Cultural values shape public risk perceptions and related policy beliefs.

Cultural cognition refers to the tendency of individuals to conform their beliefs about disputed matters of fact  to values that define their cultural identities. E.g., whether global warming is a serious threat; whether the death penalty deters murder; whether gun control makes society more safe or less. The Cultural Cognition Project - a group of scholars at Yale Law School - uses methods of various disciplines -- including social psychology, anthropology, communications, and political science -- to chart the impact of this phenomenon and to identify the mechanisms through which it operates. The Project also has an explicit normative objective: to identify processes of democratic decisionmaking by which society can resolve culturally grounded differences in belief in a manner that is both congenial to persons of diverse cultural outlooks and consistent with sound public policymaking.