Gateway belief model

The gateway belief model (GBM) suggests that public perception of the degree of expert or scientific consensus on an issue functions as a so-called "gateway" cognition.<ref name="Gundersen"/><ref name="Hulme"/> Perception of scientific agreement is suggested to be a key step towards acceptance of related beliefs.<ref name="Hope">Hope, Debra A.; Bevins, Rick A. (26 September 2018). Change and Maintaining Change. Springer. ISBN 978-3-319-96920-6.</ref> Increasing the perception that there is normative agreement within the scientific community can increase individual support for an issue. A perception of disagreement may decrease support for an issue.<ref name="Gundersen"/><ref name="Hulme"/>

Public opinion research has shown a "consensus gap" between the beliefs of the general public and the scientific community on a number of issues including climate change, vaccines, evolution, gun control, and GMO's.<ref name="Funk">Funk, Cary (29 January 2015). "Public and Scientists' Views on Science and Society". Pew Research Center Science & Society. Retrieved 23 October 2023.</ref><ref name="Pew">"Major Gaps Between the Public, Scientists on Key Issues". Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech. 1 July 2015.</ref> The general public is assumed to underestimate the degree of agreement among scientists on established facts relating to these issues.<ref name="Gundersen"/>

According to the gateway belief model, views can be influenced by presenting information about the scientific consensus on a subject. Communicating accurate information about the scientific consensus on a topic reduces perceptions that there is disagreement within the scientific community. Some studies show a causal connection between changes in perceived consensus and subsequent attitudes on issues.<ref name="Gundersen">Gundersen, Torbjørn; Alinejad, Donya; Branch, T.Y.; Duffy, Bobby; Hewlett, Kirstie; Holst, Cathrine; Owens, Susan; Panizza, Folco; Tellmann, Silje Maria; van Dijck, José; Baghramian, Maria (17 October 2022). "A New Dark Age? Truth, Trust, and Environmental Science". Annual Review of Environment and Resources. 47 (1): 5–29. doi:10.1146/annurev-environ-120920-015909. hdl:10852/99734. ISSN 1543-5938. S2CID 250659393.</ref><ref name="Hulme">Hulme, Mike (27 November 2019). Contemporary Climate Change Debates: A Student Primer. Routledge. p. 127-135. ISBN 978-0-429-82115-8.</ref> In the case of climate change, perceptions of expert agreement are considered a precursor to related beliefs about whether and why climate change is happening.<ref name="Hulme"/> In the case of COVID-19, perception of scientific consensus predicted personal attitudes and support for mitigation policies.<ref name="Kerr">Kerr, John R.; van der Linden, Sander (2022). "Communicating expert consensus increases personal support for COVID‐19 mitigation policies". Journal of Applied Social Psychology. 52 (1): 15–29. doi:10.1111/jasp.12827. ISSN 0021-9029. PMC 8420497. PMID 34511636.</ref>

The gateway belief model also implies that organized disinformation campaigns may be able to deliberately undermine public support for an issue by suggesting a lack of scientific consensus or amplifying opinions that disagree with the scientific consensus.<ref name= "Koehler"/> Undermining scientific consensus is therefore a frequent disinformation tactic.<ref name="Stephan">Lewandowsky, Stephan (1 April 2021). "Climate Change Disinformation and How to Combat It". Annual Review of Public Health. 42 (1): 1–21. doi:10.1146/annurev-publhealth-090419-102409. hdl:1983/c6a6a1f8-6ba4-4a12-9829-67c14c8ae2e5. ISSN 0163-7525. PMID 33355475. S2CID 229691604.</ref>

History

Theoretical background

The gateway belief model is a dual process theory in psychology and the communication sciences. Specifically, the GBM postulates a two-step process of opinion change, where (mis)perceptions of normative agreement influence "key" personal beliefs that people hold about an issue (step 1), which in turn, shape public attitudes and support (step 2).<ref name = "Gateway Belief Model">van der Linden, Sander; Leiserowitz, Anthony; Feinberg, Geoffrey; Maibach, Edward (2015). "The Scientific Consensus on Human-Caused Climate Change as a Gateway Belief: Experimental Evidence". PLOS ONE. 10 (2): e0118489. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0118489. PMC 4340922. PMID 25714347.</ref> Although the basic process of debiasing judgment can be viewed as a form of knowledge deficit,<ref name = "PLoS Consensus News">Timpona, Joseph (2015). "Battling Misinformation: The Scientific Consensus as a Gateway Belief for Climate Change and GMOs". PLOS ONE.</ref> development of the gateway belief model is based on research in cognitive and social psychology, mainly drawing on theories of heuristic information-processing, social norms, decision-making, and motivated cognition.<ref name = "SciAm">van der Linden, Sander; Lewandowsky, Stephan (2015). "How to Combat Distrust of Science: The Surprising Power of the Psychology of Consensus". Scientific American Mind.</ref><ref name = "Chemtrail">Maibach, Ed; van der Linden, Sander (2016). "The importance of assessing and communicating scientific consensus". Environmental Research Letters. 11 (9): 0913003. Bibcode:2016ERL....11i1003M. doi:10.1088/1748-9326/11/9/091003.</ref>

