Connecting Science and Everyday Life

Chiara Ceci is a naturalist and science communicator. She works as the Strategic Communications Executive at the Royal Society of Chemistry. Chiara has spent many years in science communication experimenting across audiences and media.

When members of the Royal Society of Chemistry are asked what their professional body should do more of, “improve public attitudes to chemistry” is a common theme. However, while much research has been conducted into public attitudes to science, there is very little evidence of people’s attitudes to chemistry specifically. How can we truly try to improve these attitudes when we don’t know much about them?

To create an evidence-based strategy to improve the public perception of chemistry, we first needed to discover what that perception actually is. This is why we commissioned the first-ever national, in-depth study of what the UK public thinks and feels about chemistry, chemists and chemicals.

We wanted a deeper understanding not only of what attitudes to chemistry the public hold, but also why they hold them and how we might influence them.  To move beyond knee-jerk responses, TNS-BMRB, a social research agency, conducted a research programme combining quantitative and qualitative methods. The research comprised a literature review; telephone interviews, two surveys and online research with members of the Royal Society of Chemistry; two waves of eight qualitative public workshops held in four locations; and a public survey conducted face-to-face with 2,104 UK adults (16+). The findings of this research were published on Monday.

A first interesting finding of this research is that public attitudes to chemistry, chemists and chemicals are nowhere near as negative as chemists think they are. We asked members and staff of the Royal Society of Chemistry how they thought the UK would answers a series of questions, and when chemists’ guesses are confronted with the real public answers we see that chemists were far too pessimistic.

People are not negative about chemistry; the prevailing sense is one of neutrality. Most people lack any real association with chemistry, they feel emotionally neutral towards it and they have no easy reference point from which to form an opinion.

When we talk about chemistry most people don’t really know what the subject is about or which world problems it is tackling. There is a void in association and because of this void people default to remembering their school experiences. Again this matches anecdotal evidence to a certain extent, but people aren’t necessarily ‘turned against’ chemistry irrevocably – when given examples of chemistry more relevant to their daily lives, their interest is often rekindled.

Another interesting finding is that most people have totally separate feelings about chemistry, chemists and chemicals. The three are intrinsically linked for chemists but for the public they are separate concepts, each with their own meanings and attitudes (or lack thereof). Even the most vitriolic anti-chemical campaigner may feel totally neutral or positive towards chemistry as a science or as a profession.

Attitudes to chemists raised a curious problem as most people hear ‘chemist’ and think ‘pharmacist’. While chemists already ‘knew’ this confusion exists they perhaps did not anticipate the scale: over 75% of people surveyed first mentioned ‘pharmacy’ as a place of work for chemists, and 25% were unable to suggest any other places of work.

Once chemists are framed as scientists, to try to overcome the association with the pharmacists, we saw that, just like with other scientists, chemists are seen in a positive light. People assume chemists are hard-working, ethical and making a positive difference to the world. Where people have ethical concerns with the outputs of chemistry they often lay the blame at the door of ‘corporations’ rather than the chemists themselves.

Chemophobia is one of the topics that chemists are very passionate about, and it is great news that this is far less of an issue than was feared. It shows people have nuanced and sophisticated views on ‘chemicals’, even if they sometimes use the word differently from how chemists use it. They are aware they’re using a shorthand for ‘synthetic’ or ‘dangerous’ but are also, in the main, at ease with the concept that everything is made of chemicals. Focusing on ‘correcting’ people has a negative effect on their trust of chemists and when chemists focus on the semantic argument it makes people feel lectured and belittled, which often reinforces bad feeling.

The research touches on many other interesting aspects like where people hear about chemistry or where they would actively look for information. You can read the full report at rsc.li/pac.

What is sure is that chemistry may have an image problem but it’s not the one chemists thought it had. The lack of public association with chemistry is a huge opportunity for the chemistry community and we shouldn’t invest all our energies in battling fear or negativity: we should be trying instead to overcome indifference and neutrality by communicating positive stories.