Knowledge Resistance: Causes, Consequences and Cures
The main objective of this ambitious cross-disciplinary program is to investigate the nature and causes of knowledge resistance, the tendency not to accept available knowledge. This represents the first concerted effort to provide a unified framework within which to investigate knowledge resistance, going beyond the state of the art on several levels. First, foundational issues concerning the nature of knowledge resistant reasoning is investigated, examining the specific types of irrationality involved in knowledge resistant belief formation. The foundational issues will be developed by the philosophy team in close connection with the empirical work done within the other sub-projects. Second, the psychology team will design experiments to investigate the motivational sources of knowledge resistance, with a special focus on how to counteract it. Third, the program will study the moderating effects of partisanship and ideological predispositions on the propensity to misuse or resist evidence. The political science team will investigate under what conditions predispositions are helpers or blinders to citizens when evaluating politically relevant political information in an increasingly heterogeneous information environment. Fourth, the media and communication research team will study the supply of misinformation in traditional, digital and social media, as well as the role in knowledge resistance played by selective exposure based on party preferences or ideology.
Final report
Central aims and development
In the program researchers from four disciplines (philosophy, psychology, political science and media studies) have investigated the nature and causes of knowledge resistance, as well as possible cures. The central hypothesis was that knowledge resistance is the result of complex interactions between human psychology, the information environment and the political environment. In particular, we expected, when people fail to accept available knowledge, it need not involve irrational belief formation but could be a reflection of the information intake. Work across the four disciplines have borne out this hypothesis, showing that efforts to counteract knowledge resistance will have to include both individual level interventions and interventions on the societal level, in particular relating to the quality of public debate and the information environment.
Implementation
The research has been structured around four work packages, led by a PI from each discipline with the program leader coordinating the work. To secure maximum collaboration across the disciplines, the program has held the following regular events during the project period:
• PI meetings (4-5 times/year and as needed)
• Workshops (every semester)
• KR conferences (start, mid-term, and final conference)
There has also been collaboration around data collections, experiments and publications. Data collections include one four-year, four-wave panel study, an extensive collection of media data including over one million media texts from 36 different established news media and political-alternative media during the time period 2018–2023, and a number of experiments across the groups. In addition, cost-effective data collection for research on knowledge resistance has been carried out within the framework of existing platforms and research infrastructures (such as the SOM institute).
Most important results and central conclusions
• A precise understanding of the notion of knowledge resistance has been developed, something that has been missing from the extant literature on the topic.
• Two competing types of theory purporting to explain ideological belief polarization have been examined: pragmatic theories, claiming that pro attitudes – such as the incentive to maintain group identities – are the main drivers, and epistemic theories, which appeal to the surrounding evidence ecosystems. A main result is calling into question the prominence of pragmatic theories, both theoretically and experimentally, showing that there is more rationality in the phenomena than assumed.
• So-called "numeracy effects" on motivated reasoning have been studied in detail as these have been argued to provide further evidence for incentive-driven accounts (Kahan 2017). It has been shown that the mechanism that has been claimed to explain the numeracy effect does not in fact involve any motivated reasoning, and thus cannot provide such evidence.
• A new account of propaganda has been presented, focused on manipulation in fact-stating discourse. The account offers a novel solution to the problem how an assertion can be propaganda even if what is asserted is both true and believed by the speaker.
• It has been shown that knowledge resistance can be countered by facilitating complex information. Biases in interpretations of research findings on topics tied to ideological standpoints can be reduced/eliminated by facilitating interpretations of the findings.
• Experiments also show that biased interpretations of ideological information can be eliminated by decreasing social threat.
• Others’ behaviour (likes) on social media have been shown to increase conformity for neutral, but not for partisan content. Judgments of what is true or false on social media platforms are more resistant to conformity than previously thought.
• Education positively influences pro-climate change beliefs in countries at low- and mid-levels of economic development, but at high economic levels, conservatism attenuate the education effect.
• Those in the political middle change beliefs when confronted with counterevidence, but both right- and left-wingers are reluctant to belief revision in case of politically relevant beliefs.
• Challenges to political beliefs changes activity in neural areas related to emotion. Results show the important role of emotions in resistance to belief change, and offers insights about the neural systems involved in motivated reasoning.
• Ideological underpinnings of trust in scientists carry implications for public health behaviour. Trust in scientists should be more squarely addressed in future vaccine campaigns.
• The importance of distinguishing ideological polarization and affective polarization has been demonstrated. Studies show that polarized perceptions of facts are most prevalent on issues with a strong affective charge, such as immigration, climate and pandemics, but also on health and the conduct of democratic elections.
• Populism has been shown to cause a strong re-sorting where radical right-wing parties have come to serve as a campfire for those who distrust elites and social institutions in general, which indirectly drives a skepticism towards science.
• It has been shown that citizens are generally good at correctly assessing the quality of arguments presented in a classic premise-premise-conclusion format. When we ask citizens to assess our pre-formulated good and bad arguments, they strongly agree on which are better and which are worse. This main finding holds true regardless of their own ideological affiliation and regardless of the topics of the argument.
