Quid Pro Quo: Does Sharing Personal Details Encourage Audiences to Lend Their Trust?

Paper Title: Science Communication Gets Personal: Ambivalent Effects of Self-Disclosure in Science Communication on Trust in Science

Author(s) and Year: Marlene Sophie Altenmüller, Lorenz Kampschulte, Laura Verbeek, and Mario Gollwitzer; 2023

Journal: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied (closed access)

TL;DR: This analysis on the findings of six online studies and one museum study found that researchers who self-disclose (i.e., share personal details about themselves) can increase the layperson’s perception of their benevolence and integrity. Unfortunately, this can come at the cost of the science communicator’s perceived expertise. It is important to note that the credibility of the scientific findings was not affected in these experiments.

Why I chose this paper: When the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a global pandemic in March 2020, there was a period when publicly-available information on the SARS-CoV-2 virus was ever-changing and – at times – confusing. The lack of concrete “rules” for people to follow to avoid infection and protect themselves and their loved ones eventually led to mistrust in the WHO and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Finding ways for the public to trust the message transmitted to them for their health and safety is of utmost importance; self-disclosure is a method worth exploring to achieve this goal!

A science communicator’s objective, regardless of the topic and their audience, is to communicate scientific knowledge and fact, but scientists have been historically perceived as cold but competent. This makes communicating a credible message difficult, since scientists have to fight against pre-conceived notions of their career and win their audience’s trust.

The Background

A Balancing Act: Gaining Your Audience’s Trust

Self-disclosure is defined as “the act of revealing personal or private information about one’s self to other people” by the American Psychological Association. The effects of it have been studied before in the context of bettering interpersonal relationships in daily life. For example, a 2022 study recognized that people are more likely to prefer others who share their “likes” versus those who share their “dislikes.” However, in this study, Altenmüller et al. aimed to measure the effects of self-disclosure in science communication.

Past publications have tackled different parts of this problem. For example, a 2019 study showed that when scientists share selfies on social media, there is an increase in perceptions of their warmth and trustworthiness. And a previous publication by Altenmüller et al. found that researchers’ fear that they will damage their reputations by self-correcting or self-criticizing is “unfounded.” 

In this study, the objective was to evaluate how self-disclosure versus non-disclosure can affect how a lay audience views (1) the researcher and (2) the knowledge being communicated. Unfortunately, the authors could not establish a solid answer as to whether researchers should self-disclose to increase the effectiveness of their message.

The Methods

The authors tested the effects of self-disclosure through six online experiments and one field study in a German museum, and they compiled all results in a “mini meta-analysis.” The “stimulus” in studies 1, 2, and 3 was a slide deck (no audio or narration); study 4, a narrated video for an exhibition; studies 5 and 6, various social media posts; and the field study, an audio guide in a science museum.

The six experiments had varying levels of “intensity” of self-disclosure vs. non-disclosure: for example, medium or moderate self-disclosure, as in “View from my window: dark, depressing, rainy winter weather,” versus extreme or personal self-disclosure, “View from my window: Dark, rainy winter weather makes me feel a bit depressive.” In this example, the sentence for the control group (i.e., no self-disclosure) was, “View from a window: dark, depressing, rainy winter weather.” Some experiments also varied the researcher’s gender and profession.

Participants were recruited through social media networks, and laboratory and university newsletters. The main variables that were tested and evaluated were:

1. Layperson’s perceived closeness to the researcher
2. Layperson’s perception of the researcher’s trustworthiness (​including benevolence, integrity, and expertise)
3. Layperson’s view of the credibility of the scientific findings being communicated

The Results

Measurable But Small Effects

The meta-analysis of all online experiments established that participants felt closer to scientists who engaged in self-disclosure, which led to higher perceptions of trustworthiness. On the flip side, the participants then perceived the scientists as having less expertise. However, the credibility of the findings being communicated was unaffected.

An important part of the museum field study is that, for the self-disclosure group, the audio narrator was introduced with a name and photo, while also addressing the listener directly. This led to the participants perceiving the narrator as being of higher expertise, versus the non-disclosure (control) scenario where the narrator was not introduced to the participants nor did they address the listeners.

The Impact 

Self-Disclose at Your Own Risk?

Further research is needed to validate these findings since the results were inconsistent throughout the individual studies themselves. But it is an important area of study. Something that may make science communication more effective is to use self-disclosure to relate more directly to the lay audience’s experiences (rather than disclosing just any piece of personal information). For example, when talking with parents, a researcher could share experiences with their own kids, highlighting similarities between them and the audience.

When acting as a science communicator for a lay audience, whether or not to share personal details to increase the audience’s trust is up in the air. Personally, I feel that the decision to self-disclose may depend on the researcher’s field of study, the medium (e.g., social media or in-person), and the message itself.

Written by Mariella A. Mestres-Villanueva

Edited by Alex Music and Madeline Fisher

Featured image credit: Art Museum Teaching