A multi-university study led by the University of Rochester finds that the demographics of scientists influence public trust and the fate of science-based public policy.
Diversifying the ranks of scientists in the United States is crucial to engendering more trust in the scientific community among more Americans.
That's the takeaway from a new national study published in Nature Human Behaviour.
"When it comes to trusting scientists, who is practicing science matters almost as much to Americans as what their science reveals," says James Druckman, the Martin Brewer Anderson Professor of Political Science at the University of Rochester and lead author of the study.
The study was conducted in collaboration with researchers from nine universities and research institutions.
Minding the trust gaps
Americans, on the whole, have long held scientists in high esteem. There are long-standing trust gaps, however, specifically among certain demographic groups.
Women and people who are Black, live in rural areas, identify as religious, have low levels of education or are working-class, for instance, exhibit less confidence in the scientific community. That has been the case for decades and has been well documented.
What has not been well documented are why and the implications of trust gaps, Druckman says.
"Our work shows that people generally exhibit more trust in scientists who share their characteristics," he explains. "Not surprisingly, groups with low trust in scientists are notably underrepresented in the field of science."
White men make up about two-thirds of the scientific workforce in the United States, and nearly all scientists-92 percent-are from non-rural areas, according to the study.
That the scientific community looks a lot less like the country it serves is more than symbolic, the authors argue. Indeed, it influences how different groups of people trust scientists and scientific institutions, and how likely recommendations of scientists are to become public policy.
"Scientists provide important information to the public," Druckman says. "Whether that information influences decision-making depends on trust."
The study found that women and people of color, in particular, relied heavily on demographic-based judgments when deciding whether to place confidence in scientific claims. By contrast, men and white Americans showed more variability in what drives their trust, suggesting their faith in science is less based on people who "look like me."
The role of representation
The authors also tracked how these demographic perceptions relate to broader feelings about scientific objectivity and the usefulness of science in society.
When people viewed scientists as demographically distant from themselves, they were more likely to question whether scientists remain unbiased and whether scientific knowledge benefits people like them. These beliefs, in turn, strongly shaped whether participants said they trusted scientists.
Despite these patterns, some groups-such as Asian Americans-reported high trust in scientists regardless of representation. This suggests that representation alone cannot fully explain public attitudes.
Still, the researchers conclude that demographic inclusiveness plays a central role in shoring up public trust across major social groups.
Improving representation, they write, may help bridge the growing gap between public expectations and scientific institutions at a time when misinformation, political polarization, and vaccine skepticism have put scientific credibility under strain.
"When people can see themselves in science," Druckman says, "they're more likely to believe in it."
