The decline of faith in progress.Posmaterialism, ideology and religiosity in the social representations of technoscience
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3989/ris.2017.75.3.16.61Keywords:
Informational Society, Post-Materialist Values, Social Representations, TechnoscienceAbstract
In contemporary societies, social representations of technoscience have become more complex and polyhedral, moving away from traditional positive conceptions. We explore the growing importance of ambivalence in their analysis, as well as questioning the cognitive deficit model as an explanatory theory. We note that cognitive shortcuts linked to the level of religiosity and post-materialist values have a decisive role in shaping the positions on controversial aspects of science and technology. Furthermore, we conclude that these links vary in different national cultures. In Spain, the problematization of the impacts of technoscience is associated with both lower levels of religiosity and the increase of post-materialist concerns due to the secularization of the society.
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