I’d be inclined to think that it’s the second explanation offered in the discussion that’s driving the effect—naturalness bias happens in a lot of areas, and the AFFT texts were pretty lab/tech-heavy. It would be easy to test whether the first mechanism you proposed is correct by asking people whether they think farming will be replaced with these technologies. Future studies could also present the AFFTs in a less science-heavy way to see if the effect is attenuated. :)
Thanks for the interesting article, Jamie!
I’d be inclined to think that it’s the second explanation offered in the discussion that’s driving the effect—naturalness bias happens in a lot of areas, and the AFFT texts were pretty lab/tech-heavy. It would be easy to test whether the first mechanism you proposed is correct by asking people whether they think farming will be replaced with these technologies. Future studies could also present the AFFTs in a less science-heavy way to see if the effect is attenuated. :)