The Cultural Cognition Project

What is Cultural Cognition?

Cultural Cognition refers to the tendency of individuals to form beliefs about societal risks and related policy-relevant facts that reflect their shared cultural values. People with different cultural worldviews — hierarchical vs. egalitarian, individualist vs. communitarian — systematically perceive the same empirical evidence differently. This phenomenon was documented and named by Dan M. Kahan and colleagues at Yale Law School's Cultural Cognition Project.

What is identity-protective cognition?

Identity-protective cognition is the unconscious tendency to process empirical evidence in ways that protect one's cultural group identity rather than to reach accurate conclusions. When a scientific finding threatens the worldview of a cultural group, members of that group selectively discount the evidence — not because they lack intelligence, but because accepting it would signal disloyalty to their group. Research by the Cultural Cognition Project shows that higher science literacy and numeracy can actually amplify this effect.

Why does higher science literacy increase polarization on climate change?

Counter-intuitively, research by Dan Kahan and the Cultural Cognition Project shows that people with higher science literacy and numeracy are more polarized on issues like climate change — not less. This is because scientifically literate individuals are better equipped to find and construct identity-consistent arguments, selectively crediting evidence that supports their cultural worldview and discrediting evidence that challenges it. This finding, published in Nature Climate Change (2012), overturns the assumption that public disagreement about science stems from ignorance.

What is the Cultural Cognition Project?

The Cultural Cognition Project (CCP) is an interdisciplinary research initiative based at Yale Law School, led by Professor Dan M. Kahan. Founded in the late 1990s, the project studies how cultural values shape risk perception, science communication, and public policy beliefs. Its research has been published in Nature Climate Change, Science, the Yale Law Journal, and other peer-reviewed venues, and has been funded by the National Science Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Who is Dan M. Kahan?

Dan M. Kahan is the Elizabeth K. Dollard Professor of Law and Professor of Psychology at Yale Law School. He is the lead researcher and founder of the Cultural Cognition Project. His research focuses on risk perception, science communication, motivated reasoning, and the application of decision science to law and democratic policymaking. He is best known for his work on identity-protective cognition, motivated numeracy, and the science communication problem.

What is motivated numeracy?

Motivated numeracy is the phenomenon whereby individuals use their quantitative reasoning ability not to reach accurate conclusions, but to confirm their culturally preferred beliefs. In a landmark experiment, Dan Kahan showed that highly numerate people performed better on a neutral statistical task but showed greater political polarization when the same task was framed as a gun control question. This demonstrates that numerical skill can be recruited for identity-protective rather than truth-seeking purposes.

How does cultural cognition affect vaccine risk perception?

Cultural Cognition Project research shows that vaccine hesitancy does not follow a simple left-right political divide. Instead, it reflects complex interactions between cultural worldviews, trust in different types of authority, and the specific framing of vaccine communications. The project has studied HPV vaccine risk perceptions, childhood vaccination attitudes, and the science communication strategies most likely to protect the vaccine science communication environment from cultural polarization.

What is a polluted science communication environment?

A polluted science communication environment is a condition in which accurate scientific information can no longer reliably inform public risk perceptions because the social meaning of that information has become entangled with cultural identity. When a scientific finding becomes a symbol of one cultural group's values, members of opposing groups will discount it regardless of its evidentiary strength. The Cultural Cognition Project studies how this pollution occurs and how it can be prevented or remedied.