Distinguishing Science and Ethics: Ethical Bias Affects the Evaluation of Evidence Related to Socioscientific Issues

• In Event: 66.027 - Ask for Evidence: Identifying, Preventing, and Counteracting Scientific and Educational Myths

Abstract

Making informed choices in their private and public life often requires individuals to gather relevant scientific information and to critically evaluate its validity to avoid falling for misinformation. Evaluation of scientific claims and their sources is particularly demanding if the claims are related to socio-scientific issues (SSIs). SSIs, such as climate change, abortion, or capital punishment, have a scientific component but also raise ethical concerns as to how society should behave toward the issue, and they are frequently subject to societal controversy (Kolstø, Bungum, Arnesen, Isnes, Kristensen, Mathiassen, et al., 2006; Zeidler & Nichols, 2009). When judging scientific claims related to SSIs, individuals face a double challenge: They need to assess whether the source may be driven by an ethical bias and might thus (consciously or unconsciously) present imbalanced or even incorrect information to support their ethical stance about the issue. In addition, individuals need to refrain from letting their evaluation be guided by their own ethical bias, which might prevent them from accepting and learning accurate information (Lord, Ross, & Lepper, 1979; Nickerson, 1998; Nisbet, Cooper, & Garrett, 2015).
This study sought to investigate whether recipients succeed in evaluating scientific online information that is part of a SSI independently from their ethical stance. Specifically, we examined whether recipients’ vigilance toward possible source bias varies depending on whether or not the source shares their ethical stance.
110 recipients (79% female, M=22.00 years, SD=3.72) holding a strong ethical stance about an SSI (capital punishment) read an online text that contained a topic-related scientific claim about the effects of a fictitious sedative used in lethal injections. The text was authored by either an ethically like-minded or an ethically opposed source. In addition, the text content rendered it either more or less likely that the source was biased themselves when proposing their scientific claim. After reading, participants were asked to indicate their agreement with the scientific claim and to rate the source’s credibility on Likert scales.
The results show that readers agreed less with the claim if source bias was likely than if it was less likely, but they only made this distinction if the source was ethically opposed, F(1, 105)=4.71, p=.032, part. η2=.043. Apparently, readers only consider the possibility of source bias if the source holds an opposing ethical stance, whereas they are less skeptical if the source’s stance matches their own. This was also reflected by the ethically like-minded source being considered more credible, F(1, 106)=16.87, p>.001, part. η2=.137.
Overall, the findings suggest that recipients show less vigilance toward the trustworthiness of scientific information related to an SSI if it stems from a source with whom they ethically agree. To decrease susceptibility to misinformation, educators should prepare students to evaluate ethically loaded scientific claims by teaching about the possibility and consequences of bias by the source as well as the recipient. This may be an important step to make individuals apply sufficient scrutiny even to ethically like-minded sources.

Authors

• Lisa Scharrer, Ruhr University Bochum

• Marc Stadtler, Ruhr University Bochum

• Rainer F. Bromme, University of Münster