• A central result is that the prevalence of false information and knowledge resistance cannot be understood without taking the recent transformation of information environments into account. There has been a dramatic increase in the supply of different types of information which has weakened the role of established news media as gatekeepers to the public spere.
• The transformation has also made it much easier for people to find attitude-congruent information sources and avoid attitude-discrepant information sources. Such processes of selective exposure and selective avoidance contribute to people picking up false and misleading that confirm their pre-held attitudes.
• It has been shown that false and misleading information is to some extent disseminated via established news media, but also that political-alternative media and social media are the main channels of such dissemination.
• The degree to which people trust the news media influences what media they use and what media content they trust. Our studies show an increasing polarization where in particular those leaning to the right ideologically trusting the news media less than others. The same factors are related to lower use of traditional news media and higher use of right-wing alternative media. The use of right-wing alternative media has been shown to decrease trust in established news media.
• It has been shown that people who intentionally avoid the news hold more misperceptions than others, but also that it matters what type of media people use. More specifically, newspaper reading is linked to people holding less misperceptions whereas the opposite holds true for watching TV news. At the same time, those who have higher trust in news media generally hold less misperceptions.
• The degree of conspiracy mindset has been shown to be both conceptually and empirically distinct from beliefs in specific conspiracy theories, while being important as a predictor of beliefs in specific conspiracy theories. Results suggest that the media potentially are of great importance in this context. The use of right-wing alternative media is related to a stronger conspiracy mindset.
Dissemination of research and public collaborations
It was decided early on to produce a joint volume, “Knowledge Resistance in High-Choice Information Environments” (2022). The book has contributed to making the research program widely known internationally. Researchers across the program have also published a large number of papers in peer reviewed journals as well as book chapters, reports and handbook articles (please see the list of publications).
Participants in the program have presented their work in a variety of venues, internationally and nationally. These include invited lectures at universities across the world as well as presentations at conferences and workshops, among them Symposium organized at the Annual Convention of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (Atlanta), the 19th General Meeting of the European Association of Social Psychology, Krakow, the Swedish Political Science Association (SWEPSA), the European Political Science Association (EPSA), the Gothenburg Research Group on Elections, Public Opinion and Political Behavior (GEPOP) and the Annual political science workshops of the low countries (Politicologenetmaal), the International Communication Association, World Association for Public Opinion Research.
In addition, there has been a comprehensive public outreach, in particular by the program leader Åsa Wikforss. Outreach includes popular newspaper articles and books, hundreds of public talks, frequent panel participation and appearances on radio, TV and in pod casts. Talks have been given at several public authorities (such as the Ministry of Health), in parliament, at large conferences for teachers as well as at major journalistic organizations (including SR and SVT). In 2019 the program leader and the PI:s also met with the Swedish Minister of Education. International venues include, among others, UNDP, ALLEA, Nobel Prize Summit at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington D.C., the BBC, American Association for the Advancement of Science and COMPET (a meeting for all the ministers of research within the EU).
In the program researchers from four disciplines (philosophy, psychology, political science and media studies) have investigated the nature and causes of knowledge resistance, as well as possible cures. The central hypothesis was that knowledge resistance is the result of complex interactions between human psychology, the information environment and the political environment. In particular, we expected, when people fail to accept available knowledge, it need not involve irrational belief formation but could be a reflection of the information intake. Work across the four disciplines have borne out this hypothesis, showing that efforts to counteract knowledge resistance will have to include both individual level interventions and interventions on the societal level, in particular relating to the quality of public debate and the information environment.
Implementation
The research has been structured around four work packages, led by a PI from each discipline with the program leader coordinating the work. To secure maximum collaboration across the disciplines, the program has held the following regular events during the project period:
• PI meetings (4-5 times/year and as needed)
• Workshops (every semester)
• KR conferences (start, mid-term, and final conference)
There has also been collaboration around data collections, experiments and publications. Data collections include one four-year, four-wave panel study, an extensive collection of media data including over one million media texts from 36 different established news media and political-alternative media during the time period 2018–2023, and a number of experiments across the groups. In addition, cost-effective data collection for research on knowledge resistance has been carried out within the framework of existing platforms and research infrastructures (such as the SOM institute).
Most important results and central conclusions
• A precise understanding of the notion of knowledge resistance has been developed, something that has been missing from the extant literature on the topic.
• Two competing types of theory purporting to explain ideological belief polarization have been examined: pragmatic theories, claiming that pro attitudes – such as the incentive to maintain group identities – are the main drivers, and epistemic theories, which appeal to the surrounding evidence ecosystems. A main result is calling into question the prominence of pragmatic theories, both theoretically and experimentally, showing that there is more rationality in the phenomena than assumed.
• So-called "numeracy effects" on motivated reasoning have been studied in detail as these have been argued to provide further evidence for incentive-driven accounts (Kahan 2017). It has been shown that the mechanism that has been claimed to explain the numeracy effect does not in fact involve any motivated reasoning, and thus cannot provide such evidence.
