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The Second National Risk And Culture Study: Making Sense Of - And Making Progress In - The American Culture War Of Fact, Donald Braman, Dan M. Kahan, Paul Slovic, John Gastil, Geoffrey L. Cohen
The Second National Risk And Culture Study: Making Sense Of - And Making Progress In - The American Culture War Of Fact, Donald Braman, Dan M. Kahan, Paul Slovic, John Gastil, Geoffrey L. Cohen
GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works
Cultural Cognition refers to the disposition to conform one's beliefs about societal risks to one's preferences for how society should be organized. Based on surveys and experiments involving some 5,000 Americans, the Second National Risk and Culture Study presents empirical evidence of the effect of this dynamic in generating conflict about global warming, school shootings, domestic terrorism, nanotechnology, and the mandatory vaccination of school-age girls against HPV, among other issues. The Study also presents evidence of risk-communication strategies that counteract cultural cognition. Because nuclear power affirms rather than threatens the identity of persons who hold individualist values, for example, proposing …
Culture And Identity-Protective Cognition: Explaining The White Male Effect In Risk Perception, Donald Braman, Dan M. Kahan, John Gastil, Paul Slovic, C.K. Mertz200
Culture And Identity-Protective Cognition: Explaining The White Male Effect In Risk Perception, Donald Braman, Dan M. Kahan, John Gastil, Paul Slovic, C.K. Mertz200
GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works
Why do white men fear various risks less than women and minorities? Known as the white male effect, this pattern is well documented but poorly understood. This paper proposes a new explanation: identity-protective cognition. Putting work on the cultural theory of risk together with work on motivated cognition in social psychology suggests that individuals selectively credit and dismiss asserted dangers in a manner supportive of their preferred form of social organization. This dynamic, it is hypothesized, drives the white male effect, which reflects the risk skepticism that hierarchical and individualistic white males display when activities integral to their cultural identities …
Deep Purple: Religious Shades Of Family Law, Naomi R. Cahn, June Carbone
Deep Purple: Religious Shades Of Family Law, Naomi R. Cahn, June Carbone
GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works
"Deep Purple" examines the impact of religion on the politics and jurisprudence of abstinence education. Abstinence education is one of the many locations (issues) in the contemporary culture wars between red and blue state values. Families who live in red and blue states are experiencing divergent life patterns, and religion affects the development of these patterns. Frequency of church attendance has been tied to likelihood of marriage, and, as this paper shows, has been profoundly influential in approaches to teen sexuality. Religion decreases the opportunity for dialogue and compromise on these issues because people use underlying values - such as …
Affect, Values, And Nanotechnology Risk Perceptions: An Experimental Investigation, Donald Braman, Dan M. Kahan, Paul Slovic, John Gastil, Geoffrey L. Cohen
Affect, Values, And Nanotechnology Risk Perceptions: An Experimental Investigation, Donald Braman, Dan M. Kahan, Paul Slovic, John Gastil, Geoffrey L. Cohen
GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works
Despite knowing little about nanotechnology (so to speak), members of the public readily form opinions on whether its potential risks outweigh its potential benefits. On what basis are they forming their judgments? How are their views likely to evolve as they become exposed to more information about this novel science? We conducted a survey experiment (N = 1,850) to answer these questions. We found that public perceptions of nanotechnology risks, like public perceptions of societal risks generally, are largely affect driven: individuals' visceral reactions to nanotechnology (ones likely based on attitudes toward environmental risks generally) explain more of the variance …