Science Communication Gets Personal: Ambivalent Effects of Self-Disclosure in Science Communication on Trust in Science

• Published in: Journal of experimental psychology. Applied 2023-12, Vol.29 (4), p.793-812
• Main Authors: Altenmüller, Marlene Sophie, Kampschulte, Lorenz, Verbeek, Laura, Gollwitzer, Mario
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Affect; Ambivalence; Communication; Credibility; Disclosure; Emotions; Experimenters; Female; Human; Humans; Male; Sciences; Scientific Communication; Self-Disclosure; Trust; Trust (Social Behavior)
• ISSN: 1076-898X; 1939-2192
• DOI: 10.1037/xap0000489

In an attempt to display themselves as warm, approachable, and trustworthy, researchers might reveal personal details about themselves (i.e., self-disclosure) when communicating their science to the public. Here, we test whether self-disclosure in science communication can actually increase public trust in science. We present six online experiments (overall N = 2,431), integrate their results in a mini meta-analysis, and report a field experiment in a science museum (N = 480): In sum, our findings suggest that self-disclosure leads to small, but measurable increases in laypeople's feelings of closeness toward researchers and perceptions of researchers' warmth-related trustworthiness; yet, self-disclosure also leads to decreases in competence-related trustworthiness perceptions. The credibility of scientific findings was, overall, unaffected by self-disclosing communication. Findings from the field study further question whether self-disclosure in science communication has any practical relevance. Public Significance Statement Researchers are often perceived as highly competent, yet distanced and rather cold, which might impair the public's trust in science. We investigated whether researchers can overcome these perceptions by disclosing personal information about themselves when communicating scientific insights. For this, we conducted six online experiments and a field experiment in a large science museum. Our findings show that laypeople ascribe more benevolence and integrity (i.e., warmth-related trustworthiness), yet less expertise (i.e., competence-related trustworthiness) to self-disclosing (vs. nondisclosing) researchers. Researchers' self-disclosure was irrelevant for the perceived credibility of the communicated scientific insights.