Skepticism and defiance: Assessing credibility and representations of science

Abstract

Since the 1970s, there has been a growing interest in how individuals appropriate scientific knowledge, which has recently been reinforced by societal issues such as vaccine releases and skepticism about global warming. Faced with the health and social consequences of the mistrust of scientific knowledge, there is an urgent need for tools to measure the acceptance or rejection of scientific knowledge, while at the same time gaining a more detailed understanding of the processes involved. This is the purpose of this article. Thus, we conducted 4 empirical studies to provide a validation of the Credibility of Science Scale from the perspective of a French population, which aims to assess the credibility that individuals attribute to science and to empirically evaluate the link that may exist between the different levels of credibility attributed to science and the social representations of science. Studies 1a and 1b demonstrated good structural validity, the good fidelity (homogeneity and temporal stability), and the good criterion validity of the French version of the scale. In Study 2, we observed the same psychometric qualities of the French version of the scale. We also noted a structuring of the social representation of science based on age (Factor 1) and on the credibility attributed to science (Factor 2). Our results also raise the question of possible means of intervention to promote a better perception of science.