People Who Oppose Gay Marriage Don’t Trust “Experts”

An eye-opening look at how people form their policy beliefs
From: NewNowNext

A recently released survey shows that people who care about scientific evidence or expert opinion hold different policy beliefs than those who don’t.

The survey was conducted in January, 2016 by NORC, an independent research organization from the University of Chicago. They interviewed 1,007 Americans online and by phone about what kinds of information they seek out to help them form opinions on controversial topics.

With so much information available nowadays, researchers wanted to figure out what pieces of data are most valuable to voters. What they discovered is that some people place a much higher value on information provided by experts, scientists or the government than others and that these people are overwhelmingly more likely to support Obamacare, marriage equality and efforts to combat climate change.

The effect was so strong that it persisted across party and demographic lines. For example, 39 percent of Republicans who value expert opinion support marriage equality, compared with just 9 percent of Republicans who don’t.

The study doesn’t go into whether or not holding certain beliefs makes one more likely to seek out hard data, nor does it explore whether or not there are other traits that influence one’s opinions or trustfulness of expertise. As NORC researcher Norman Bradburn remarked, “Causality is difficult. You can’t infer it.”

NORC conducted the survey in January, a time researchers thought would be ideal for the study as participants would have politics on the mind, but wouldn’t yet be overwhelmed by campaign messaging.

Though the study focused on people’s responses to contentious issues, it also touched on how they use different types of media in general. According to the data, Americans are more likely to gather new information for purchasing decisions than for deciding where they stand on national issues.