GALS survey of >4,000 US respondents (GenPop and SPARK) shows confidence in genetic knowledge predicts Familiarity, Knowledge, and Skills, explaining ~25% of variance.
0:00Welcome to Base by Base, the paper cast that brings genomics to you wherever you are. Thanks for listening, and don't forget to follow and rate us in your podcast app. It's great to be here. I am really excited about this.
0:10You know, I was doing a bit of, well, let's call it data scrolling before we started, and I found a number that honestly, it just stopped me in my tracks. Oh, yeah. What we talking about? So we always talk about how fast genetics is moving, right?
0:22Constantly. It's almost impossible. Right. But to put it in perspective, right now, in the United States, there are over 37,000 unique genetic tests available. 37,000. is a staggering number. And it's not a static list.
0:37It's growing. They're adding, on average, something like 5000 new tests every single year. It's absolute flood of information. Exactly. And it got me thinking about the person on the receiving end of that.
0:50In this flood of data. If I get one of these tests, what actually determines if I understand the results? Is it just about how many biology classes I took in high school, is it my IQ? Or is there something, something else going on?
1:05That is the central mystery, isn't it? We have this assumption that understanding science is just about raw, intelligence or education. Input, output. Exactly. You read the fact, you learn the fact, but we know it's not that simple.
1:17No not at all. So why do some people grasp these really complex genetic ideas? while others who have the exact same facts, maybe even the same education, just struggle? Well, here's the teaser for everyone listening.
1:31It turns out that what you believe about yourself, your politics, the universe. It might actually change how you read your own DNA. It's not just about smarts. It's about identity. Precisely. It really challenges this idea that we're just empty buckets waiting to be filled with facts, we're filters, and our beliefs make up those filters.
1:51Okay, let's unpack all of this. But first, we have to get some major credit where it's due. This isn't just us talking theory. This is based on some really hard data. Absolutely. So today we celebrate the work of Gabriella M.
2:03Ramirez Renta, Chris Gunter and their incredible colleagues at the National Human Genome Research Institute. And the IH, of course. And the NIH. And we can't forget their collaboration with the Sparks study.
2:14That's Simon's powering autism research for knowledge. And this whole deep dive is based on their article, interaction of identity and beliefs with genetic literacy, which came out in the American Journal of Human Genetics in January 2026.
2:27Yeah, this is a really important piece of work. It moves the microscope away from just the cell and points it at, well, society. At the human side of human genetics. So let's start with the basics. The title uses the term genetic literacy.
2:41I think I know what that means, like knowing what a gene is, what DNA looks like, but the paper suggests it's more complicated. It is. It a lot more complicated. The researchers define genetic literacy or GL as having, um, sufficient skills and understanding to actually facilitate health decision making.
2:58So it's functional. It's practical. It's utility. Exactly. Can you use the information to make a choice? It's not just a vocabulary test. That makes perfect sense. It's the difference between knowing the word carburetor and actually knowing if your car is about to break down.
3:11It's a great analogy. And to measure it, they didn't just give people a pop quiz. They broke GL down into 3 distinct pillars to get a full picture. Three pillars? Okay, what are they? So the 1st is familiarity.
3:23This is your subjective knowledge. Basically, how much do you think you know? Ah, the confidence factor? Oh, yeah, I know all about DNA. That's the one. Your self-assessment. The 2nd pillar is knowledge.
3:35This one's objective. They used a true false test on technical facts to see what people actually knew. Okay, so do I think I know it versus do I actually know it? Perfect. And the 3rd is skills. This is the comprehension piece.
3:48Can you look at a medical infographic, something you'd really see at a doctor's office and answer questions about it? That seems like the most important one, practically speaking. It is. And you'd be surprised how many older studies on this just skip that part.
4:01They focused on vocabulary, not application. And if you can't read the chart, the words don't help much. No kidding. Okay, the paper also brings up a concept called cultural cognition theory. Sounds a little academic.
4:15What does it mean for us? It's a psychological concept, and really, it's the backbone of this whole study. It suggests that people process new information through the lens of their pre-existing values.
4:25Is that just another way of saying confirmation bias? Like, I only hear what I want to hear. It's a bit deeper than that, actually. Confirmation bias is more about fitting new facts to your beliefs. Cultural cognition is that your values, your identity, they shape how you even interpret the situation in the 1st place.
