TY - JOUR
T1 - Americans’ views of scientists’ motivations for scientific work
AU - Johnson, Branden B.
AU - Dieckmann, Nathan F.
N1 - Funding Information:
Marcus Mayorga supervised data collection, while YouGov recruited the respondents. The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article: This material is based upon work supported by the US National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1455867.
Funding Information:
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2264-5419 Johnson Branden B. Decision Research, USA https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5061-9889 Dieckmann Nathan F. Oregon Health & Science University, USA Branden B. Johnson, Decision Research, 1201 Oak Street, Suite. 200, Eugene, OR 97401, USA. Email: branden@decisionresearch.org 10 2019 0963662519880319 © The Author(s) 2019 2019 SAGE Publications Scholars have not examined public views of scientific motivations directly, despite scientific authority implications. A US representative sample rated 11 motivations both descriptively (they do motivate scientists’ work) and normatively (they should motivate scientists) for scientists employed by federal government agency, large business corporation, advocacy group (nonprofit seeking to influence policy), or university. Descriptive and normative ratings fell into extrinsic (money, fame, power, being liked, helping employer) and intrinsic (do good science, enjoy challenge, helping society and others) motivation factors; being independent and gaining respect were outliers. People saw intrinsic motivations as more common, but wanted intrinsic motivations to dominate extrinsic ones even more. Despite a few differences for extrinsic-motivation ratings, the lay public tended to see scientific work as similarly motivated regardless of the employer. Variance in perceived science motivations was explained by scientific beliefs (positivism, credibility) and knowledge (of facts and scientific reasoning), complemented by political ideology and religiosity. extrinsic motivations intrinsic motivations perceptions of scientists’ motivations Division of Social and Economic Sciences https://doi.org/10.13039/100000077 1455867 edited-state corrected-proof Marcus Mayorga supervised data collection, while YouGov recruited the respondents. Funding The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article: This material is based upon work supported by the US National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1455867. ORCID iDs Branden B. Johnson https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2264-5419 Nathan F. Dieckmann https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5061-9889 Supplemental material Supplemental material for this article is available online.
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2019.
Copyright:
Copyright 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2020/1/1
Y1 - 2020/1/1
N2 - Scholars have not examined public views of scientific motivations directly, despite scientific authority implications. A US representative sample rated 11 motivations both descriptively (they do motivate scientists’ work) and normatively (they should motivate scientists) for scientists employed by federal government agency, large business corporation, advocacy group (nonprofit seeking to influence policy), or university. Descriptive and normative ratings fell into extrinsic (money, fame, power, being liked, helping employer) and intrinsic (do good science, enjoy challenge, helping society and others) motivation factors; being independent and gaining respect were outliers. People saw intrinsic motivations as more common, but wanted intrinsic motivations to dominate extrinsic ones even more. Despite a few differences for extrinsic-motivation ratings, the lay public tended to see scientific work as similarly motivated regardless of the employer. Variance in perceived science motivations was explained by scientific beliefs (positivism, credibility) and knowledge (of facts and scientific reasoning), complemented by political ideology and religiosity.
AB - Scholars have not examined public views of scientific motivations directly, despite scientific authority implications. A US representative sample rated 11 motivations both descriptively (they do motivate scientists’ work) and normatively (they should motivate scientists) for scientists employed by federal government agency, large business corporation, advocacy group (nonprofit seeking to influence policy), or university. Descriptive and normative ratings fell into extrinsic (money, fame, power, being liked, helping employer) and intrinsic (do good science, enjoy challenge, helping society and others) motivation factors; being independent and gaining respect were outliers. People saw intrinsic motivations as more common, but wanted intrinsic motivations to dominate extrinsic ones even more. Despite a few differences for extrinsic-motivation ratings, the lay public tended to see scientific work as similarly motivated regardless of the employer. Variance in perceived science motivations was explained by scientific beliefs (positivism, credibility) and knowledge (of facts and scientific reasoning), complemented by political ideology and religiosity.
KW - extrinsic motivations
KW - intrinsic motivations
KW - perceptions of scientists’ motivations
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U2 - 10.1177/0963662519880319
DO - 10.1177/0963662519880319
M3 - Article
C2 - 31621505
AN - SCOPUS:85074539115
VL - 29
SP - 2
EP - 20
JO - Public Understanding of Science
JF - Public Understanding of Science
SN - 0963-6625
IS - 1
ER -