Recent research on stereotypes of scientists using explicit measures

3.2.2.2.1. UK government’s public attitudes to science survey

To understand the UK public’s attitudes toward science, scientists and science policy, the UK government has funded a series of questionnaire surveys – known as the Public Attitudes to Science (PAS) series since 2000. The PAS surveys address a broad range of topics including public attitudes toward the current state of scientific literacy, current scientific issues and scientific engagement. According to the PAS 2014 report, the UK public’s overall perceptions of scientists and engineering were “overwhelmingly positive” with 90% of participants indicating that scientists “make valuable contribution to society” and 83% of participants agreeing that scientists “make life better for average person” (Ipsos MORI, 2014, p. 44). However, when asked to rate scientists and engineers on their personal traits, 44% said they are poor at communication and 50% considered them to be secretive (Ipsos MORI, 2014, p. 47). These findings suggest that the perception of scientists as less-social people may still be a deeply embedded stereotype in the UK society.

Although the PAS surveys have long been used in the UK as a source of authoritative knowledge about science-related attitudes, there are doubts about the robustness of its methods and claims. First of all, the sampling of the PAS 2014 study is problematic. This study consisted of a main survey of 1749 UK adults aged 16+ and a booster survey of 315 young people aging from 16 to 24 years. Clearly, the sample sizes for both surveys are limited and the young participants recruited for the booster survey are not

representative of the general UK population. Secondly, there is a lack of procedural transparency about data processing in the report. The underreporting of test statistics such as the p-values makes the claims made in the PAS report less credible (Smith & Jensen, 2016). Higher quality research with rigorous methodology is still needed to investigate the objectives of the PAS survey including how people perceive scientists.

3.2.2.2.2. ASPIRES project

To understand how young people’s aspirations in science develop in the UK, a five- year study called ASPIRES combining quantitative online surveys of over 19,000 students aging 10 to 14 years and longitudinal interviews with a selective subsample of 83 students and 65 of their parents were conducted from 2009 to 2013 (Archer, Osborne, et al., 2013). The ASPIRES project covers many topics including aspirations in science; attitudes towards school science; self-concept in science; images of scientists; participation in science-related activities outside of school; parental expectations; parental school involvement; parental attitudes towards science; and peer attitudes towards school and towards school science (Archer, Osborne, et al., 2013).

Regarding students’ perceptions about scientists, the ASPIRES survey data showed that only 21% of Year 9 students agreed that scientists are “geeks” and even fewer (14%) believed that scientists are ‘odd’. Only 25% agreed that scientists spend most of their time working by themselves. Such findings suggest that young people’s explicit views of scientists have become less stereotypical in recent years. However, the interview data showed that science aspirations and attitudes are patterned by gender. Girls were found to describe careers in science as ‘not girly’ and those who define themselves as highly feminine were particularly unlikely to aspire to a scientific career (Archer, DeWitt, et al., 2013). Medicine was a particularly popular scientific aspiration among girls as it was concerned with ‘helping people’ (Archer, Osborne, et al., 2013). Girls who aspire to science by Year 9 were a minority among their peers and described themselves as

being odd for studying science, while at the same time being ‘girly’ and enjoying socialising with others (Archer, Osborne, et al., 2013). Nevertheless, boys who aspire to science were more evenly divided between those who described themselves as ‘cool/sporty’ and those who did not. These findings suggest that girls who aspire to science careers may require considerable resilience to maintain their aspirations in science.

All in all, in contrast to the above-mentioned PAS survey results, young adolescents from the ASPIRES project reported less stereotypical views about the isolated and geeky image of scientists. It is possible that with the increasing awareness of the harms of stereotyping, adolescents may be reluctant to report their bias due to social desirability concerns. However, ASPIRES found a widespread explicit stereotypical view among young people in the UK that science careers are ‘not girly’. It remains unknown which specific feminine trait is considered unrelated to science careers.

3.2.2.2.3. ROSE project

The Relevance of Science Education (ROSE) project is a cross-cultural research project investigating young people’s attitudes toward science and technology. It comprised surveys among 15-year-old students from 40 countries from all continents (Sjøberg & Schreiner, 2012). The ROSE project used a long questionnaire containing 108 items addressing students’ science-related out-of-school experiences, interests in learning science, views and attitudes toward school science, views of scientists and career aspirations.

According to the ROSE report, young people from all the countries agreed that science is beneficial to society. However, students from more developed countries (e.g., UK, USA, Japan) showed weaker interest in learning science than those from developing country (e.g., Nigeria, India, Ghana). In developed countries, young people showed

very low interest in “becoming a scientist”, in particular very few girls would like to get a job in STEM fields. Nevertheless, young people from developing countries believed that science can “make their lives healthier, easier and more comfortable" and rated scientists very high on an empathetic notion “helping the poor”. However, children from developed countries, especially girls, were very unlikely to associate science and scientists with such positive notions. In most developed countries, girls reported more interest in getting a job that can help other people than boys, and less than 20% of girls think of scientists as "helping the poor" (Sjøberg & Schreiner, 2012).

3.2.2.2.4. Stereotypes of Scientists survey

Instead of surveying a wide range of topics relating attitudes toward science, scientists and scientific experiences as the above-mentioned project, Wyer, Schneider, Nassar- McMillan and Oliver-Hoyo (2010) developed the Stereotypes of Scientists scale concentrating on assessing people’s perceptions about scientists’ professional competence as well as their interpersonal skills. In this scale, participants are required to rate items such as “scientists are intelligent” or “scientists make friends with people from other departments”.

This scale has so far been used only in their own study with 1106 college students in the US (Wyer et al., 2010). They found that American college students nowadays explicitly reported positive attitudes toward both scientists’ academic competence and interpersonal relations. However, given that self-report questionnaires are prone to the disadvantage of allowing participants to censor and control answers, this scale may not be able to capture participants’ unconscious attitudes toward scientists.

To sum up, recent research on attitudes toward scientists using explicit self-report questionnaires found mixed results about stereotypes of empathy in scientists. The PAS 2014 survey suggested that around half of the adults in the UK believed scientists are

not good at communication. Nevertheless, very few adolescents from the ASPIRES project reported stereotypical views about scientists’ social skills. However, adolescents recruited in the ROSE project still reported little faith in scientists to help other people. Furthermore, it is worth noting that questionnaires used in these projects often cover a wide range of topics and only a few items tapped into perceptions about scientists, not to mention stereotypes about empathy in scientists in particular. Research focusing on the image of scientists has mostly been conducted in the US. Last but not least, self-report measures are limited to introspective responses which may be affected by social desirability concerns. Therefore, the present study addressed these research gaps by investigating perceptions of empathy in scientists in the UK using both implicit and explicit measures.

3.2.2.3. Recent research on stereotypes of scientists using implicit measures