Trust in scientists and their role in society across 68 countries

Cologna V 1 , Mede NG 2 , Berger S 3 , Besley J 4 , Brick C 5 , Joubert M 6 Show all authors , Maibach EW 7 , Mihelj S 8 , Oreskes N 9 , Schäfer MS 2 , van der Linden S 10 , Abdul Aziz NI 11 , Abdulsalam S 12 , Shamsi NA 13 , Aczel B 14 , Adinugroho I 15 , Alabrese E 16 , Aldoh A 5 , Alfano M 17 , Ali IM 18 , Alsobay M 19 , Altenmüller M 20 , Alvarez RM 21 , Amoako R 22 , Amollo T 23 , Ansah P 22 , Apriliawati D 24 , Azevedo F 25 , Bajrami A 26 , Bardhan R 27 , Bati K 28 , Bertsou E 29 , Betsch C 30 , Bhatiya AY 31 , Bhui R 19 , Białobrzeska O 32 , Bilewicz M 33 , Bouguettaya A 34 , Breeden K 35 , Bret A 36 , Buchel O 37 , Cabrera-Álvarez P 38 , Cagnoli F 39 , Calero Valdez A 40 , Callaghan T 41 , Cases RK 42 , Çoksan S 43 , Czarnek G 44 , De Peuter S 45 , Debnath R 21 , Delouvée S 46 , Di Stefano L 39 , Díaz-Catalán C 38 , Doell KC 47 , Dohle S 48 , Douglas KM 49 , Dries C 50 , Dubrov D 51 , Dzimińska M 52 , Ecker UKH 53 , Elbaek CT 54 , Elsherif M 34 , Enke B 55 , Etienne TW 56 , Facciani M 57 , Fage-Butler A 58 , Faisal MZ 59 , Fan X 60 , Farhart C 61 , Feldhaus C 62 , Ferreira M 17 , Feuerriegel S 63 , Fischer H 64 , Freundt J 65 , Friese M 66 , Fuglsang S 67 , Gallyamova A 51 , Garrido-Vásquez P 68 , Garrido Vásquez ME 68 , Gatua W 69 , Genschow O 70 , Ghasemi O 71 , Gkinopoulos T 44 , Gloor JL 72 , Goddard E 60 , Gollwitzer M 20 , González-Brambila C 73 , Gordon H 15 , Grigoryev D 51 , Grimshaw GM 74 , Guenther L 75 , Haarstad H 76 , Harari D 77 , Hawkins LN 78 , Hensel P 79 , Hernández-Mondragón AC 80 , Herziger A 77 , Huang G 81 , Huff M 64 , Hurley M 82 , Ibadildin N 83 , Ishibashi M 84 , Islam MT 85 , Jeddi Y 12 , Jin T 86 , Jones CA 87 , Jungkunz S 88 , Jurgiel D 89 , Kabdulkair Z 83 , Kao JJ 90 , Kavassalis S 78 , Kerr JR 91 , Kitsa M 92 , Klabíková Rábová T 93 , Klein O 94 , Koh H 95 , Koivula A 96 , Kojan L 40 , Komyaginskaya E 51 , König L 97 , Koppel L 98 , Koren Nobre Cavalcante K 99 , Kosachenko A 100 , Kotcher J 7 , Kranz LS 74 , Krishnan P 29 , Kristiansen S 101 , Krouwel A 102 , Kuppens T 103 , Kyza EA 104 , Lamm C 47 , Lantian A 105 , Lazić A 106 , Lecuona O 107 , Légal JB 105 , Leviston Z 108 , Levy N 17 , Lindkvist AM 98 , Lits G 109 , Löschel A 62 , López Ortega A 102 , Lopez-Villavicencio C 110 , Lou NM 111 , Lucas CH 87 , Lunz-Trujillo K 112 , Marques MD 113 , Mayer SJ 88 , McKay R 114 , Mercier H 115 , Metag J 116 , Milfont TL 117 , Miller JM 118 , Mitkidis P 54 , Monge-Rodríguez F 110 , Motta M 41 , Mudra I 92 , Muršič Z 119 , Namutebi J 120 , Newman EJ 108 , Nitschke JP 47 , Ntui NV 121 , Nwogwugwu D 122 , Ostermann T 123 , Otterbring T 124 , Palmer-Hague J 125 , Pantazi M 94 , Pärnamets P 126 , Parra Saiani P 39 , Paruzel-Czachura M 127 , Parzuchowski M 32 , Pavlov YG 128 , Pearson AR 129 , Penner MA 125 , Pennington CR 130 , Petkanopoulou K 131 , Petrović MB 106 , Pfänder J 115 , Pisareva D 95 , Ploszaj A 132 , Poliaková K 93 , Pronizius E 47 , Pypno-Blajda K 127 , Quiñones DMA 133 , Räsänen P 96 , Rauchfleisch A 90 , Rebitschek FG 50 , Refojo Seronero C 38 , Rêgo G 134 , Reynolds JP 130 , Roche J 82 , Rödder S 135 , Röer JP 123 , Ross RM 17 , Ruin I 136 , Santos O 137 , Santos RR 137 , Schmid P 30 , Schulreich S 138 , Scoggins B 139 , Sharaf A 140 , Sheria Nfundiko J 141 , Shuckburgh E 142 , Six J 143 , Solak N 144 , Späth L 143 , Spruyt B 145 , Standaert O 109 , Stanley SK 71 , Storms G 45 , Strahm N 3 , Syropoulos S 146 , Szaszi B 14 , Szumowska E 44 , Tanaka M 147 , Teran-Escobar C 105 , Todorova B 47 , Toko AK 12 , Tokrri R 148 , Toribio-Florez D 49 , Tsakiris M 114 , Tyrala M 149 , Uluğ ÖM 150 , Uzoma IC 151 , van Noord J 103 , Varda C 104 , Verheyen S 152 , Vilares I 86 , Vlasceanu M 153 , von Bubnoff A 154 , Walker I 108 , Warwas I 52 , Weber M 66 , Weninger T 57 , Westfal M 70 , Wintterlin F 116 , Wojcik AD 155 , Xia Z 156 , Xie J 157 , Zegler-Poleska E 132 , Zenklusen A 29 , Zwaan RA 152

Affiliations 

  • 1 Department of the History of Science, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA. viktoriacologna@gmail.com
  • 2 Department of Communication and Media Research, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
  • 3 Institute of Sociology, University Bern, Bern, Switzerland
  • 4 Department of Advertising + Public Relations, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA
  • 5 Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
  • 6 Centre for Research on Evaluation, Science and Technology, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa
  • 7 Centre for Climate Change Communication, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA
  • 8 Centre for Research in Communication and Culture, Department of Communication and Media, Loughborough University, Loughborough, UK
  • 9 Department of the History of Science, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
  • 10 Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
  • 11 Institute of Malaysian and International Studies, National University of Malaysia, Bangi, Malaysia
