The health and environmental risks and rewards of modernity that shape scientific optimism

Abstract

Individuals in high-income countries increasingly express less scientific optimism than in lower-income societies. In this article, we utilize risk society theory to understand the complicated relationship between individual- and country-level factors, and optimism toward the role of science in society in “reflexively modern” societies. We use multilevel modeling with 16 high-income countries to determine the individual-level and country-level factors that shape scientific optimism. Next, we look at the individual characteristics that affect scientific optimism in each country individually. At the individual level, we find that older people, the more highly educated and higher earning, those farther to the Right on the political spectrum, and those with more materialist (rather than postmaterialist) attitudes have higher scientific optimism, while more religious people have lower optimism regarding science. At the country level, we make a corollary argument about materialism: societies that have higher measles immunization rates, generate more electricity from fossil fuels, and have a greater percentage of mobile phone subscriptions, have populaces that are more optimistic toward science.