Consensus-heuristic

In the face of uncertainty, people often look to others for guidance, including experts.<ref name="SciAm"/><ref name = "Expert">Kelman, H.C. (1961). "Processes of opinion change". Public Opinion Quarterly. 25: 57–78. doi:10.1086/266996.</ref> Prior research shows that people heuristically rely on consensus cues in the absence of motivation to cognitively elaborate,<ref name="Mutz">Mutz, Diana (1998). Impersonal Influence: How Perceptions of Mass Collectives Affect Political Attitudes. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521637268.</ref><ref name = "Cues">Panagopolous, Costas; Harrison, Brian (2016). "Consensus Cues, Issue Salience and Policy Preferences: An Experimental Investigation". North American Journal of Psychology. 18 (2): 405–418.</ref> because consensus typically implies correctness. Research also indicates that people desire to conform to the expert consensus<ref name= "Tom">Tom, J (2017). "Social Origins of Scientific Deviance: Examining Creationism and Global Warming Skepticism". Sociological Perspectives. 61 (3): 341–360. doi:10.1177/0731121417710459. S2CID 148764740.</ref> and generally prefer to rely on the combined judgment of multiple experts rather than on individual expert opinions.<ref name = "Wisdom">Mannes, A.E.; Soll, J.B.; Larrick, R.P. (2014). "The Wisdom of Select Crowds". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 107 (2): 276–299. doi:10.1037/a0036677. PMID 25090129. S2CID 207605509.</ref> Relying on consensus cues is often considered socially adaptive because it harnesses the wisdom of the crowd effect.<ref name="SciAm"/><ref name="Chemtrail"/> Consensus is therefore an example of a descriptive norm, i.e., the collective judgment of a group of individuals, such as experts.<ref name="Consensus">Cialdini, Robert; Martin, Steve; Goldstein, Noah (2015). "Small behavioral science informed changes can produce large policy relevant effects". Behavioral Science & Policy. 1: 21–27. doi:10.1353/bsp.2015.0008. S2CID 155650913.</ref>

Public opinion research shows that the views of the general public often diverge sharply from experts on a number of important societal issues, especially in the United States.<ref name="Pew"/> This is known as the "consensus gap".<ref name = "NSCE">Cook, John; Jacobs, Peter (2014). "Scientists are from Mars, Laypeople are from Venus: An Evidence-Based Rationale for Communicating the Consensus on Climate". Reports of the National Center for Science Education. 34 (6): 3.1. Archived from the original on 7 February 2017. Retrieved 10 July 2016.</ref> The main premise of the gateway belief model is that this gap can be reduced by highlighting or communicating the actual degree of social or scientific consensus on an issue.<ref name = "Vaccine">Hotchkiss, Michael (2015). "Emphasizing consensus about safety boosts support for vaccines". Princeton University News.</ref><ref name = "US News">van der Linden, Sander; Leiserowitz, Anthony; Maibach, Edward (2016). "Climate Change's Unseen Consensus". U.S. News & World Report.</ref><ref name="Chemtrail"/>

Norm perception as a vehicle for social change

The basic mechanism of the gateway belief model involves realigning people's (mis)perception of the degree of group consensus with the factual degree of consensus. This parallels research in social psychology on leveraging norm-perception as a vehicle for social change.<ref name= "Paluck">Tankard, Margaret; Paluck, Betsy (2016). "Norm perception as a vehicle for social change". Social Issues and Policy Review. 10 (1): 181–211. doi:10.1111/sipr.12022. S2CID 13100893.</ref>

For example, early research<ref name= "Drinking">Prentice, Deborah; Miller, Dale (1993). "Pluralistic ignorance and alcohol use on campus: some consequences of misperceiving the social norm". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 64 (2): 243–256. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.64.2.243. PMID 8433272. S2CID 24004422.</ref> showed that college students frequently misperceive the social consensus on campus binge drinking. Through a method known as "estimate and reveal", social psychologists have attempted to reveal the discrepancy between students' subjective perceptions of the drinking norm among their peers and the actual norm (which is typically much lower). Social norm communication campaigns indeed evidence that increasing awareness of the actual drinking norm has positive subsequent impacts on students' own attitudes and behavior towards binge drinking.<ref name= "Drinking_Col">Haines, Michael; Spear, Sherilynn (1996). "Changing the Perception of the Norm: A Strategy to Decrease Binge Drinking among College Students". American Journal of College Health. 45 (3): 134–140. doi:10.1080/07448481.1996.9936873. PMID 8952206.</ref>

