Wie sich das von Laien in Experten gesetzte Vertrauen im digitalen Zeitalter messen lässt: "The Muenster Epistemic Trustworthiness Inventory (METI)": Drei Forschungsdatensätze.

Given their lack of background knowledge, laypeople require expert help when dealing with scientific information. To decide whose help is dependable, laypeople must judge an expert's epistemic trustworthiness in terms of competence, adherence to scientific standards, and good intentions. Online, this may be difficult due to the often limited and sometimes unreliable source information available. To measure laypeople's evaluations of experts (encountered online), we constructed an inventory to assess epistemic trustworthiness on the dimensions expertise, integrity, and benevolence. Exploratory (n = 237) and confirmatory factor analyses (n = 345) showed that the Muenster Epistemic Trustworthiness Inventory (METI) is composed of these three factors. A subsequent experimental study (n = 137) showed that all three dimensions of the METI are sensitive to variation in source characteristics. We propose using this inventory to measure assignments of epistemic trustworthiness, that is, all judgments laypeople make when deciding whether to place epistemic trust in - and defer to - an expert in order to solve a scientific informational problem that is beyond their understanding.

由于缺乏背景知识，非专业人士在处理科学信息时需要寻求专家协助。为判断哪位专家的协助更为可靠，非专业人士需从专业能力、恪守科学规范的程度与善意动机三个维度，评判专家的认知可信度（epistemic trustworthiness）。但在网络环境中，由于可用的来源信息往往有限且偶有不可靠，这一评判过程往往颇具难度。为衡量非专业人士对网络中接触到的专家的评价，我们编制了一套量表，从专业能力、正直性与善意三个维度评估认知可信度。经探索性因子分析（样本量n=237）与验证性因子分析（样本量n=345）验证，明斯特认知可信度量表（Muenster Epistemic Trustworthiness Inventory，METI）由上述三个维度构成。后续一项样本量为137的实验研究表明，METI的全部三个维度均能对来源特征的变化产生敏感响应。我们提出可使用该量表测量认知信任赋值，即非专业人士在决定是否信任并遵从某位专家，以解决自身无法理解的科学信息问题时，所作出的全部相关评判。