Journal article
The effects of self-disclosure and gender on a climate scientist's credibility and likability on social media
PUBLIC UNDERSTANDING OF SCIENCE
07 Feb 2024
PMID: 38326976
Featured in Collection : UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
Abstract
To examine whether different types of disclosure made by climate scientists on social media influence perceived source credibility (i.e. competence, integrity, benevolence) and likability, we conducted a 2 (self-disclosure type: personal vs political) x 3 (proportion of posts including a self-disclosure: 20% vs 50% vs 80%) x 2 (gender identity of scientist: male vs female) between-subjects experiment (N = 734). We found that people liked the scientist more for a personal than political disclosure, rated them as being more competent for a political disclosure, and liked a female scientist more than a male scientist. However, scientist's gender did not moderate the effect of disclosure type or the effect of participants' gender. Our results suggest distinct benefits when scientists deliver different types of messages on social media, although disclosure is unlikely to have substantial effects on lay judgments of scientists' credibility.
Metrics
Details
- Title
- The effects of self-disclosure and gender on a climate scientist's credibility and likability on social media
- Publication Details
- PUBLIC UNDERSTANDING OF SCIENCE
- Publisher
- SAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD; LONDON
- Grant note
- The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publica-tion of this article: This research is funded by the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications at Pennsylvania State University.
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Drexel University
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:001157831100001
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-85184447055
- Other Identifier
- 991021861206604721
UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
This publication has contributed to the advancement of the following goals:
InCites Highlights
Data related to this publication, from InCites Benchmarking & Analytics tool:
- Collaboration types
- Domestic collaboration
- Web of Science research areas
- Communication
- History & Philosophy Of Science