Mapping Aversion to Controversial Scientific Technologies

Technologies in agriculture, reproduction, medicine, and elsewhere promise significant social benefits, but may also pose significant risks. Understanding which technologies will be adopted or rejected by the public—and why—is important. Across five studies assessments of risks, benefits, and acceptability of a range of technologies were examined. Two studies found evidence for a ‘clustering’ effect of technological attitudes: evaluations of risks associated with different technologies tend to vary together, and attitudes towards technologies within each cluster are differentially predicted with individual difference measures. A third study showed that manipulating processing style alters subsequent evaluations of technologies, and that the effects are different across clusters. The final two studies first replicated and expanded upon a foundational technological risk assessment study by Fischhoff et al. (1978). Together, these findings suggest the need for a more nuanced and updated paradigm for technological risk assessment that incorporates individual-level characteristics to predict technological aversionM.A