Abstract
Federal science funding cuts in the United States negatively impact research, healthcare, and the economy. Despite prior research investigating strategies to communicate scientific findings to the public, there is substantially less evidence on strategies to communicate how policy shapes the process and societal impact of science. Here, we demonstrate that across political divides, behavioral interventions that interactively communicate the impact of science funding cuts influence policy support, awareness, and intentions to take action in support of science funding. In two preregistered experiments with politically-balanced samples (N=5,177), we tested novel text, quiz, and map-based interventions illustrating economic losses resulting from science funding cuts. Across the political spectrum, the interventions robustly decreased approval of funding cuts and increased perceived knowledge and perceived negative local impact. We scaled these interventions via a public website (https://scienceimpacts.org/); a third study analyzing data from >24,000 website users revealed converging evidence of effectiveness. Crucially, we demonstrate that even simple text interventions that highlighted local economic impact effectively changed attitudes. However, adding active engagement via interactive quizzes and maps selectively increased action intentions (e.g., contacting representatives, sharing information). Surprise in response to the information, and time spent actively engaging with impact maps, predicted intervention effects on policy approval, knowledge, action intentions, and sharing behavior. Overall, interactive interventions revealing community-level economic impact changed attitudes and increased action intentions related to science funding cuts.