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Papers from the Cultural Cognition Project Members Whose Eyes Are You Going to Believe? An Empirical Examination of Scott v. Harris Based on a video shot from inside a police cruiser, the U.S. Supreme court concluded "no reasonable juror" could find that the risk posed by a fleeing motorist did not warrant deadly force (the deliberate ramming of his car) to stop him. But a study by the Cultural Cognition Project (forthcoming in the Harvard Law Review) finds that perceptions of risk among persons who viewed the tape were highly conditional on those persons' cultural worldviews. [Download] Read more... Cultural Cognition and Public Policy How does cultural conflict influence public policymaking? Surprisingly, not by generating moral disputes over the ends to be pursued by law but rather by generating empirical disagreements over the consequences of economic, crime-control, national security, and other policies designed to promote our common interests. [Download] Read more... The Future of Nanotechnology Risk Perceptions: An Experimental Investigation How will Americans react as they learn more about this novel science? Will popular attitudes be guided by the best available scientific evidence? Or will other influences affect public perceptions of nanotechnology risks? This paper reports the result of an experimental investigation of these questions.  [Download] Read more... Cultural Credibility and Nanotechnology Risk Perceptions How individuals process information on nanotechnology risks is critically dependent on the perceived cultural values of the information source. The impact of this "cultural credibility heuristic," experimental data show, can either accentuate or mitigate cultural polarization with respect to nanotechnology risk perceptions.  [download] Read more... Two Conceptions of Emotion in Risk Regulation Do emotions interfere with the rational evaluation of risk? Or is the rational evaluation of risk impossible without the aid of emotion? Drawing on data collected by the Cultural Cognition Project, this paper (published in the University of Pennslyvania Law Review ) suggests a revisionist interpretation of recent studies on the centrality of emotion to risk perception. [download] Read more... Culture and Identity-Protective Cognition: Explaining the White Male Effect The "white male effect" refers to the until-now unexplained tendency of white males to fear all manner of risk less than women and minorities. Published in the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, this paper reports the results of an empirical study finding that that "the white male effect" derives from the tendency of individuals to form risk perceptions protective of identities they enjoy by virtue of cultural norms that feature race- and gender-differentiation in roles relating to putatively dangerous activities. Read more... Cultural Cognition as a Conception of the Cultural Theory of Risk The cultural cognition of risk grows out of the "cultural theory of risk" associated with Mary Douglas and Aaron Wildvasky. This paper identifies the conceptual, methodological, and practical features of cultural cognition that distinguish it from other approaches for testing Douglas and Wildavsky's influential claims about risk perception. [Download] Read more... The Cognitively Illiberal State Liberalism obliges the state to refrain from endorsement of a cultural orthodoxy and instead to base law on secular interests like harm prevention. But is this possible if lawmakers' perceptions of harm derive from their cultural values? (published in the Stanford Law Review) [download] Read more... Making Sense of, and Progress in, the American Culture War of Fact Survey and experimental data show not only that Americans are culturally polarized on a wide range of risk and policy issues, but also why and what might be done to change this situation. [Download] Read more... More... The Self-Defensive Cognition of Self-Defense Fear of Democracy: A Cultural Evaluation of Sunstein on Risk "Ideology in" vs. "Cultural Cognition of" Law: What Difference Does It Make? Affect, Values, and Nanotechnology Risk Perceptions Beyond the Gun Fight: The Aftermath of the Virginia Tech Massacre Cultural Evaluations of Risk: "Values" or "Blunders"? The "Wildavsky Heuristic": The Cultural Orientation of Mass Political Opinion Ending Polarization: The Good News About the Culture Wars << Start < Prev 1 2 Next > End >> Results 1 - 17 of 22

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