The Cultural Cognition Project is a group of scholars interested in studying how cultural values shape public risk perceptions and related policy beliefs. Cultural cognition refers to the tendency of individuals to conform their beliefs about disputed matters of fact (e.g., whether global warming is a serious threat; whether the death penalty deters murder; whether gun control makes society more safe or less) to values that define their cultural identities. Project members are using the methods of various disciplines -- including social psychology, anthropology, communications, and political science -- to chart the impact of this phenomenon and to identify the mechanisms through which it operates. The Project also has an explicit normative objective: to identify processes of democratic decisionmaking by which society can resolve culturally grounded differences in belief in a manner that is both congenial to persons of diverse cultural outlooks and consistent with sound public policymaking.

Below are examples of CCP studies and research projects.

Synthetic Biology Risk Perceptions

Public consciousness of the promise and perils of synthetic biology is only now beginning to emerge.  In a project funded by the National Science Foundation (SES-0922714), the Cultural Cognition Project will conduct a series of experimental studies aimed at anticipating how values could influence synthetic biology risk perceptions and how information should be communicated to assure that public deliberations about the development of synthetic biology are informed by the best available scientific information.

Supreme Court on Use of Deadly Force

Based on a video shot from inside a police cruiser, the U.S. Supreme court concluded "no reasonable juror" could find that the risk posed by a fleeing motorist did not warrant deadly force to stop him. But a study by the Cultural Cognition Project published in the Harvard Law Review finds perceptions of risk among persons who viewed the tape varied dramatically with those persons' cultural worldviews.

Gay and Lesbian Parenting

A majority of Americans believe that custody issues (including adoption placement) should be resolved in favor of the best interests of the child, but they disagree over what impact gay or lesbian parenting has on child welfare. In research funded by a grant from the Arcus Foundation, the Cultural Cognition Project is examining how cultural predispositions affect factual beliefs about the child-welfare effects of gay and lesbian parenting, and how those beliefs shape public preferences regarding law and policy. 

Gun Risk Perceptions

The American gun control debate is framed as one between competing risk perceptions: that too little gun control will increase deliberate shootings and gun accidents; and that too much will render law-abiding citizens unable to defend themselves from violent predation. In a series of national surveys and experiments, Cultural Cognition Project Members have found gun risk perceptions to vary dramatically with cultural outlooks. 

Nanotechnology Risk Perceptions

As a component of its NSF-funded project on the mechanisms of cultural cognition, the Cultural Cogntion Project, in collaboration with the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies, is conducting research to determine what people think about nanotechnology and how the respond to information about it. Two major experimental studies have already been completed, and others are underway. 

The 2nd National Risk and Culture Study

Individuals' expectations about the policy solution to global warming strongly influences their willingness to credit information about climate change. When told the solution to global warming is increased antipollution measures, persons of individualistic and hierarchic worldviews become less willing to credit information suggesting that global warming exists, is caused by humans, and poses significant societal dangers. Persons with such outlooks are more willing to credit the same information when told the solution to global warming is increased reliance on nuclear power generation.