A Study of Social Trust in Science and Its Effective Factors

Document Type : Review Paper

Author

MA. in Sociology

Abstract

Trust has transformed as a consequence of modernity. In pre-modernity, trust predominantly involved face-to-face communication between two wellacquainted individuals. In modernity, people trust abstract expert systems (e.g., economic, legal, political and scientific systems). In this paper, we try to investigate some of the issues of social trust in science. At first, we give a definition of trust in science, then, we investigate history and types of trust in science, theories of trust in science, and factors affecting public trust in science. In fact, the aim of this research is to investigate the historical process, theories, and factors affecting social trust in science. This is a library and documentary research. This study shows that in the classical period of ‘academic science’ we observed high levels of trust. But relatively lower levels of trust, or at least a downward tendency, can be discerned in the present period of ‘post-academic science’. Also, this paper argues that the visibility of negative events, tend to reinforce distrust, media use, familiarity, and interpersonal communication are the most important psychological and social factors affecting public trust in science

Keywords

References


بی. تهران: نشر نی.یترجمه هوشنگ نا .قات اجتماعییر، ت. (1386). نحوه انجام تحقیکب
ز.کترجمه محسن ثلاثی. تهران: نشر مر .تیامدهای مدرنیدنز، آ. (1377). پیگ
ان، تهران:یترجمه ناصر موفق .دیت شخصی در عصر جدیــــــــــ (1378). تجدد و تشخص: جامعه و هو
نشر نی.
دی ویترجمه علی اصغر سع .پارچگی جهانییک ی دربارهیــــــــــ (1379). جهان رها شده: گفتارها
وسف حاجی عبدالوهاب، تهران: علم و ادب.ی
تابخانه طهوری.ک تهران: .نولوژیکمحسنی، م. (1372). مبانی جامعه شناسی علم: جامعه، علم و ت
Barber, Bernard (1987), “Trust in Science”, Minerva, Vol 25, Issue 1-2, pp
123-134.
Bleich, Sara. Blendon, Robert & Adams, Alyce (2007), “Trust in Scientific
Experts on Obesity: Implications for Awareness and Behavior Change”,
Obesity, Vol 15, No 8, pp 2145-2156.
Lidskog, Rolf (1996), “in Science We Trust? On the Relation Between Scien-
tific Knowledge, Risk Consciousness and Public Trust”, Acta Sociologica,
Vol 39, No 1, pp 31-56.
Liu, Hui & Priest, Susanna (2009), “Understanding Public Support for Stem
Cell Researches: Media Communication, Interpersonal Communication and
Trust in Key Actors”, Public Understanding of Science, Vol 18, No 6, pp
703-716.
Newton, Kenneth (2001), “Trust, Social Capital, Civil Society, and democ-
racy”, International Political Science Review, Vol 22, No 2:, pp 201-214.
Roberts, Mary Roduta. Reid, Grace Schroeder, Meadow & Norris, Stephen P.
(2011), “Causal or spurious? The relationship of knowledge and attitudes to
trust in science and technology”, Public Understanding of Science, pp 1-18.
Siegrist, M. (2000), “the Influence of Trust and Perceptions of Risks and Ben-
efits on the Acceptance of Gene Technology”, Risk Analysis, Vol 20, Issue
2, pp 195-203.
Slovic, Paul (1999), “Trust, Emotion, Sex, Politics, and Science: Surveying
the Risk-Assessment Battlefield”, Risk Analysis, Vol 19, No 4, pp 689-701.
Sztompka, Piotr (2007), “Trust in Science: Robert K. Merton’s Inspirations”,
Journal of Classical Sociology, Vol 7, No 2, pp 210-220.

Files

Share

How to cite

Statistics