Attempts to prime intellectual virtues for understanding of science: Failures to inspire intellectual effort

Abstract

Strategies for effectively communicating scientific findings to the public are an important and growing area of study. Recognizing that some complex subjects require recipients of information to take a more active role in constructing an understanding, we sought to determine whether it was possible to increase subjects’ intellectual effort via “priming” methodologies. In particular, we asked whether subconsciously priming “intellectual virtues” (IVs), such as curiosity, perseverance, patience, and diligence might improve participants’ effort and performance on various cognitive tasks. In the first experiment, we found no significant differences in either effort or understanding between IV-primed and neutrally-primed individuals across two different priming techniques. The second experiment measured the effect of IV-priming on intellectual effort in simpler, shorter-duration puzzles and exploration activities; here, we observed an effect, but given its low strength and short duration, we do not believe that priming of IVs is a promising strategy for science communication.

Keywords:

• Intellectual virtues
• priming
• science communication
• science education
• virtue epistemology

Notes

1. This may not seem surprising or noteworthy unless one is familiar with results like Kahan and colleagues’ (2012) that show that the more scientific facts one has at one’s disposal, the more likely politics plays a role in determining one’s views on ACC and other politically contested issues.

2. Presumably, different intellectual character virtues would be implicated in various and potentially overlapping ways to gains in understanding insofar as they are operative at different stages of inquiry. Curiosity or intellectual courage, for example, might be implicated at the initiation of inquiry, whereas thoroughness and carefulness are involved with sustaining inquiry. In the experiments described below, our focus is on virtues related to effort; accordingly, we posit that greater time spent with the information provided would be the primary mechanism by which greater effort would lead to better understanding.

3. Available via the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/4cbqh/.

4. The failure to prime intellectual character virtues might also be seen as offering some support for those opposed to Situationism: while sub-personal stimuli do seem capable of inspiring greater effort in a limited range of cases, the effect size and duration was small. We believe, however, that our results are consistent with both Situationism and its denial; for as we noted above, we believe that had priming be shown to work, it would be consistent with Responsibilist VE approaches and would open further possibilities for attempting to increase agents’ epistemic responsibility.

5. It is also important to note that these results have no clear application to the effectiveness of communication techniques such as framing. Our results relate only to effort and understanding of a scientific process, and have no clear bearing on willingness to be receptive to new information (as with issue framing) (Fuchs, 2015; Nisbet & Mooney, 2007; Nisbet et al., 2011).