In environmental, health, and technology crises, Americans are more persuaded to take action by scientists and public consensus than by leaders in government and industry, according to a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by researchers at Boston College and Princeton University.
Across four studies involving roughly 55,000 individuals, Americans revealed they were especially influenced when both scientists and ordinary citizens supported a solution, said Boston College Assistant Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience Gregg Sparkman, senior author of the study.
"What surprised us was how consistently the combined voice of scientists and ordinary citizens mattered across issues and partisans, even when governments and companies opposed action," said Sparkman. "Americans were still encouraged to act when scientists and ordinary citizens jointly expressed support for solutions."
According to the publication's lead author, Anandita Sabherwal, a joint post-doctoral researcher at Princeton University and Boston college, "This work suggests that institutional failure does not have to lead to public paralysis. Even when leadership from the top is missing, agreement between experts and citizens can still help create momentum."
When people learned that these two groups were aligned, they were more likely to support policies, choose products, donate money, and engage online, according to Sabherwal and Sparkman.
This pattern appeared across several kinds of issues, including climate policy, electric vehicles, sustainable proteins, vaccines, AI policy, misinformation, and data privacy, they found.
This trust held even in the face of opposition from government bodies and private companies.
"Opposition from powerful institutions did not necessarily make people give up," said Sabherwal. "When people saw that scientists and ordinary citizens endorsed solutions, they were still willing to act on that joint advice — including by donating money to a nonprofit and engaging with real content on social media."
The researchers wanted to find out what kinds of organizations or groups were the most influential to people as they decided whether or not to take action on an issue of national importance, Sparkman said.
Across four experiments, the researchers tested whether people were more likely to act when they learned that a solution was supported by scientists, fellow citizens, government bodies, or private companies. Actions included examples such as supporting a policy, choosing a product, donating money, or engaging with a message online.
Specifically, they studied whether Americans adopt solutions to national health, environment and technology-related crises based on information about who supports or opposes those solutions.
In two online experiments, people chose between different policies or products, such as climate policies, electric vehicles, sustainable proteins, vaccines, and AI-related policies. The options differed in one key way: which groups supported or opposed them.
Sparkman said the team then tested the same idea in two real-world settings: a donation decision, where people could give part of their bonus to a data privacy nonprofit, and a Facebook ad test about energy-saving appliances.
"When it comes to solving the big issues facing society today, we might expect people to look most to governments and big companies, because these groups often have the power, money, and infrastructure to make large-scale change happen," said Sparkman. "When they fail to act, it can make people feel that their own efforts will not matter. But we found that people's voice still matters in mobilizing change."
Next steps include testing the issue in countries where people have different levels of trust in government, scientists, and fellow citizens, Sabherwal said. Ultimately, the researchers hope to determine whether scientists and citizens are consistently influential, or whether the most persuasive group is simply the group people trust most in that society.
