Lay beliefs about scientist-employer relations may affect public attitudes toward science. A representative sample of US residents characterized scientists’ relations with one of four employers: federal government agency, large business corporation, advocacy group (nonprofit seeking to influence policy), or university. Overall, they held moderate views of how much scientists and employers shared motivations, interests, and values, and of whether employers tried to change—and succeeded in changing—how scientist employees did their scientific work. Judgments differed little across employers. Best predictors of these views were belief in scientific positivism, subjective knowledge of science, and age. These findings suggest scientific authority in the United States is not immediately threatened by public beliefs that employers skew their scientific employees’ work, although that might differ for specific topics or demographic sub-groups.

关于科学家与雇主关系的普通信念可能会影响公众对科学的态度。美国居民的代表性样本描述了科学家与四个雇主之一的关系：联邦政府机构、大型商业公司、倡导团体（寻求影响政策的非营利组织）或大学。总体而言，他们对科学家和雇主有多少共同的动机、兴趣和价值观，以及雇主是否试图改变——并成功地改变——科学家员工的科学工作方式持温和的看法。不同雇主的判断差异不大。这些观点的最佳预测因素是对科学实证主义的信仰、科学的主观知识和年龄。