• A new account of propaganda has been presented, focused on manipulation in fact-stating discourse. The account offers a novel solution to the problem how an assertion can be propaganda even if what is asserted is both true and believed by the speaker.
• It has been shown that knowledge resistance can be countered by facilitating complex information. Biases in interpretations of research findings on topics tied to ideological standpoints can be reduced/eliminated by facilitating interpretations of the findings.
• Experiments also show that biased interpretations of ideological information can be eliminated by decreasing social threat.
• Others’ behaviour (likes) on social media have been shown to increase conformity for neutral, but not for partisan content. Judgments of what is true or false on social media platforms are more resistant to conformity than previously thought.
• Education positively influences pro-climate change beliefs in countries at low- and mid-levels of economic development, but at high economic levels, conservatism attenuate the education effect.
• Those in the political middle change beliefs when confronted with counterevidence, but both right- and left-wingers are reluctant to belief revision in case of politically relevant beliefs.
• Challenges to political beliefs changes activity in neural areas related to emotion. Results show the important role of emotions in resistance to belief change, and offers insights about the neural systems involved in motivated reasoning.
• Ideological underpinnings of trust in scientists carry implications for public health behaviour. Trust in scientists should be more squarely addressed in future vaccine campaigns.
• The importance of distinguishing ideological polarization and affective polarization has been demonstrated. Studies show that polarized perceptions of facts are most prevalent on issues with a strong affective charge, such as immigration, climate and pandemics, but also on health and the conduct of democratic elections.
• Populism has been shown to cause a strong re-sorting where radical right-wing parties have come to serve as a campfire for those who distrust elites and social institutions in general, which indirectly drives a skepticism towards science.
• It has been shown that citizens are generally good at correctly assessing the quality of arguments presented in a classic premise-premise-conclusion format. When we ask citizens to assess our pre-formulated good and bad arguments, they strongly agree on which are better and which are worse. This main finding holds true regardless of their own ideological affiliation and regardless of the topics of the argument.
• A central result is that the prevalence of false information and knowledge resistance cannot be understood without taking the recent transformation of information environments into account. There has been a dramatic increase in the supply of different types of information which has weakened the role of established news media as gatekeepers to the public spere.
• The transformation has also made it much easier for people to find attitude-congruent information sources and avoid attitude-discrepant information sources. Such processes of selective exposure and selective avoidance contribute to people picking up false and misleading that confirm their pre-held attitudes.
• It has been shown that false and misleading information is to some extent disseminated via established news media, but also that political-alternative media and social media are the main channels of such dissemination.
• The degree to which people trust the news media influences what media they use and what media content they trust. Our studies show an increasing polarization where in particular those leaning to the right ideologically trusting the news media less than others. The same factors are related to lower use of traditional news media and higher use of right-wing alternative media. The use of right-wing alternative media has been shown to decrease trust in established news media.
• It has been shown that people who intentionally avoid the news hold more misperceptions than others, but also that it matters what type of media people use. More specifically, newspaper reading is linked to people holding less misperceptions whereas the opposite holds true for watching TV news. At the same time, those who have higher trust in news media generally hold less misperceptions.
• The degree of conspiracy mindset has been shown to be both conceptually and empirically distinct from beliefs in specific conspiracy theories, while being important as a predictor of beliefs in specific conspiracy theories. Results suggest that the media potentially are of great importance in this context. The use of right-wing alternative media is related to a stronger conspiracy mindset.
Dissemination of research and public collaborations
It was decided early on to produce a joint volume, “Knowledge Resistance in High-Choice Information Environments” (2022). The book has contributed to making the research program widely known internationally. Researchers across the program have also published a large number of papers in peer reviewed journals as well as book chapters, reports and handbook articles (please see the list of publications).
Participants in the program have presented their work in a variety of venues, internationally and nationally. These include invited lectures at universities across the world as well as presentations at conferences and workshops, among them Symposium organized at the Annual Convention of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (Atlanta), the 19th General Meeting of the European Association of Social Psychology, Krakow, the Swedish Political Science Association (SWEPSA), the European Political Science Association (EPSA), the Gothenburg Research Group on Elections, Public Opinion and Political Behavior (GEPOP) and the Annual political science workshops of the low countries (Politicologenetmaal), the International Communication Association, World Association for Public Opinion Research.
In addition, there has been a comprehensive public outreach, in particular by the program leader Åsa Wikforss. Outreach includes popular newspaper articles and books, hundreds of public talks, frequent panel participation and appearances on radio, TV and in pod casts. Talks have been given at several public authorities (such as the Ministry of Health), in parliament, at large conferences for teachers as well as at major journalistic organizations (including SR and SVT). In 2019 the program leader and the PI:s also met with the Swedish Minister of Education. International venues include, among others, UNDP, ALLEA, Nobel Prize Summit at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington D.C., the BBC, American Association for the Advancement of Science and COMPET (a meeting for all the ministers of research within the EU).