Deepening Understanding of Public Trust in Science

As changes sweep the scientific enterprise, researchers’ questions about how the public connects to, trusts in, and supports science have taken on urgency. Science and Society Sparks, a bite-sized program for researchers with a connection to The Kavli Foundation, offered webinars, readings, and discussion sessions examining how society engages with scientists, research, and evidence. This story series highlights instructors and participants in the Sparks program to showcase the insights emerging from the sessions.

How often do you change the batteries in your smoke detector? Do you buckle your seatbelt every single time you ride in a vehicle? Finally (and we won’t tell your dentist), how often do you floss your teeth?

Scientists don’t typically get time to reflect on how much they integrate common health and safety advice like this into their daily lives. However, public educator Jen Parsons thinks it’s a worthwhile exercise for researchers interested in engaging with society. The scientist-members she works with through the American Physical Society (APS) are both concerned about scientific misinformation and eager to correct it. But for well-intentioned scientists to fulfill this mission, Parsons says, they must first gain a deeper understanding of what fosters trust and changes minds and what doesn’t. And the Health and Safety Quiz adapted from a Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers resource, is the first step in teaching researchers to question their assumptions about what might be the best solution to the misinformation problem.

Parsons, the lead instructional designer for APS’s Science Trust Project, and her colleagues gave the quiz to the 18 scientists in The Kavli Foundation’s Science and Society Sparks Program on Nov. 13. The Kavli Foundation created the two-month Sparks Program for a small group of scientists whom the Foundation supports or with whom it has a connection. The scientists receive a paid opportunity to familiarize themselves with rigorous social science on the relationship between science and society, to ask probing questions about the program’s readings and presentations, and to then to eventually become ambassadors for the insights they’ve acquired. The Science Trust Project, a group effort from several APS Public Engagement Team members, was a natural fit for Sparks.

“We created the Sparks program because we know researchers, especially early career scientists, care deeply about the dynamic relationship people have with science and scientific information. We also know that they are motivated to improve the relationship,” says Brooke Smith, senior director of Science and Society at The Kavli Foundation. “Our intent is to inspire them so that they spend their valuable time on trust-building strategies with the strongest underpinnings.”

As it turns out, the quiz results demonstrated that there wasn’t a 100% uptake of 100% of science-backed health and safety advice, even though all the participants had extensive scientific training. (This has been true of every training that the Science Trust Project has conducted so far.) Participants also came to the realization that getting more information about flossing benefits or listening to a one-hour podcast about flossing facts would be unlikely to change their flossing habits.

Moving Beyond the “Deficit Model”
Too often, scientists assume that misinformation and lack of trust in science stem from a lack of science knowledge. “We often see scientists want to engage by addressing a perceived literacy gap, which we know doesn’t work in building trust,” Smith says. This flawed “deficit model” of science communications, which is the subject of extensive social science research from many groups, assumes that teaching an audience the correct scientific information will lead them to make evidence-based decisions. But as the health and safety quiz demonstrates, “knowing more information does not always change your behaviors,” Parsons says. Everyone in society — scientists included — weighs multiple factors, including facts and personal values, when prioritizing their actions.

So, it’s better to think of science communications in terms of connecting with others who have different perspectives, values, and expertise, rather than trying to “fix” their viewpoints, says Zack Pruett, the Science Trust Project’s lead facilitator.

For astrophysicists or neurobiologists whose training emphasized educational lectures, the prospect of learning a new mode of communications can seem daunting. But during the 90-minute Sparks webinar, Pruett, Parsons and their colleagues gave participants training and support to begin that learning process.

Listening as a Tool for Building Trust
One way to redirect conversations toward trustworthiness and connections is by practicing listening skills. Social science research suggests that people trust others whom they deem to be competent, honest and caring. According to poll data from the Pew Research Center, scientists generally do a good job demonstrating that they are experts, because nearly 90% of those polled consider them intelligent. But about half of the public find scientists’ communications skills lacking, and nearly half think that scientists feel they are superior to others. Listening can help to slowly dispel these beliefs because it helps ensure that audiences or conversation partners feel heard.

“Listening is a developed skill,” Pruett says. It is more than simply hearing what’s said in conversation. In what social scientists call “reflective listening,” a listener mentally summarizes what a speaker is saying as they’re talking. During that process, the listener is attempting to discern the speaker’s motivations, which might include a concern about money or autonomy. After that, reflective listening requires that the listener reply back to the speaker, without repeating the speaker’s exact words, in a way that captures how the listener interpreted what the speaker had to say to make sure the listener understood.

There’s also what’s called “empathic listening,” which involves analyzing the stories speakers tell to identify underlying values and emotions, like pride in a family member’s achievement.

Those kinds of listening were familiar to Sparks participant Sharlen Yared Moore Corona, a distinguished Kavli Neuroscience Discovery Institute postdoctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins University. Moore Corona practices meditation in a group setting where, at each session’s conclusion, sharing whatever comes to mind is encouraged. “The pillars of that experience [are] creating a space that is free of judgment, active listening and speaking from the heart,” Moore Corona says. Hearing from the Science Trust Project revealed an intersection between her spiritual practice and science communications. “I find that very powerful.”

Few researchers who encounter the Science Trust Project have Moore Corona’s level of familiarity with these kinds of listening. That’s only natural, Pruett says, because their training is laser focused on things like vector calculus and doesn’t often leave room for anything remotely outside their discipline.

Moore Corona and the other Sparks participants practiced reflective and empathic listening in groups of two. Partners were prompted to tell stories or describe a communications challenge and to synthesize meaning from their counterpart’s tales.

The participants aren’t the only ones learning during the webinars, Parsons says. She and her APS colleagues attended an earlier Sparks webinar that summarized poll data about public sentiment around science, which an Association of Science and Technology Centers team led, and they attended a subsequent webinar and discussion sessions. “That cross-pollination,” the ability to see how other organizations are thinking about the nuanced relationship between science and society and possibly integrate those insights into one’s own talks and training content, is a major benefit of how the Science and Society Sparks program is structured, Parsons says.

It might not be possible for every person to prioritize every bit of science-backed advice. But scientists can help foster trust by rethinking how they approach communications by moving from a correction mindset to one of connection. “When we connect with people, not only do we benefit, but the idea is that everyone benefits,” Pruett says. Scientists, after all, are not separate from society, but are part of it.