidence-based messages. As such, this project will provide a foundation for improved science communication training, more effective and evidence-based environmental messaging, and enhanced goodwill between agricultural communities and TS sources.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.