The effect of uncertainty communication on public trust depends on belief<i>-</i>evidence consistency.

ABSTRACT: Not everyone perceives the communication of uncertainty about scientific evidence as equally trustworthy. We examine whether these differences in trust can be explained by people's prior beliefs-specifically, the consistency between those beliefs and the evidence presented. We hypothesize that the more consistent the evidence is with people's prior beliefs, the less people will trust both the information and its source when uncertainty is communicated compared with when it is not communicated. Conversely, the less consistent the evidence is with people's prior beliefs, the more people will trust the information and its source when uncertainty is communicated. We tested this crossover interaction in two preregistered online experiments on COVID-19 vaccines (study 1: n = 600) and chan

SUBMITTER: Dries C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11925018 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature