Facts, Experts, and Cultural Predispositions

At Balkinization, Dan Kahan describes the findings of a study, by he and others at Yale Law School's Cultural Cognition Project, trying to pinpoint ways in which people's cultural predispositions affect their perceptions of facts.  The project of untangling these two where possible is relevant to all of us who in some way address "culture wars" disputes, since those are often are complicated by disputes over the facts.  This study focuses on people's perceptions of expert opinions on facts:

Of course, it shouldn’t come as news to anyone that people tend to listen to policy experts they find knowledgeable and trustworthy, particularly on relatively novel issues that turn on uncertain empirical claims. But our study helps to reveal what makes ordinary people find experts credible: an affinity between the experts’ perceived cultural values and their own. This finding too shouldn't come as a shock, yet it's a truth that is consistently missed by many public policy advocates, who tend to assume that all they need to do to persuade the public on some risk issue (global warming, gun control, etc.) is amass reams of evidence from people whose authority derives solely from their technical training and expertise.

According to Kahan, the study suggests that cultural polarization over the facts can be reduced

if those interested in a constructive and educational discussion of [an] issue take care to assure that members of the public perceive that there are policy experts of diverse values on both sides of the debate.

Tom