Scientists, Speak Up! Source Impacts Trust in Health Advice Across Five Countries

We examined how different types of communication influence people's responses to health advice. We tested whether presenting COVID-19 prevention advice (e.g., washing hands/distancing) as either originating from a government or scientific source would affect people's trust in and intention...

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Veröffentlicht in:Journal of experimental psychology. Applied 2024-09, Vol.30 (3), p.430-441
Hauptverfasser: Zarzeczna, Natalia, Hanel, Paul H. P., Rutjens, Bastiaan T., Bono, Suzanna A., Chen, Yi-Hua, Haddock, Geoffrey
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Sprache:eng
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Zusammenfassung:We examined how different types of communication influence people's responses to health advice. We tested whether presenting COVID-19 prevention advice (e.g., washing hands/distancing) as either originating from a government or scientific source would affect people's trust in and intentions to comply with the advice. We also manipulated uncertainty in communicating the advice effectiveness. To achieve this, we conducted an experiment using large samples of participants (N = 4,561) from the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Malaysia, and Taiwan. Across countries, participants found messages more trustworthy when the purported source was science rather than the government. This effect was moderated by political orientation in all countries except for Canada, while religiosity moderated the source effect in the United States. Although source did not directly affect intentions to act upon the advice, we found an indirect effect via trust, such that a more trusted source (i.e., science) was predictive of higher intentions to comply. However, the uncertainty manipulation was not effective. Together, our findings suggest that despite prominence of science skepticism in public discourse, people trust scientists more than governments when it comes to practical health advice. It is therefore beneficial to communicate health messages by stressing their scientific bases. Public Significance Statement Informing the general public that health advice originates from a scientific versus governmental source increases trust in the advice. Presenting health advice as originating from a scientific (vs. governmental) source was indirectly related to increased intentions to follow the advice. This was explained by high trust in the scientific source. The findings were consistent across three Western (the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada) and two Eastern countries (Malaysia, Taiwan).
ISSN:1076-898X
1939-2192
1939-2192
DOI:10.1037/xap0000500