Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Letter
  • Published:

Religious beliefs and public attitudes toward nanotechnology in Europe and the United States

Nature Nanotechnology volume 4, pages 91–94 (2009)Cite this article

Abstract

How do citizens make sense of nanotechnology as more applications reach the market and the mainstream media start to debate the potential risks and benefits of technology1? As with many other political and scientific issues, citizens rely on cognitive shortcuts or heuristics to make sense of issues for which they have low levels of knowledge2. These heuristics can include predispositional factors, such as ideological beliefs or value systems3, and also short-term frames of reference provided by the media or other sources of information4. Recent research suggests that ‘religious filters’ are an important heuristic for scientific issues in general5, and nanotechnology in particular6. A religious filter is more than a simple correlation between religiosity and attitudes toward science: it refers to a link between benefit perceptions and attitudes that varies depending on respondents' levels of religiosity. In surveys, seeing the benefits of nanotechnology is consistently linked to more positive attitudes about nanotechnology among less religious respondents, with this effect being significantly weaker for more religious respondents6. For this study, we have combined public opinion surveys in the United States with Eurobarometer surveys about public attitudes toward nanotechnology in Europe to compare the influence of religious beliefs on attitudes towards nanotechnology in the United States and Europe. Our results show that respondents in the United States were significantly less likely to agree that nanotechnology is morally acceptable than respondents in many European countries. These moral views correlated directly with aggregate levels of religiosity in each country, even after controlling for national research productivity and measures of science performance for high-school students.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Relationship between strength of religious beliefs and moral acceptance of nanotechnology.
Figure 2: Link between views on moral acceptability of nanotechnology and support for regulations.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Feder, B. J. Technology's future: A look at the dark side. The New York Times, 17 May 2006, E4.

  2. Scheufele, D. A. Messages and heuristics: How audiences form attitudes about emerging technologies, in Engaging Science: Thoughts, Deeds, Analysis and Action (ed. Turney, J.) 20–25 (The Wellcome Trust, 2006).

    Google Scholar 

  3. Kahan, D. M. et al. Biased assimilation, polarization and cultural credibility: An experimental study of nanotechnology risk perceptions, in Research Brief No. 3 (Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies, 2008).

    Google Scholar 

  4. Scheufele, D. A. & Lewenstein, B. V. The public and nanotechnology: How citizens make sense of emerging technologies. J. Nanopart. Res. 7, 659–667 (2005).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Ho, S. S., Brossard, D. & Scheufele, D. A. Effects of value predispositions, mass media use, and knowledge on public attitudes toward embryonic stem cell research. Int. J. Public Opin. Res. 20, 171–192 (2008).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Brossard, D., Scheufele, D. A., Kim, E. & Lewenstein, B. V. Religiosity as a perceptual filter: Examining processes of opinion formation about nanotechnology. Public Understanding of Science, available online at 〈http://pus.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/0963662507087304v2〉 (2008).

  7. Scheufele, D. A. et al. Scientists worry about some risks more than the public. Nature Nanotech. 2, 732–734 (2007).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Miller, J. D., Pardo, R. & Niwa, F. Public Perceptions of Science and Technology: A Comparative Study of the European Union, the United States, Japan and Canada (Chicago Academy of Sciences, 1997).

    Google Scholar 

  9. Sjöberg, L. & Winroth, E. Risk, moral value of actions and mood. Scandinavian J. Psychol. 27, 191–208 (1986).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Gaskell, G., Einsiedel, E., Hallman, W., Priest, S. H. & Olsthoorn, J. Social values and the governance of science. Science 310, 1908–1909 (2005).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Khushf, G. An ethic for enhancing human performance through integrative technologies in Managing Nano-Bio-Info-Cogno Innovations: Converging Technologies in Society (eds Bainbridge, W. S. & Roco, M. C.) 255–278 (Springer, 2006).

  12. Roco, M. C. & Bainbridge, W. S. Converging Technologies for Improving Human Performance (Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2003).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  13. Pearson, T. D. The ethics of nanotechnology: A Lutheran reflection. J. Lutheran Ethics (2006).

  14. Inglehart, R. F. & Welzel, C. Modernization, Cultural Change, and Democracy: The Human Development Sequence (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2005).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  15. Kohut, A., Wike, R. & Horowitz, J. M. World publics welcome global trade—but not immigration: 47-nation Pew Global Attitudes Survey. Available at http://pewglobal.org/reports/pdf/258.pdf, (2007).

  16. Inglehart, R. F. & Norris, P. Rising Tide: Gender Equality and Cultural Change around the World (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2003).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  17. Lee, C. J., Scheufele, D. A. & Lewenstein, B. V. Public attitudes toward emerging technologies—examining the interactive effects of cognitions and affect on public attitudes toward nanotechnology. Sci. Commun. 27, 240–267 (2005).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Brossard, D. & Nisbet, M. C. Deference to scientific authority among a low information public: Understanding US opinion on agricultural biotechnology. Int. J. Public Opin. Res. 19, 24–52 (2007).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Lee, C. J. & Scheufele, D. A. The influence of knowledge and deference toward scientific authority: A media effects model for public attitudes toward nanotechnology. Journalism Mass Commun. 83, 819–834 (2006).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Leiserowitz, A. A. American risk perceptions: Is climate change dangerous? Risk Anal. 25, 1433–1442 (2005).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. AAPOR, Standard Definitions: Final Dispositions of Case Codes and Outcome Rates for Surveys (American Association for Public Opinion Research, 2008).

    Google Scholar 

  22. Hullmann, A. Who is winning the global nanorace? Nature Nanotech. 1, 81–83 (2006).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Youtie, J., Shapira, P. & Porter, A. Nanotechnology publications and citations by leading countries and blocs. J. Nanopart. Res. 10, 981–986 (2008).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

This material is based upon work supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation (grant no. SES-0531194). We gratefully acknowledge E. Hillback, S. Dunwoody and students in the Media and Society Research Group at the University of Wisconsin—Madison for their intellectual contributions to this project.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Life Sciences Communication, University of Wisconsin—Madison, 309 Hiram Smith Hall, 1545 Observatory Drive, Madison, 53706, Wisconsin, USA

    Dietram A. Scheufele

  2. School of Public Affairs, Arizona State University, 411 North Central Avenue, Phoenix, 85004, Arizona, USA

    Elizabeth A. Corley

  3. School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Wisconsin—Madison, 821 University Avenue, Madison, 53706, Wisconsin, USA

    Tsung-jen Shih & Kajsa E. Dalrymple

  4. Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, Nanyang Technological University, 31 Nanyang Link, Singapore, 637718, Singapore

    Shirley S. Ho

Authors
  1. Dietram A. Scheufele
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Elizabeth A. Corley
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Tsung-jen Shih
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Kajsa E. Dalrymple
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Shirley S. Ho
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

D.A.S. and E.A.C. led the study design and data collections and took responsibility for planning and writing the manuscript. D.A.S., E.A.C. and T.S. analysed the data. T.S., K.E.D. and S.S.H. contributed at different stages of data collection, analysis and writing.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Dietram A. Scheufele.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Information (PDF 189 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Scheufele, D., Corley, E., Shih, Tj. et al. Religious beliefs and public attitudes toward nanotechnology in Europe and the United States. Nature Nanotech 4, 91–94 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2008.361

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2008.361

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing