Numeracy (it’s like literacy, but with numbers) and critical reasoning are pivotal to our ability to understand and use science. However, almost a third of American adults don’t have the numeric skills necessary to make effective decisions about their health and finances. People also sometimes lack critical reasoning. For example, people who believe more in misinformation about the pandemic are less willing to get vaccinated against the disease and to comply with public health measures.

Our Research

SCR Associates study how these issues affect the decisions we make on a daily basis and their impact on individuals and society. We also explore how to increase data literacy and critical reasoning.

• Alex Segrè Cohen, for example, studies how to improve people’s abilities to make sustainability-related decisions that are in line with their values and are internally consistent. She further explores explore how critical reasoning ability influences trust in public health experts, risk perceptions, and compliance with recommended COVID-19 protective behaviors.
• SCR Director Dr. Ellen Peters focuses on our understanding of numbers as a basic building block of good decision-making. People’s difficulties with numbers can be overcome to some extent through evidence-based communication. In one recent paper, she and her colleagues studied our inherent difficulties with the large numbers of federal budgets and how an understanding of that psychology might improve public policy decisions. With other SCR Associates, she is also involved with the Presidential Initiative in Data Science.
• With funding from SCR’s Small Grants Program, Emerging Scholar Michael Silverstein (Psychology) is making discoveries about people’s confidence and motivation to deliberate with numbers.

Spotlight Project: The Science of Numeric Literacy

With funding from an NSF grant, Dr. Ellen Peters and SCR Associates will explore how well people understand and use numbers, how these processes, in turn, affect their decision-making. She and her colleagues will use findings to help individuals and organizations understand and cope better with the complex and often risky numeric decisions of modern life. For example, a common problem is effectively communicating data and its implications to decision-makers. SCR researchers will use what they learn to better communicate to improve individual and societal decisions.

SCR Associates Who Study These and Related Topics

Pär Bjälkebring
Elliot Berkman
Karikarn Chansiri
Raleigh Goodwin
Ed Madison
Scott Maier
Dave Markowitz
Ellen Peters
Autumn Shafer
Brittany Shoots-Reinhard
Michael Silverstein
Paul Slovic
Martin Tusler
Thipkanok Wongphothiphan