  • 12 School of Collective Intelligence, Mohammed VI Polytechnic University, Ben Guerir, Morocco
  • 13 Department of Science & Technology Studies, Faculty of Science, Universiti Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
  • 14 ELTE Institute of Psychology, Eotvos Lorand University, Budapest, Hungary
  • 15 School of Psychology, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK
  • 16 Department of Economics, University of Bath, Bath, UK
  • 17 Department of Philosophy, Macquarie University, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
  • 18 Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Science, University of Dschang, Dschang, Cameroon
  • 19 Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
  • 20 Department of Psychology, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Munich, Germany
  • 21 Linde Center for Science, Society, and Policy, Division of Humanities and Social Science, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA
  • 22 Department of Communication, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA
  • 23 Department of Physics, Egerton University, Egerton, Kenya
  • 24 Department of Psychology, Universitas Islam Negeri Sunan Kalijaga, Yogyakarta, Indonesia
  • 25 Department of Interdisciplinary Social Science, University of Utrecht, Utrecht, the Netherlands
  • 26 Museum of Natural Sciences 'Sabiha Kasimati', University of Tirana, Tirana, Albania
  • 27 Department of Architecture, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
  • 28 Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Botswana, Gaborone, Botswana
  • 29 Institute of Political Science, University of St. Gallen, St. Gallen, Switzerland
  • 30 Institute for Planetary Health Behaviour, University of Erfurt, Erfurt, Germany
  • 31 Department of Economics, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK
  • 32 Institute of Psychology, SWPS University, Warsaw, Poland
  • 33 Faculty of Psychology, University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland
  • 34 School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK
  • 35 Computer Science Department, Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, CA, USA
  • 36 Department of Psychology, Nantes Université, LPPL, Nantes, France
  • 37 Institute for Sociology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, Slovakia
  • 38 Department of Scientific and Innovation Culture, Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology, Madrid, Spain
  • 39 Department of International and Political Sciences, University of Genoa, Genoa, Italy
  • 40 Institute of Multimedia and Interactive Systems, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany
  • 41 Department of Health Law, Policy, and Management, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA
  • 42 Department of Sociology, University of the Philippines Diliman, Quezon City, Philippines
  • 43 Department of Psychology, Erzurum Technical University, Erzurum, Turkey
  • 44 Behavior in Crisis Lab, Institute of Psychology, Jagiellonian University, Cracow, Poland
  • 45 Department of Psychology, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
  • 46 LP3C (Psychology Laboratory), Université Rennes 2, Rennes, France
  • 47 Department of Cognition, Emotion, and Methods in Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
  • 48 Institute of General Practice and Family Medicine, University of Bonn, University Hospital Bonn, Bonn, Germany
  • 49 School of Psychology, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK
  • 50 Harding Center for Risk Literacy, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany
  • 51 Center for Sociocultural Research, HSE University, Moscow, Russia
  • 52 Department of Labor and Social Policy, University of Lodz, Lodz, Poland
  • 53 School of Psychological Science & Public Policy Institute, University of Western Australia, Perth, Western Australia, Australia
  • 54 Department of Management, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
  • 55 Department of Economics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
  • 56 Department of Political Science & Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
  • 57 Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, USA
  • 58 School of Communication and Culture, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
  • 59 a2i Programme of ICT Division and UNDP Bangladesh, Dhaka, Bangladesh
  • 60 Department of Resource Economics and Environmental Sociology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
  • 61 Department of Political Science and International Relations, Carleton College, Northfield, MN, USA
  • 62 Faculty of Management and Economics, Ruhr-University Bochum, Bochum, Germany
  • 63 LMU Munich School of Management, LMU Munich, Munich, Germany
  • 64 Leibniz Institut für Wissensmedien, Tübingen, Germany
  • 65 School of Social Work, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Lucerne, Switzerland
  • 66 Department of Psychology, Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany
  • 67 Department of Political Science, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
