The Study conducted across 68 countries shows that people still trust scientists: global insights from the largest post-pandemic survey on trust in scientists.

An international team of 241 scientists, led by Viktoria Cologna, PhD (Harvard University, ETH Zurich) and Niels G. Mede, PhD (University of Zurich), investigated the level of trust in scientists across 68 different countries. Mariola Paruzel-Czachura, PhD, Associate Professor, and Katarzyna Pypno-Blajda, MA, a doctoral student from the Institute of Psychology represented the University of Silesia.

Despite the often repeated claims of a crisis of trust in science, their findings, published in Nature Human Behaviour, show that most people in most countries have relatively high levels of trust in scientists. In addition, most of the study subjects think that scientists should get more involved in social life and decision processes.

This study is the result of the TISP Many Labs project – a collaborative effort that allowed the authors to survey 71,922 people in 68 countries, including many under-researched countries, the so-called ‘Global South’.

Key results

Widespread trust:

In 68 countries, the majority of the public has a relatively high level of trust in scientists (average trust level = 3.62 on a scale from 1 = very low trust to 5 = very high trust). Most respondents also believe that scientists are qualified (78%), honest (57%) and concerned about the well-being of others (56%).

Involvement of scientists:

Most participants support science taking an active role in society and decision-making processes. Globally, 83% of respondents believe that scientists should communicate about science with the public. Only a minority (23%) think that scientists should not actively advocate for specific policies. 52% believe that scientists should be more involved in policy-making processes.

However, the results confirm previous research indicating significant differences between countries and social groups. In particular, it was found that in Western countries, people with right-wing political views trust scientists less than those with left-wing views. However, in most countries, political leaning was not related to the level of trust in scientists.

Challenges and recommendations

The results also highlight some areas of concern. Globally, less than half of respondents (42%) feel that scientists take into account the opinions of others. The results also show that many people in many countries feel that the priorities of science do not always align with their own. Participants assigned high priorities to research on improving public health, solving energy problems and reducing poverty. Research on developing defence and military technologies received a lower priority. Furthermore, participants clearly believe that science prioritises defence and military technology development more than they would like.

The authors recommend that scientists take these results seriously, find ways to be more open to and inclusive of public opinion, and consider ways to reach out to conservative groups in Western countries. In the long term, researchers should consider their role in setting priorities that are in line with societal values.

In addition to publishing the results in a peer-reviewed scientific article, the authors also created an interactive data visualisation dashboard where users can explore the results and compare them across countries: https://www.tisp-manylabs.com/

At the beginning of September this year, the predefined initiative ‘Science & Society bilateral initiative in social sciences, arts and humanities’ was launched. 14 partners from Poland and 9 partners from Norway were involved in the cooperation.
The project is set to span 8 months from 1 September 2024 until 30 April 2025, and its budget is EUR 586,500.

Scientists from the University of Silesia in Katowice: Agnieszka Skorupa, PhD and Dariusz Ignatiuk, PhD are mainly involved in tasks aimed at improving cooperation between the worlds of science and politics and improving the transfer of knowledge.

The project also entails studies assessing cooperation with the scientific community and a workshop with the participation of scientists, political advisors, representatives of state institutions, business, NGOs and the media. The expected results include: improvement of decision-making processes, better communication between scientists and politicians, development of practical solutions for better cooperation and transfer of knowledge to society.

Financing is guaranteed from the Norwegian Financial Mechanism for 2014-2021 and the EEA Financial Mechanism for 2014-2021 (https://eeagrants.org/).

Monika Stojek, PhD, Assoc. Prof. published an article ‘A Pilot Randomized Control Trial Testing a Smartphone-Delivered Food Attention Retraining Program in Adolescent Girls with Overweight or Obesity’ in co-authorship with researchers from several centres in the USA. The article was published in the journal Nutrients.

The article describes the results of a study in which overweight teenagers used a phone app to alter their eating habits through changing their attention bias towards food.

68 teenage girls participated in a neuroimaging session using magnetoencephalography and completed a task measuring their level of attentional bias towards images depicting food. In addition, they took part in a laboratory meal in which they had unlimited access to a variety of foods and their caloric intake was measured. Half of the participants were then assigned to an intervention group in which, for two weeks, three times a day, they used a phone app that aimed to change their focus from food-related to non-food-related stimuli; half of the participants used the app with the same frequency, but their attention was not modified.

The results showed that adolescents who were subjected to the intervention displayed less attentional bias toward food, displayed less activation in reward-related brain regions in response to food-related stimuli, and ate less food during the laboratory meal, compared to those in the control group.
The results of the study are promising but should be replicated in a larger sample group.