4:44So my identity acts like a gatekeeper for what I even consider to be a fact. Yes, it protects your worldview. So the whole point of this study was to see if things like religion, politics, even self-confidence, could predict genetic understanding better than, say, just your education level.
5:01That was the hypothesis, exactly. They wanted to see the DNA of understanding, if you will. So how do they do it? This wasn't a small survey. No, this was massive. They developed what they called the genetic and autism literacy survey, or GALS, and they surveyed over 4000 people back in 2021. And they had 2 very different groups of people, right?
5:21Correct. The 1st was Gen Pop, about 2000 members of the general U.S. public does a random sample. Okay. The 2nd group was the Spark cohort. Another 2000 people from that autism research study we mentioned earlier.
5:33So that group is mostly autistic individuals and their families. Yes, and that's a really crucial distinction. The spark group is what you might call motivated. They're already engaged in genetic research.
5:46They have skin in the game. The gen pub group is just everybody. I also saw in the methods that they made a specific choice about the demographics. They did, and it's important. They intentionally overrepresented black participants to match the sample distributions from some other big benchmark studies.
6:04Why do that? Well, historically, medical research has been very white. By making sure they had diverse perspectives. They could actually look at culture and identity. You can't really measure cultural cognition if you only measure one culture.
6:18That's a very good point. So you've got 4000 people. You test their genetic literacy on those 3 pillars and you ask them about politics, religion, confidence. All of it. Let's get to the findings because this is where it gets really interesting.
6:33You mentioned confidence. What did they find there? This, for me, was the biggest bombshell of the entire study? The single strongest predictor for high scores across all 3 categories, familiarity, knowledge, and skills was confidence.
6:47Wait, wait. So just feeling like you could understand it was the biggest factor, more than education. Confidence in one's own knowledge controlled nearly 25% of the variants in the scores. Just think about that.
6:57A quarter of the difference between people's scores came down to how capable they felt. That's wild. It's like the little engine that could. I think I can understand genetics. Therefore, I do. To an extent, yes.
7:08It's what psychologists call self-efficacy. If you believe you can learn, you engage differently. You don't just shut down when you see a big word. You push through. That makes intuitive sense. If I assume I'm too dumb to get something.
7:21stop listening the 2nd it gets tricky. The mental gate just comes right down. Okay, what about perceived importance? Did caring about genetics matter? It did, yeah. People who thought genetics was important did score higher.
7:33But, and this is the key. The effect was much weaker than the effect of confidence. So believing the topic is important is good, but believing in yourself is better. That's what the data suggests. Okay.
7:46We have to go there. Religion and politics. What did the data show on religion? So the researchers presented this very neutrally, and we should too. The data showed that, uh, in general, identifying as religious was a negative predictor for the genetic literacy scores when compared to people who are non-religious.
8:04But I remember seeing some nuance there. It wasn't just a simple religious versus non-religious thing. No, it wasn't. It wasn't just affiliation. It was activity. People who were actively practicing, you know, going to services regularly.
8:17They saw a larger decrease in scores than people who were religious, but not actively practicing. And they asked that one incredible question. I have it here. When science disagrees with the teachings of your religion.
8:30What do you believe? This is a pivotal question. They found that participants who chose science in that scenario had significantly higher literacy scores than those who chose religion. So it's not just about the label you wear.
8:44It's about how you navigate that conflict when 2 worldviews clash. Precisely. It goes right back to that cultural cognition theory. If your core framework prioritizes religious teaching, You might be less likely to internalize these purely scientific constructs.
8:58It's almost like if the science feels like it's threatening your identity, you don't learn it. You defend against it. That's a great way to put it Okay, let's flip to the other side of the coin. Politics.
9:08What do they find there? This is also fascinating. So they broke it down into? Liberals, moderates, and conservatives. Liberals scored significantly higher on all 3 of the subscales when you compare them to moderates.
9:19Okay, and what about conservatives? So conservatives only differed significantly from moderates on the knowledge scale. That's the true false fact test, but not on familiarity or skills. But there was a real surprise in that data, wasn't there?
9:34A group that scored lower than everyone. Yes. The group that scored the lowest, lower than conservatives, moderates, or liberals, were the people who chose prefer not to answer. Prefer not to answer. That's so strange.
