When science hurts, do we still love it? The attitudinal impact of quality of life costs in science communication.

While support for science is high, academics, policy-makers, and media continually pointtowards lack of public support for certain areas of science and low willingness to change ourways of life in the face of scientific evidence. This study proposes quality of life perceptionsas one of the foundations for such observations. Specifically, I propose that in evaluatingscience communication, people are affected by cues regarding the way scientific findings andconclusions might affect the quality of their daily lives. In this perspective, individual levelmechanisms are activated by science communication contents, affecting reception andattitudes toward science. By manipulating cues on personal costs to quality of life in apreregistered survey experiment, the study demonstrates that quality of life cues negativelyaffect science attitudes, and that such effects follow predicted patterns in heterogeneity ofseverity of cost.