Effects of Communication with Experts on the Evaluation of Ambiguous Scientific Evidence: Cognitive Tuning and Social Tuning

人们接受科学证据的一个关键过程是对科学证据的评价。外行人对科学的评价对于公众对研究的接受以及最终的资助决定起着重要的作用。本项目旨在从社会心理学的角度探讨影响外行人对相互矛盾的科学证据的评价和元认知判断（确定性）的过程。首先，我提出了两个实验来研究交流的预期（作为生产者vs.接受者）和交流伙伴（专家vs.外行人；没有关于她/他的评价的信息）如何影响外行人对科学证据的评价（认知调整）。其次，我计划研究与合作伙伴共享现实的创建，这些合作伙伴交流他们对科学主题的评估（社会调整）。根据现有的研究，共享现实的成功创造不仅取决于合作伙伴的知识专长，还取决于与合作伙伴的个人关系和联系的经验。在外行和专家之间的交流中，缺乏个人联系可能是建立共同现实的主要障碍。本文提出了四个实验来研究与专家建立个人联系的因素和过程，包括计算机媒介沟通的同步性、专家的自我披露和表明人际关系的基本语言特征（如“我们”或“我们”等集体代词）。除了与基础科学相关之外，该项目还具有重要的实际意义，特别是对于专家成功地向外行人传播科学证据而言。

A key process in people's reception of scientific evidence is the evaluation of scientific evidence. The evaluation of science by laypeople plays an important role for the acceptance of research by the general public and ultimately funding decisions. The aim of this project is to investigate the processes affecting laypersons' evaluations and meta-cognitive judgments (certainty) regarding conflicting scientific evidence from a social-psychological perspective. First, I propose two experiments to investigate how the anticipation of communication (as producer vs. recipient) and the communication partner (expert vs. layperson; without information about her/his evaluation) influence evaluations of scientific evidence by laypeople (cognitive tuning). Second, I plan to examine the creation of a shared reality with partners who communicate their evaluation of a scientific topic (social tuning). According to extant research, the successful creation of a shared reality should depend not only on a partner's epistemic expertise but also on the experience of a personal relation and connection with the partner. The lack of personal connection is presumably a key obstacle to the creation of a shared reality in lay-expert communication. Four experiments are proposed to investigate factors and processes underlying the experience of a personal connection with experts, including the synchronicity of computer-mediated communication, self-disclosure of the experts, and basic language features signaling an interpersonal connection (e.g., collective pronouns like "we" or "us"). Beyond its relevance for basic science the project has important practical implications, especially for experts' successful communication of scientific evidence to laypeople.