While excessive binge drinking is often harmful to the individual, large-scale societal misperceptions of scientific agreement on social dilemmas such as climate change or vaccines can be collectively harmful. When the consensus intervention involves experts rather than peers, the social influence process is referred to as obedience.<ref name ="Tom"/>

Role of misinformation

The "sticky" nature of myths and the spread of misinformation is often cited as a major cause of public confusion over the nature of scientific consensus.<ref name=inoculation2>van der Linden, Sander; Leiserowitz, Anthony; Rosenthal, Seth; Maibach, Ed (2017). "Inoculating the Public Against Misinformation About Climate Change". Global Challenges. 1 (2): 1600008. Bibcode:2017GloCh...100008V. doi:10.1002/gch2.201600008. PMC 6607159. PMID 31565263.</ref><ref name = "Misinformatin">Lewandowsky, Stephan; Ecker, Ullrich; Seifert, Colleen; Schwarz, Norbert; Cook, John (2012). "Misinformation and its Correction: Continued Influence and Successful Debiasing". Psychological Science in the Public Interest. 13 (3): 106–131. doi:10.1177/1529100612451018. PMID 26173286. S2CID 42633.</ref><ref name="Salon"/> Prominent examples include autism-vaccine controversies,<ref name= "Autism">Clarke, Chris; Dixon, Graham (2013). "Heightening uncertainty around certain science media coverage, false balance, and the autism-vaccine controversy". Science Communication. 35 (3): 358–382. doi:10.1177/1075547012458290. S2CID 144473062.</ref> the causal link between smoking and lung cancer<ref name="Cappella">Cappella, Joseph N.; Maloney, Erin; Ophir, Yotam; Brennan, Emily (2015). "Interventions to Correct Misinformation About Tobacco Products". Tobacco Regulatory Science. 1 (2): 186–197. doi:10.18001/TRS.1.2.8. ISSN 2333-9748. PMC 4849128. PMID 27135046.</ref> and the role of carbon dioxide emissions in driving global warming.<ref name="Pierre">Pierre, Jeffrey; Neuman, Scott (27 October 2021). "How decades of disinformation about fossil fuels halted U.S. climate policy".</ref><ref name="Oreskes"/>

People's perception of expert consensus has generally shown to be sensitive to anecdotal evidence and misinformation.<ref name= "Koehler">Koehler, D (2016). "Can journalistic "false balance" distort public perception of consensus in expert opinion?". Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied. 22 (1): 24–38. doi:10.1037/xap0000073. PMID 26752513.</ref><ref name="inoculation2"/><ref name= "Cook">Cook, J; Lewandowsky, S; Ecker, U (2017). "Neutralizing misinformation through inoculation: Exposing misleading argumentation techniques reduces their influence". PLOS ONE. 12 (5): e0175799. Bibcode:2017PLoSO..1275799C. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0175799. PMC 5419564. PMID 28475576.</ref> Vested-interest groups, sometimes referred to as "merchants of doubt",<ref name="Oreskes">Oreskes, Naomi; Conway, Erik (2010). Merchants of Doubt. Bloomsbury Press. ISBN 978-1-59691-610-4.</ref> deliberately try to undermine public understanding of the scientific consensus on these topics through organized disinformation campaigns.<ref name="Stephan"/><ref name= "Koehler"/><ref name="inoculation2"/><ref name= "Cook"/>

Related concepts

Other related concepts include the false-consensus effect<ref name = "Time">Wilson, Chris (2016). "Most Americans Think Their Opinion on Guns is Widely Shared". Time.</ref> and pluralistic ignorance.