Inclusive education is nowadays in the mainstream of educating students with special needs; moreover, it is an important factor in the transformation of entire education systems directed at improving the quality of education. Therefore, it should not come as a surprise that the issue of conditions behind its quality attracts particular attention from researchers. Many studies focus on teachers, their attitude toward the concepts and ways of implementing inclusive education and competencies to work with students with diverse abilities and special needs. The analyses of many studies exhibit that teachers’ positive attitudes towards inclusive education and the increasing acceptance of diversity in schools may both lead to the development of beneficial solutions in this regard and intensify efforts in terms of inclusive practices.

The book Teachers’ Beliefs about Inclusive Education—co-authored by Prof. Zenon Gajdzica—presents and explains the results of longitudinal surveys of the opinions of mainstream school and preschool teachers regarding selected assumptions and organisational solutions underlying inclusive education. The opinions have been examined in the aspects of selected demographic characteristics of the teachers: gender, place of residence, work experience, educational stage they work at (kindergarten, early childhood education, upper primary school, secondary school) and type of institution (public, non-public).

The advantage of the book is that the opinions were gathered in 2020 and 2022. It is worth mentioning how dynamic these two years were to the Polish education system: the COVID pandemic, the sudden influx of students from Ukraine, and the new programme of reforms in the education system published by the Ministry regarding students with special educational needs. The longitudinal survey managed to capture the change in respondents’ opinions about selected theoretical assumptions and organisational solutions for inclusive education.  Interestingly, longitudinal research on teachers’ attitudes towards inclusive education is virtually absent in the literature on the subject, which makes the results more intriguing.

Prof. Zenon Gajdzica

Photo by Małgorzata Dymowska

Marcin Gierczyk, PhD, Assoc. Prof. became a member of the McGill Centre for Research on Children and Families (CRCF) at McGill University in Canada.

The CRCF is a centre for cutting-edge research on effective programmes and policies for children and their families, offering a unique platform for developing local, national and international collaborations with academic and non-academic communities.

The CRCF is associated with McGill’s Faculty of Social Work and houses the Children’s Services Data Laboratory (funded by the Royal Bank of Canada). It is also one of the main partners within the Child Welfare Research Portal.

Prof. Gierczyk’s tasks will include active involvement in research that aims to have a significant impact on the lives of children, youth and families. McGill University is one of the most prestigious universities in Canada.

One of the factors which contributed to the appointment of Marcin Gierczyk, PhD, Assoc. Prof. as a member of the Centre was his most recent co-authored book: Charting the Experience of Children and Adolescents Affected by Emotional Neglect, which will be released at the end of this year.

In the book, Ewa Wojtyna, PhD, Assoc. Prof. and Marcin Gierczyk, PhD, Assoc. Prof. delve into the topic of emotional neglect – an area that has not been sufficiently researched thus far. Emotional neglect has widespread consequences for children’s development not only in the early years, but it also affects a variety of areas and developmental trajectories of children, continuing to impact individuals in their adult lives as well.

Marcin Gierczyk, PhD, Assoc. Prof.

Dagmara Dobosz, PhD, Marcin Gierczyk, PhD, Assoc. Prof., and Prof. Ewa Jarosz joined the Children’s Worlds international research team.

Children’s Worlds is a global survey on the subjective well-being of children run by the Jacobs Foundation in cooperation with a group of international experts specialising in children’s well-being research.

The researchers taking part in the Children’s Worlds project conduct research in many different countries, which allows them to compare the well-being of children and young people across cultures and social contexts. Over 250,000 children from 40 different countries across five continents participated in the previous editions of the project. The study focuses on various aspects of children’s lives (happiness, family relations, school life, friendships, and many more). It covers such categories as happiness, self-worth, family relations and friendships, mental and physical health, and their perceptions of education and educational achievements.

In the years 2025-2027, the Institute of Sociology will implement a grant project ‘mInimise coSts and mAximise Benefits in the transitionary European regional Labour markets’ (ISABEL) obtained under the Horizon Europa programme.

In addition to the University of Silesia in Katowice, the project consortium includes the following institutions:

• Centre for Research & Technology Hellas (Greece – Project Leader),
• University of Copenhagen (Denmark),
• University of Western Macedonia (Greece),
• University of Warwick (Great Britain),
• University of Oviedo (Spain),
• University of Beograd (Serbia),
• Progressus Research & Counseling (Greece).