  • 68 Department of Psychology, Universidad de Concepción, Concepción, Chile
  • 69 Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
  • 70 Institute for Management & Organization, Leuphana University, Lueneburg, Germany
  • 71 School of Psychology, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
  • 72 Research Institute for Responsible Innovation, School of Management, University of St. Gallen, St. Gallen, Switzerland
  • 73 Department of Business Administration, Instituto Técnológico Autónomo de México, Mexico City, Mexico
  • 74 School of Psychology, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand
  • 75 Department of Media and Communication, LMU Munich, Munich, Germany
  • 76 Department of Geography, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway
  • 77 Faculty of Data and Decision Sciences, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel
  • 78 Hixon Center for Climate and the Environment, Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, CA, USA
  • 79 Faculty of Management, University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland
  • 80 Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados del Instituto Politícnico Nacional, Mexico City, Mexico
  • 81 Department of Media and Communication, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong
  • 82 School of Education, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
  • 83 Department of Political Science and International Relations, KIMEP University, Almaty, Kazakhstan
  • 84 Center for Integrated Disaster Information Research, Interfaculty Initiative in Information Studies, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
  • 85 Department of Government & Politics, Jahangirnagar University, Dhaka, Bangladesh
  • 86 Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA
  • 87 School of Geography, Planning, and Spatial Sciences, University of Tasmania, Tasmania, Australia
  • 88 Institute of Political Science, University of Bamberg, Bamberg, Germany
  • 89 Institute of Psychology, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toruń, Poland
  • 90 Graduate Institute of Journalism, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan
  • 91 Department of Public Health, University of Otago, Wellington, New Zealand
  • 92 Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, Lviv Polytechnic National University, Lviv, Ukraine
  • 93 Institute of Communication Studies and Journalism, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic
  • 94 Center for Social and Cultural Psychology, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium
  • 95 Department of Political Science and International Relations, School of Sciences and Humanities, Nazarbayev University, Astana, Kazakhstan
  • 96 Department of Social Research, University of Turku, Turku, Finland
  • 97 Faculty of Life Sciences: Food, Nutrition and Health, University of Bayreuth, Kulmbach, Germany
  • 98 Division of Economics, Department of Management and Engineering, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden
  • 99 Faculty of Polish and Classical Philology, University of Adam Mickiewicz, Poznań, Poland
  • 100 Department of Psychology, Ural Federal University, Yekaterinburg, Russia
  • 101 Centre for Climate and Energy Transformation, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway
  • 102 Department of Communication Science and Political Science, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
  • 103 Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences, University of Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands
  • 104 Department of Communication and Internet Studies, Cyprus University of Technology, Limassol, Cyprus
  • 105 Laboratoire Parisien de Psychologie Sociale, Université Paris Nanterre, Nanterre, France
  • 106 Laboratory for Research of Individual Differences, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia
  • 107 Department of Psychobiology and Methodology, Faculty of Psychology, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
  • 108 School of Medicine and Psychology, Australian National University, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia
  • 109 Institut Langage et Communication, University of Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
  • 110 Departamento de Psicología, Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, La Molina, Peru
  • 111 Department of Psychology, University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
  • 112 Harvard Kennedy School's Shorenstein Center, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
  • 113 School of Psychology and Public Health, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
  • 114 Department of Psychology, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, UK
  • 115 Institut Jean Nicod, Département d'études cognitives, ENS, EHESS, PSL University, CNRS, Paris, France
  • 116 Department of Communication, University of Muenster, Münster, Germany
  • 117 School of Psychological and Social Sciences, University of Waikato, Tauranga, New Zealand