Other theories

The "cultural cognition of scientific consensus" thesis<ref name = "Culture">Kahan, Dan; Jenkins-Smith, H; Braman, D (2011). "Cultural cognition of scientific consensus". Journal of Risk Research. 14 (2): 147–174. doi:10.1080/13669877.2010.511246. hdl:10.1080/13669877.2010.511246. S2CID 216092368.</ref> advocated by Dan Kahan stands in contrast to the gateway belief model (GBM)<ref name = "Dan">Kahan, Dan (2015). "Climate‐science communication and the measurement problem". Political Psychology. 36: 1–43. doi:10.1111/pops.12244.</ref> but has not been supported by empirical results.<ref name = "Scientific Facts"/> The cultural cognition thesis suggests that people will credit or dismiss empirical evidence based on whether it coheres or conflicts with their cultural or political values, a process known as "identity-protective cognition".<ref name = "Salon">Rosenberg, Paul (19 April 2014). "Why climate deniers are winning: The twisted psychology that overwhelms scientific consensus". Salon.</ref><ref name="Dan"/> Because people are committed to the types of beliefs that define their everyday socio-political relations, the cultural cognition thesis predicts that exposing people to consensus information on contested issues will therefore increase attitude polarization.<ref name="Culture"/>

The empirical results of the gateway belief model contradict the prediction of the "cultural cognition of scientific consensus".<ref name = "Scientific Facts">van der Linden, S; Leiserowitz, A; Maibach, E (2017). "Scientific agreement can neutralize politicization of facts". Nature Human Behaviour. 2 (1): 2–3. doi:10.1038/s41562-017-0259-2. PMID 30980051. S2CID 3287707.</ref><ref name = "Mother">Mooney, Chris. "How to Convince a Republican: Use a Pie Chart!". Mother Jones.</ref><ref name = "Dixon">Dixon, Graham (2016). "Applying the Gateway Belief Model to Genetically Modified Food Perceptions: New Insights and Additional Questions". Journal of Communication. 66 (6): 888–908. doi:10.1111/jcom.12260.</ref> Notably, an emphasis on scientific consensus does not backfire, and can reduce or neutralize belief polarization between (political) groups.<ref name="Gateway Belief Model"/><ref name = "Scientific Consensus">Lewandowsky, Stephan; Gilles, Gignac; Vaughan, Samuel (2013). "The Pivotal Role of Perceived Scientific Consensus in Acceptance of Science". Nature Climate Change. 3 (4): 399–404. Bibcode:2013NatCC...3..399L. doi:10.1038/nclimate1720.</ref><ref name = "Mother"/><ref name = "Comm">van der Linden, Sander; Leiserowitz, Anthony; Feinberg, Geoffrey; Maibach, Edward (2015). "How to communicate the scientific consensus on climate change: Plain facts, pie charts or metaphors?". Climatic Change. 126 (1–2): 255–262. doi:10.1007/s10584-014-1190-4. S2CID 3644017.</ref><ref name=inoculation2/><ref name="Cook"/> Related research has also shown that conveying scientific agreement can reduce directional motivated reasoning,<ref name= "Scientific Facts"/><ref name= "Bolsen">Bolsen, Toby; Druckman, James (2015). "Counteracting the politicization of science". Journal of Communication. 65 (5): 745–769. doi:10.1111/jcom.12171.</ref> although other research on this topic has revealed more mixed results.<ref name = "Scientific Consensus Bayesian">Cook, John; Lewandowsky, Stephan (2016). "Rational Irrationality: Modeling Climate Change Belief Polarization Using Bayesian Networks". Topics in Cognitive Science. 8 (1): 160–179. doi:10.1111/tops.12186. PMID 26749179.</ref><ref name = "Consensus2016">Deryugina, T; Shurchkov, O (2016). "The Effect of Information Provision on Public Consensus about Climate Change". PLOS ONE. 11 (4): e0151469. Bibcode:2016PLoSO..1151469D. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0151469. PMC 4827814. PMID 27064486.</ref><ref name="Dixon"/>

One explanation for these findings is that changing beliefs about what other groups think (so-called "meta-beliefs") does not require a full and immediate adjustment of one's own worldview. Perceived consensus can therefore be seen as a "non-identity threatening" cognition,<ref name = "Linden">van der Linden, Sander (6 May 2016). "Why We Don't Worry More about Climate Change". The Huffington Post.</ref> especially when a norm is described among a neutral out-group (scientists).<ref name= "Scientific Facts"/> Kahan has a notable on-going scholarly debate in the literature with van der Linden and Lewandowsky on the role of perceived consensus and cultural cognition.<ref name="Salon"/><ref name = "Mother"/><ref name = "Consensus Culturalc">van der Linden, Sander (2016). "A Conceptual Critique of the Cultural Cognition Thesis". Science Communication. 38 (1): 128–138. doi:10.1177/1075547015614970. S2CID 220673944.</ref><ref name = "Gateway_response">van der Linden, S; Leiserowitz, T; Maibach, E (2017). "Gateway Illusion or Cultural Cognition Confusion?". Journal of Science Communication. 16 (5): A04. doi:10.22323/2.16050204.</ref><ref name = "Lewandowsky">Mooney, Chris. "How Do You Get People to Give a Damn about Climate Change". Mother Jones.</ref>