Eroding Confidence in Knowledge-Based U.S. Institutions: Findings from the General Social Survey 1973—2024

• In Event: Enviromental Politics

Abstract

Confidence in U.S. institutions has declined, with the Covid-19 pandemic as a pivotal moment. Focusing on science, our emphasis is on pre- and post-pandemic variation by individual characteristics, confidence in other institutions, and political orientation, stressing implications for science in a polarized environment. This paper builds on widely cited work (Gauchat 2012), which also relies on data from the General Social Survey (GSS). After providing an overview of public confidence in three knowledge-based institutions, i.e., education, medicine, and science, the paper goes beyond existing work on trust in science in three important ways: 1) it extends the analysis through 2024, 2) it explicitly models the post-pandemic period, and 3) it includes an interaction term capturing political polarization in confidence in science in the post-pandemic period. In addition, we pay particular attention to advances in AI and its implications for confidence and trust in science.

Authors

• James C. Witte, George Mason University

• Laurie A Schintler, George Mason University

• Connie L. McNeely, George Mason University

• Thomas Hinz, University of Konstanz

• Emma Vetter, George Mason University

• Chad Smith, George Mason University