A149.
Gustafson,
A., & Rice, R. E. (2020). A review of the effects of uncertainty in
public
science communication. Public Understanding of Science, 29(6), 614-633. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963662520942122
Uncertainty
is inherent to science and science communication. However, the evidence
appears
mixed regarding whether portraying uncertainty in science communication
has
positive or negative effects. We review a diverse range of experimental
literature (k = 48; from 40 searches and 8000
retrievals), summarize the
extant findings, and observe how the effects vary across four different
types
of communicated uncertainty (deficient,
technical, scientific, and consensus
uncertainty). The results indicate
that most findings of negative effects
(such as reduced credibility and beliefs) are from experiments that
operationalized uncertainty as disagreement or conflict in science (consensus
uncertainty). In this review,
consensus uncertainty was never found to have
positive effects. In contrast, uncertainty in the form of quantified
error
ranges and probabilities (technical
uncertainty) in these studies has
had only positive or null effects, not negative effects. We also
highlight
frequent moderators of the effects of uncertainty, such as prior
beliefs and
worldviews.
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