Intentions and Willingness for Public Engagement with Science

Abstract

As advancements in science implicate more than just those within the scientific community, public engagement with science (PES) – scientific communication that engages an audience outside of academia (Poliakoff & Webb, 2007) – has come to attention in recent years. In psychology literature, the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB; Ajzen, 1991) has been used to study intents for PES participation, where attitude and self-efficacy have been identified as predictors of intention and willingness for PES (Poliakoff & Webb, 2007; Besley, 2014). While intention and willingness are suggested to be similar constructs in PES literature (Besley et al., 2008), they have not been formally compared in one model. Due to this, and the distinction made between intention and willingness in health psychology literature (Gerrard et al., 2008), the current research examines whether PES intents of intention and willingness arise differentially from attitude and self-efficacy. The study additionally examines whether manipulation of construal levels, the abstractness at which an event is processed (Trope & Liberman, 2011), can moderate prediction of intents by attitude and self-efficacy. Findings show both intent types to be similarly and significantly predicted by attitude and self-efficacy in scientists (n = 152). When construal levels were manipulated, attitude and self-efficacy significantly predicted willingness at both high and low levels while intention was only significantly predicted by these factors at the high level, suggesting these intent types to derive from distinct pathways at low level. Limitations: this study was conducted when COVID-19 measures meant academics had to work remotely