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Biased Assimilation, Polarization, And Cultural Credibility: An Experimental Study Of Nanotechnology Risk Perceptions, Donald Braman, Dan M. Kahan, Paul Slovic, John Gastil, Geoffrey L. Cohen, Douglass A. Kysar
Biased Assimilation, Polarization, And Cultural Credibility: An Experimental Study Of Nanotechnology Risk Perceptions, Donald Braman, Dan M. Kahan, Paul Slovic, John Gastil, Geoffrey L. Cohen, Douglass A. Kysar
GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works
We present the results from the second in a series of ongoing experimental studies of public perceptions of nanotechnology risks. Like the first study, the current one found that members of the public, most of whom know little or nothing about nanotechnology, polarize along cultural lines when exposed to information about it. Extending previous results, the current study also found that cultural polarization of this sort interacts with the perceived cultural identities of policy advocates. Polarization along expected lines grew even more extreme when subjects of diverse cultural outlooks observed an advocate whose values they share advancing an argument they …
The Self-Defensive Cognition Of Self-Defense, Donald Braman, Dan M. Kahan
The Self-Defensive Cognition Of Self-Defense, Donald Braman, Dan M. Kahan
GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works
Why do certain self-defense cases - ones, e.g., involving battered women who kill their sleeping abusers, or beleaguered commuters who shoot panhandling minority teens - provoke intense political conflict? The conventional and seemingly obvious answer is that people judge such cases in a politically partisan fashion. This paper, however, suggests a subtler and more complex explanation. Social psychologists have shown that individuals resolve factual ambiguities in a manner supportive of their defining values, both to minimize dissonance and to protect their connection to others who share their commitments. This form of self-defensive cognition, it is submitted, shapes individuals' perceptions of …
The Future Of Nanotechnology Risk Perceptions: An Experimental Investigation Of Two Hypotheses, Donald Braman, Dan M. Kahan, Paul Slovic, John Gastil, Geoffrey L. Cohen
The Future Of Nanotechnology Risk Perceptions: An Experimental Investigation Of Two Hypotheses, Donald Braman, Dan M. Kahan, Paul Slovic, John Gastil, Geoffrey L. Cohen
GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works
This paper reports the results of an experiment designed to test competing conjectures about the evolution of public attitudes toward nanotechnology. The rational enlightenment hypothesis holds that members of the public will become favorably disposed to nanotechnology as balanced and accurate information about it disseminates. The cultural cognition hypothesis, in contrast, holds that members of the public are likely to polarize along cultural lines when exposed to such information. Using a between-subjects design (N = 1,862), the experiment compared the perceptions of subjects exposed to balanced information on the risks and benefits of nanotechnology to the perceptions of subjects exposed …