Meaning maintenance drives science rejection

Currently, ideologically-motivated discourses are actively undermining perceived value of science, with evidence-based policy-making being increasingly replaced with antiscience agendas shaped by political, spiritual, or conspiratorial ideologies. We propose that motivated science rejection is driven by compensatory mechanisms serving to maintain a coherent understanding of reality when this understanding conflicts with science. Drawing on the meaning maintenance model and the assumption of fluid compensation—any belief framework can be replaced with another to restore meaning—we argue that when science violates meaning, it is rejected in favour of an alternative framework of ideological beliefs, regardless of their epistemic validity. Interventions that align science with meaning-maintenance needs to minimise compensatory responses may prove promising in reducing science rejection.