Welcome to the PsySci Lab!

The objective of the PsySci (Psychology of Science) Lab is to better understand what drives the gulf between scientific consensus about facts and public acceptance of those facts. Embedded in the University of Amsterdam’s faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, we study attitudes to science across topics, individuals, and countries.

Click here for a key publication discussing various approaches to understanding attitudes towards science.

new paper in Science Communication

adminJun 6, 20231 min read

New paper out: “Who is skeptical about scientific innovation?” In two studies examining a wide range of potential worldview predictors, we find first evidence that *spirituality* is important for science…

Two new papers on vaccination skepticism now published!

adminNov 28, 20221 min read

The lab has two new papers out on vaccination skepticism and one of its more persistent causes (spirituality) => 1. Individual-level effects: https://lnkd.in/eaf5nj3e2. Region-level effects: https://lnkd.in/ekgSZFbFBoth papers are open access!

New paper on social evaluations of 35 types of scientists

adminNov 1, 20221 min read

How do people evaluate astronomists, zoologists, and everything in between? Which scientists are seen as the most prototypical? Vukasin just published new research on social evaluations of 35 types of…

New paper out! The Psychological Distance to Science Scale

adminSep 12, 20221 min read

In this paper, we present psychological distance to science (PSYDISC) as a domain-general predictor of science skepticism. Over the course of 6 studies, we established the validity and factor structure…

New paper out! The globalizability of temporal discounting

New paper out! The globalizability of temporal discounting

adminJul 15, 20221 min read

Economic inequality is associated with preferences for smaller, immediate gains over larger, delayed ones. In this new paper, we examined whether such temporal discounting is a function of choice preferences…