Sense-making through science
Belief in scientific progress.
The primary need to perceive order in the world, and not the need to bolster belief in the potency of external sources of control per se, led us to explore belief in scientific progress as a worldview that might harbour a compensatory order function. Belief in progress has received considerable attention in philosophy (Gray, 2004, 2007; Russell, 1929) and historiography (Brunner, 1972; Bury, 1955), some of this work provides clues about the potential compensatory function of bolstering beliefs in human and technological advances. Indeed, endorsing the belief that the course of scientific endeavour and societal history follows an upward trend could well help to see the world as orderly and under control, and a view on the course of human history as predictable. For example, consider how scientific progress might lead to medical advances that enable humanity to control hitherto uncontrollable diseases, and to technological advances that allow us to reduce unpredictability and lack of information. In this line of research we tested whether a control-threat would enhance belief in progress (Rutjens, van Harreveld, & van der Pligt, 2010) and whether affirming belief in progress helps to increase perceptions of order (Meijers & Rutjens, under review). Indeed, we found that control-threat increased the motivation to defend the idea of human progress and led to more faith in both scientific and societal advances occurring in the future. We also found that a threat to personal control led to an enhanced willingness to invest in stem cell research and nanotechnology.
In another set of studies, Meijers and Rutjens (under review) provided evidence for the functional value of affirming belief in scientific progress. One study, in which belief in progress was manipulated, found that a fake newspaper article describing science as rapidly progressing led to higher perceived order in the world than an article that questioned scientific advances. Moreover, they obtained support for the idea that threatening order perceptions triggers the motivation to engage in action with the intention to restore personal control perceptions – here in the domain of environmentally friendly behavior. More specifically, they found that priming disorder led to an increased intention to engage in environmentally sustainable behaviour, which in turn was shown to increase participants’ sense of personal control.
In sum, these lines of research show that control-threat leads to the motivation to believe in scientific progress, that affirming belief in scientific progress enhances order perceptions, and that disorder perceptions trigger attempts to boost personal control. These findings support CCM’s tenet that personal control and external control are intersubstitutable sources of order, and that threatened order perceptions enhance the motivation to seek compensation in such sources. As an example, threatening the viability of an external source of control (questioning scientific advances) led to decreases in order perceptions, which in turn triggered attempts to boost personal control. Thus, somewhat ironically, questioning scientific progress can reduce personal action inertia, while along similar lines low personal control can motivate people to learn more about scientific advances.
Conclusion
The majority of research on threat compensation in the domain of order and control has focused on religious belief (e.g., Kay et al., 2008; Spilka et al., 1985) and secular worldviews that explicitly mention external agency that provides secondary, or vicarious, control (e.g., Kay et al., 2008; 2010, see also Rothbaum et al., 1982). In the current paper, we aimed to show that compensation for decreased perceptions of control and order can also be realized without control, that is, by merely affirming order in the environment. Moreover, Meijers and Rutjens (under review) provided first evidence for the functional value of affirming external sources of order: order perceptions were actually enhanced after belief in scientific progress was affirmed. Moreover, threatening another source of order (in this case, personal control) triggered a motivated search to perceive order in the environment, as we found in our studies on scientific theory preference (Rutjens et al., in press). In that sense, to return to a point we made earlier in this article, compensation seems to be equivalent to regulation. Maintaining perceptions of the world as orderly, stable, and structured is the primary motive (Kay et al., 2008), and affirming the notion of scientific progress indeed enhanced such perceptions, while threatening personal control instigated a search for such perceptions.
article author(s)
Bastiaan Rutjens
Bastiaan Rutjens received his PhD at the University of Amsterdam in 2012. After working as a postdoctoral fellow at UBC (Vancouver) for one year, he...more
Frenk van Harreveld
Frenk van Harreveld is an associate professor of social psychology. His research concerns various aspects of uncertainty. Frenk's research on attitudes...more
Joop van der Pligt
Joop van der Pligt is a full professor of Social Psychology. His research focuses on risk perception and the acceptability of risks. Both health-...more