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

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=2431), 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 towards 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.

在试图展现其亲切、易接近和值得信赖的形象的过程中，研究人员在向公众传达科学知识时可能会透露个人细节（即自我披露）。在本研究中，我们旨在验证科学传播中的自我披露是否能够真正提升公众对科学的信任度。我们呈现了六项在线实验（总计N=2431），将实验结果综合进行小型元分析，并在科学博物馆开展了一项实地实验（N=480）。总结而言，我们的研究结果表明，自我披露虽能带来微小但可测量的效果，使公众对研究人员的亲近感和对研究人员温暖信任感的认知有所提升；然而，自我披露也导致了公众对研究人员能力信任感的降低。总体而言，自我披露的沟通方式并未对科学发现的可靠性产生实质性影响。来自实地研究的结果进一步质疑科学传播中的自我披露是否具有实际的相关性。