Gaining trust as well as respect in communicating to motivated audiences about science topics

Abstract

Expertise is a prerequisite for communicator credibility, entailing the knowledge and ability to be accurate. Trust also is essential to communicator credibility. Audiences view trustworthiness as the motivation to be truthful. Identifying whom to trust follows systematic principles. People decide quickly another’s apparent intent: Who is friend or foe, on their side or not, or a cooperator or competitor. Those seemingly on their side are deemed warm (friendly, trustworthy). People then decide whether the other is competent to enact those intents. Perception of scientists, like other social perceptions, involves inferring both their apparent intent (warmth) and capability (competence). To illustrate, we polled adults online about typical American jobs, rated as American society views them, on warmth and competence dimensions, as well as relevant emotions. Ambivalently perceived high-competence but low-warmth, “envied” professions included lawyers, chief executive officers, engineers, accountants, scientists, and researchers. Being seen as competent but cold might not seem problematic until one recalls that communicator credibility requires not just status and expertise but also trustworthiness (warmth). Other research indicates the risk from being enviable. Turning to a case study of scientific communication, another online sample of adults described public attitudes toward climate scientists specifically. Although distrust is low, the apparent motive to gain research money is distrusted. The literature on climate science communicators agrees that the public trusts impartiality, not persuasive agendas. Overall, communicator credibility needs to address both expertise and trustworthiness. Scientists have earned audiences’ respect, but not necessarily their trust. Discussing, teaching, and sharing information can earn trust to show scientists’ trustworthy intentions.

Considerations for effective science communication

“…Factors like perceived trustworthiness, reputation, values, political leanings, age, gender, educational background, and personal risk tolerance all have an effect on people's perceptions of a speaker and their message (Fiske and Dupree 2014). High-quality journals such as Public Understanding of Science (pus.sagepub.com/) and Science Communication (scx.sagepub.com/) offer a wealth of conceptual and empirical insight into the effectiveness of different techniques.…”

Communicating scientific uncertainty

“…It also demands resources for the direct costs of analysis, elicitation, and message development, and for the opportunity costs of having scientists spend time communicating uncertainty rather than reducing it (through their research). Making this investment means treating communication as part of scientists' professional responsibility and rewarding them for strengthening the public goodwill that science needs (40). This investment would be more attractive if it advanced science, as well as making it more useful.…”

“…Even when people recognize those problems, they may be insufficiently sensitive, as seen in biases such as the base-rate fallacy, belief in the law of small numbers, and insufficiently regressive predictions (37). When uncertainties arise from limits to the science, decision makers must rely on the community of scientists to discover and share problems, so as to preserve the commons of trust that it enjoys (40).…”

Inducing Behavioural Change in Society Through Communication and Education in Sustainable Manufacturing

“…Communicator credibility depends on status and expertise on the one hand and on affectionately ascribed trustworthiness on the other. For the US it has been shown that professors are ascribed both, expertise and trustworthiness (Fiske and Dupree 2014). This gives them an excellent initial position as communicators for people will tend to believe them and agree with their opinions.…”