  • 118 Department of Political Science and International Relations, University of Delaware, Newark, DE, USA
  • 119 Office for Quality Assurance, Analyses and Reporting, Project EUTOPIA, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia
  • 120 Department of Management and Supply Chain Studies, Nkumba University, Entebbe, Uganda
  • 121 Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Buea, Buea, Cameroon
  • 122 Communication Arts Programme, Bowen University, Iwo, Nigeria
  • 123 Department of Psychology and Psychotherapy, Witten/Herdecke University, Witten, Germany
  • 124 Department of Management, University of Adger, Kristiansand, Norway
  • 125 Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Trinity Western University, Langley, British Columbia, Canada
  • 126 Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden
  • 127 Institute of Psychology, University of Silesia in Katowice, Katowice, Poland
  • 128 Institute of Medical Psychology, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
  • 129 Department of Psychological Science, Pomona College, Claremont, CA, USA
  • 130 School of Psychology, Aston University, Birmingham, UK
  • 131 Department of Psychology, University of Crete, Rethymno, Greece
  • 132 Science Studies Laboratory, University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland
  • 133 Department of Psychology, University of the Philippines Diliman, Quezon City, Philippines
  • 134 National Institute of Science and Technology on Social and Affective Neuroscience, São Paulo, Brazil
  • 135 Department of Social Sciences, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
  • 136 Institut des Géosciences de l'Environnement, University Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, IRD, Grenoble-INP, Grenoble, France
  • 137 Institute of Environmental Health, Faculty of Medicine, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal
  • 138 Department of Nutritional Sciences, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
  • 139 School of Politics and International Relations, Australian National University, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia
  • 140 Independent Researcher, Cairo, Egypt
  • 141 Département de Sociologie, Université Officielle de Bukavu, Bukavu, Democratic Republic of the Congo
  • 142 Cambridge Zero, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
  • 143 Department of Environmental Systems Science, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
  • 144 Psychology Department, TED University, Ankara, Turkey
  • 145 Sociology Department, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium
  • 146 Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, USA
  • 147 Faculty of Political Science and Economics, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan
  • 148 Department of Civil Law, Faculty of Law, University of Tirana, Milto Tutulani, Tirana, Albania
  • 149 Division of Public Policy, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong, Hong Kong
  • 150 School of Psychology, University of Sussex, Falmer, UK
  • 151 Molecular Haematology and Immunogenetics Laboratory, Department of Medical Laboratory Science, Faculty of Health Sciences and Technology, College of Medicine, University of Nigeria Nsukka, Nsukka, Nigeria
  • 152 Department of Psychology, Education and Child Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, the Netherlands
  • 153 Department of Psychology, New York University, New York, NY, USA
  • 154 Faculty of Technology and Bionics, Rhine-Waal University, Kleve, Germany
  • 155 Faculty of Philosophy and Social Science, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toruń, Poland
  • 156 School of Economics and Management, Tongji University, Shanghai, China
  • 157 School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
Nat Hum Behav, 2025 Jan 20.
PMID: 39833424 DOI: 10.1038/s41562-024-02090-5

Abstract

Science is crucial for evidence-based decision-making. Public trust in scientists can help decision makers act on the basis of the best available evidence, especially during crises. However, in recent years the epistemic authority of science has been challenged, causing concerns about low public trust in scientists. We interrogated these concerns with a preregistered 68-country survey of 71,922 respondents and found that in most countries, most people trust scientists and agree that scientists should engage more in society and policymaking. We found variations between and within countries, which we explain with individual- and country-level variables, including political orientation. While there is no widespread lack of trust in scientists, we cannot discount the concern that lack of trust in scientists by even a small minority may affect considerations of scientific evidence in policymaking. These findings have implications for scientists and policymakers seeking to maintain and increase trust in scientists.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

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