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The Scientific Impotence Excuse:
Discounting Belief‐Threatening Scientific Abstracts
Author(s) -
Munro Geoffrey D.
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
journal of applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1559-1816
pISSN - 0021-9029
DOI - 10.1111/j.1559-1816.2010.00588.x
Subject(s) - excuse , psychology , scientific evidence , social psychology , reading (process) , stereotype (uml) , discounting , epistemology , homosexuality , psychoanalysis , philosophy , linguistics , finance , political science , law , economics
The scientific impotence discounting hypothesis predicts that people resist belief‐disconfirming scientific evidence by concluding that the topic of study is not amenable to scientific investigation. In 2 studies, participants read a series of brief abstracts that either confirmed or disconfirmed their existing beliefs about a stereotype associated with homosexuality. Relative to those reading belief‐confirming evidence, participants reading belief‐disconfirming evidence indicated more belief that the topic could not be studied scientifically and more belief that a series of other unrelated topics could not be studied scientifically. Thus, being presented with belief‐disconfirming scientific evidence may lead to an erosion of belief in the efficacy of scientific methods.