Americans’ views of scientists’ motivations for scientific work

Abstract

Scholars have not examined public views of scientific motivations directly, despite scientific authority implications. A US representative sample rated 11 motivations both descriptively (they do motivate scientists’ work) and normatively (they should motivate scientists) for scientists employed by federal government agency, large business corporation, advocacy group (nonprofit seeking to influence policy), or university. Descriptive and normative ratings fell into extrinsic (money, fame, power, being liked, helping employer) and intrinsic (do good science, enjoy challenge, helping society and others) motivation factors; being independent and gaining respect were outliers. People saw intrinsic motivations as more common, but wanted intrinsic motivations to dominate extrinsic ones even more. Despite a few differences for extrinsic-motivation ratings, the lay public tended to see scientific work as similarly motivated regardless of the employer. Variance in perceived science motivations was explained by scientific beliefs (positivism, credibility) and knowledge (of facts and scientific reasoning), complemented by political ideology and religiosity.

Lay beliefs about scientists’ relations with their employers

“…However, there are several questions about why beyond the observed associations described above. Future work could (1) directly ask about perceived motivations, interests, and values of employers as well as for scientists (Johnson and Dieckmann, 2020); (2) probe whether the moderate view of employer-scientist relations reflects caution due to lack of knowledge, or lack of mention in this experiment of specific topics on which political partisanship might have prompted differences in perceived relationships (e.g. Dunlap et al, 2016; McCright et al, 2013); and (3) study whether the limited difference in ratings by employer represents general ignorance of specific employer-scientist relationships, stereotypes about the employing institutions, or lack of specific topics (Johnson, 2020).…”

“…This definition aimed to clarify what was meant when people were asked about employers’ desire or ability to affect how scientists did their scientific work. Motivational results are reported separately (Johnson and Dieckmann, 2020).…”

“…A sketchy literature, inaugurated by Merton (1957, 1973) and summarized in Johnson and Dieckmann (2020), has identified diverse motivations that scientists might have for their work, including reputation, funding, the joy of puzzle-solving, mentoring, and other intrinsic and extrinsic motivations. Much of that work has focused on scientists’ personal interests versus the interests of society: for example, in Merton’s (1942) discussions of norms favoring communism or communalism (common ownership among scientists of intellectual property and collective collaboration) over secrecy; universalism (in the validity of scientific results) over privileging views of scientists with certain attributes (such as social status); disinterestedness (prioritizing benefits of a common scientific enterprise) over personal gains of individual scientists; and organized skepticism of scientific claims over credulity.…”

“…A study of lay views of scientists’ motivations (Johnson and Dieckmann, 2020) asked respondents how much they thought scientists were (i.e. descriptive ratings), and should be (normative), motivated by extrinsic (e.g.…”

Beware of vested interests: Epistemic vigilance improves reasoning about scientific evidence (for some people)

“…Further, in a series of experiments where the professional affiliation of an expert source was changed between groups, scientists working as lobbyists were perceived as having less integrity, less benevolence and being more manipulative compared to publicly funded scientists [16][17][18]. Finally, people view scientists as being more strongly motivated by intrinsic motivations (which were mainly epistemic) compared to extrinsic motivations (such as money & power) but this difference is also present for scientists working at corporations [19]. Overall, people are able to identify conflicts of interests arising from financial influences on science, and rate sources, which are conflicted in this way as less trustworthy.…”