9:48What do you make of that? Well, the paper doesn't speculate too much. But if you connect the dots, it might suggest that disengagement is the biggest barrier of all. Disengagement from the whole process.
9:57Yeah. If you choose not to share your political identity, maybe you're also just less engaged in these big societal discussions about science or maybe you just don't trust the survey. That makes a lot of sense.
10:08If you don't trust the source, why would you try hard on the quiz part? You just click through. And that's it. Trust is a huge, huge component of literacy. Let's circle back to the 2 big groups, gen pop and spark.
10:22I'm guessing the people already involved in the autism study did better. They did, yeah. The Spark participants scored higher across the board. They were also much more likely to side with science in that conflict question.
10:34Which makes sense. If you've signed up for genetic study, you probably already have some buy-in that science can provide answers. Yes, and it shows that engagement really works. When you have a personal stake in the outcome, when it's about your family, you learn the science.
10:49So what does this all mean? We have all this data. Confidence is king. Identity matters. If I'm a doctor or a science communicator, what do I do with this? I think the biggest implication is that the deficit model is officially dead.
11:02The deficit model. Remind us what that is. It's that old way of thinking. It assumes this patient doesn't understand, so I just need to give them more facts. I just need to fill their empty bucket. Right.
11:12Let me just explain MRNA one more time, but louder. Exactly. Yeah. This study proved that just doesn't work. If you ignore a person's identity, their confidence, their beliefs, the information won't stick.
11:24You can't pour facts into a closed filter. So you have to build their confidence first, open the filter. But is there a danger there? Can you have too much confidence? That is the confidence trap? And it's a real problem.
11:36We need to boost confidence, but we have to be careful about overconfidence. You know, when people think they know everything from reading one headline. Or watching one YouTube video. Right. The data shows overconfidence often peaks at an intermediate level of knowledge.
11:51The classic I know just enough to be dangerous. Correct. The goal has to be justified confidence, feeling capable of learning, but also being humble enough to know what you don't know. The study also mentioned communication strategies.
12:04They used a visual model in the skills section, right? They did. They used a cup and ball model to explain inheritance, trying to make it more intuitive. Visuals usually help. Did it work? Well, this is where it gets tricky.
12:16The scores on that skills section, the one with the infographic, were actually lower than expected across the board. Oh. Why? If there was a picture, shouldn't it have been easier? The analysis suggests that even with the visual, the jargon was still a barrier, and the sentence structure of the questions themselves, things like double negatives tripped people up.
12:36Oh, I hate double negatives, it is not unlikely that this is not false. My brain just freezes. Exactly. So even when we try to simplify with a picture, we can confuse people with academic language. So the takeaway is a picture doesn't help if the caption needs a PhD to understand it.
12:53You have to meet people where they are. That's the key. And that all seems to come back to trust. The paper really emphasized that building trust is more effective than just throwing facts at people. Absolutely.
13:03You have to acknowledge their identity, validate their perspective before you introduce new information. So instead of, here's the science, ignore your beliefs. It's more like, I understand this is important to you.
13:14Let's see how this new information might fit into your life. That's a much, much more effective strategy. You're working with their identity. Not against it. This has been such a fascinating look at well, ourselves.
13:26It turns out that looking at our genes is just as much psychology as it is biology. We can't separate the science from the human. So to wrap this up, what's the take-home message? If you had to put it on a bumper sticker for every genetic counselor out there. I'd say.
13:41Genetic literacy is a complex mix of what we know who we are and how confident we feel. Education matters, but confidence is the engine that drives understanding. I like that. Confidence is the engine.
13:53But I do want to leave our listeners with one final thought to chew on. If confidence is the key. How do medical providers build that confidence without accidentally encouraging arrogance or dismissing a patient's deeply held beliefs?
14:06It's a fine line. It's a very fine line. If we boost confidence too much without the skills to back it up, do we create patients who think they know more than their doctors? But if we don't boost it enough, they can't make informed decisions.
14:19That's the tightrope walk of modern medicine. It is. And finding that balance between empowerment and humility, that's the next great challenge in genomic medicine. A huge question to ponder. It's not just about being right.
14:32It's about being understood. Exactly. This episode was based on an open access article under the CCBY 4 license. You can find a direct link to the paper and the license in our episode description. If you enjoyed this, follow or subscribe in your podcast app and leave a five-star rating.
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