The project involves the analysis of factors influencing the processes of job destruction and job creation in regions undergoing energy transformation. The Polish national partner is the Voivodeship Labour Office in Katowice. The key institution of the regional labour market will support the Institute of Sociology in the creation of the so-called “living lab”, which will develop a model for the professional reintegration of people who lose their jobs (or are at risk of dismissal) in connection with the region’s restructuring processes.

Employees of the Institute of Sociology involved in preparing the grant application will participate in the project. This includes: Rafał Muster, PhD, DLitt, Assoc. Prof., Grzegorz Gawron, PhD, DLitt,  and Łukasz Trembaczowski, PhD.

We are pleased to inform you that Robert Pyka, PhD, DLitt, Associate Professor became an expert and reviewer of the French National Agency for Scientific Research (Agence Nationale de la Recherche – ANR), which is the equivalent of the Polish National Science Centre.

As a member of the international team of ANR evaluators, which met in Paris at the end of April, he reviewed projects as part of the ‘Sustainable cities, innovative buildings’ competition – ‘Ville Durable et bâtiment innovant’ https://anr.fr/fr/france-2030/france2030/call/pepr-solutions-pour-la-ville-durable-et-le-batiment-innovant-appel-a-projets-ville-durable-et-bat/

At the same time, Prof. Robert Pyka was invited to the jury of the Grand Prix Urbanisme 2024 competition (Grand Prix de l’Urbanisme 2024), organised by the French Ministry of Ecological Transformation and Territorial Cohesion. The jury, which met at the end of April in La Défense in Paris, included only three foreign experts: prof. Robert Pyka, Philippe Close, Mayor of Brussels, and Sara Ortiz, a Spanish sociologist and urban planner.
https://www.ecologie.gouv.fr/presentation-des-trois-nominees-grand-prix-lurbanisme

Robert Pyka, PhD, DLitt, Associate Professor

How to raise global climate awareness and spark climate action? How to message people about the threats resulting from climate change and encourage them to change their daily habits or support pro-climate policies? Mariola Paruzel-Czachura, PhD, Assoc. Prof., was part of an international research team consisting of nearly 250 scientists who have managed to find answers to these questions.

The research tested the efficacy of various psychological interventions and ways of talking about climate change in order to develop proper attitudes that may generate support for climate policy. The research involved using a tool called Climate Intervention Webapp; it is designed to consider variables of a diverse range of audiences, including nationality, political ideology, age, gender, education, and income level. The innovative character of the research lies in making use of a vast array of climate-friendly actions and evaluating their persuasive efficacy. Some messages were purely emotional (the menace of the looming catastrophe), some emphasised scientific consensus, some framed climate action as being a trend or a patriotic choice, and some were written as a letter to future generations regarding actions for our planet’s benefit. Although the answers differed depending on the geographical location or demographic variables, as many as 86% of respondents recognised the dangers posed by climate change and over 70% supported systemic or collective action to address climate change.

Despite these similarities, the research revealed certain differences in the reaction of residents of different countries to various types of messages/tasks. For instance, referring to a scientific consensus on climate change resulted in an increase in the support for climate policies in Romania (by 9%) and—on the contrary—a decrease in such support in Canada (by 5%). On the other hand, asking participants to write a letter to future generations increased support in the United States, Brazil, Ghana, Russia, and Nigeria, but it decreased support in the United Arab Emirates and India.

The tested elements contributed to the readiness and willingness to share information about climate change in social media, with the highest increase being noticed after the participants read facts about the negative impacts of climate change, dubbed by the research authors ‘gloom and doom’ messaging style.

The research shows the efficacy of climate actions in general and in the context of various audiences and the complexity of the desired actions. It appears that the strategy of intimidation is right for tasks involving minimal effort, and its efficiency lowers in terms of tasks requiring greater involvement (sharing content on social media vs planting trees). The research also points out differences between people having diverse default beliefs. It gives substantial hints for decision-makers and their spokespeople in regard to how they should adjust their climate action depending on the target audience’s characteristics and desired outcomes.

Mariola Paruzel-Czachura, PhD

Photo by Małgorzata Dymowska

Robert Pyka, PhD, DLitt, Assoc. Prof. became one of three Poles among 40 external experts of the European Commission to evaluate grant applications under the Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values ​​(CERV) programme implemented by the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA).

This is another success of Prof. Robert Pyka, who last month became a member of the Scientific Council of the ‘Maison des Sciences de l’Homme’ at the University of Lyon, one of the public institutions financing scientific research in France.

Congratulations!

Prof. Robert Pyka