Risk Researchers’ Views About the Goal of Trying to Ensure Policymakers Consider Scientific Evidence

A survey of members of a scientific society focused on risk analysis suggests substantial support for seeing their scientific society pursue the communication goal of “trying to ensure that policymakers consider scientific evidence.” Support for pursuing this goal was largely predicted by researchers’ beliefs that it was ethical for the society to pursue the goal, that it would be satisfying to see their society pursue the goal, and the belief that the society could have a positive impact on society by pursuing the goal. Normative beliefs about pursuing the goal and organizational efficacy beliefs were not good predictors of goal support. Goal support was measured using a direct measure of perceived goal importance as well as measures focused on the degree to which respondents wanted their society to put resources into providing members with opportunities to pursue the goal and the amount of funding that members thought the society should devote to pursuing the goal. The theory underlying the work argues that we can treat science communicators’ choices about communication goals, objectives, and tactics as “planned behaviors” and thus study them using traditional behavior change models.