Weekend update: more "Cultural Cognition Dictionary/Glossary"

Cultural Cognition Dictionary (or Glossary, whatever)

Note: his is part of a document under construction. New terms will be added intermittently during periods in which there is nothing else to do or in which there is something else to do and hence an opporunity to engage in creative procrastination.  

Cultural cognition thesis. The conjecture that culture is prior to fact in debates over contested societal risks and related facts. Culture is prior not just in the normative sense that cultural values guide action conditional on beliefs about states of affairs; it is also prior in the positive sense that cultural commitments, through a variety of mechanisms, shape what individuals believe the relevant facts to be. [source: Kahan, Slovic, Braman & Gastil, Harvard Law Review 119, 1071-1109 (2006), p. 1083. Date added Dec. 23, 2017].

Identity-protective reasoning.  The tendency of individuals to selectively credit and dismiss factual assertions in a manner that reflects and reinforces their cultural commitments, thereby expressing affective orientations that secure their own status within cultural groups. [source: Kahan, Slovic et al., J. Empirical Legal Studies, 4, 465-505 (2007). Date added Dec. 23, 2017]

The “knowledge deficit fallacy.” A theory (either explicit or implicit, conscious or unconscious) that treats simple unfamiliarity with facts as the cause of the public’s failure to converge on the best available scientific evidence on human-caused climate change, human evolution, the safety of nuclear power generation, etc. The theory also assumes (explicitly or implicitly, consciously or unconsciously) that simple communication of the best available evidence will dispel public conflict over facts.  [Date added Dec. 19, 2017]

The “ ‘knowledge deficit fallacy’² .”  A theory (either explicit or implicit, conscious or unconscious) that treats simple unfamiliarity with the “knowledge deficit fallacy” as the cause of science communicators’ failure to converge on the best available scientific evidence on how to communicate human-caused climate change, human evolution, the safety of nuclear power generation, etc. The theory also assumes (explicitly or implicitly, consciously or unconsciously) that simple communication of the best available evidence on science communication will dispel science communicators’ reliance on the knowledge deficit theory. [added Dec. 19, 2017]

“Motivated System 2 reasoning.” A summary of the empirical research finding that as individuals’ cognitive proficiencies (measured by a variety of wide variety of critical thinking assessments including the Cognitive Reflection Test, Numeracy, Actively Opened-minded thinking, and the Ordinary Science Intelligence assessment) increase, so does their tendency to display identity-protective reasoning in their perception of relevant facts. [source: Kahan, Landrum et al., Advances in Pol. Psych., 38: 179-199, pp. 181-182 (2017). Date added Dec. 23, 2017].

 MS2R. An abbreviation for “Motivated System 2 reasoning.” [source: Kahan, Landrum et al., Advances in Pol. Psych., 38: 179-199, p. 182; Cultural Cognition Blog, passim;. Date added Dec. 23, 2017].

Comments

[Jonathan]

Dan gets a shout-out from an economist!:
http://timharford.com/2017/12/economicky-words-are-just-plain-icky/