65
views
0
recommends
+1 Recommend
0 collections
    0
    shares
      • Record: found
      • Abstract: not found
      • Article: not found

      Cultural cognition of the risks and benefits of nanotechnology

      Read this article at

      ScienceOpenPublisherPubMed
      Bookmark
          There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

          Abstract

          How is public opinion towards nanotechnology likely to evolve? The 'familiarity hypothesis' holds that support for nanotechnology will likely grow as awareness of it expands. The basis of this conjecture is opinion polling, which finds that few members of the public claim to know much about nanotechnology, but that those who say they do are substantially more likely to believe its benefits outweigh its risks. Some researchers, however, have avoided endorsing the familiarity hypothesis, stressing that cognitive heuristics and biases could create anxiety as the public learns more about this novel science. We conducted an experimental study aimed at determining how members of the public would react to balanced information about nanotechnology risks and benefits. Finding no support for the familiarity hypothesis, the study instead yielded strong evidence that public attitudes are likely to be shaped by psychological dynamics associated with cultural cognition.

          Related collections

          Most cited references15

          • Record: found
          • Abstract: not found
          • Article: not found

          Culture and Cognition

            Bookmark
            • Record: found
            • Abstract: found
            • Article: not found

            American risk perceptions: is climate change dangerous?

            Public risk perceptions can fundamentally compel or constrain political, economic, and social action to address particular risks. Public support or opposition to climate policies (e.g., treaties, regulations, taxes, subsidies) will be greatly influenced by public perceptions of the risks and dangers posed by global climate change. This article describes results from a national study (2003) that examined the risk perceptions and connotative meanings of global warming in the American mind and found that Americans perceived climate change as a moderate risk that will predominantly impact geographically and temporally distant people and places. This research also identified several distinct interpretive communities, including naysayers and alarmists, with widely divergent perceptions of climate change risks. Thus, "dangerous" climate change is a concept contested not only among scientists and policymakers, but among the American public as well.
              Bookmark
              • Record: found
              • Abstract: not found
              • Article: not found

              Science communication. Public acceptance of evolution.

                Bookmark

                Author and article information

                Journal
                Nature Nanotechnology
                Nature Nanotech
                Springer Science and Business Media LLC
                1748-3387
                1748-3395
                February 2009
                December 7 2008
                February 2009
                : 4
                : 2
                : 87-90
                Article
                10.1038/nnano.2008.341
                19197308
                7ca9eb8a-125e-40f7-ac8a-d666b6a4d4fe
                © 2009

                http://www.springer.com/tdm

                History

                Comments

                Comment on this article