Do You Share What You Believe? An Empirical Investigation of Recipients’ Reactions to Scientists’ Posts on Social Media

To understand user interactions with scientists’ posts, we investigate how characteristics of the recipient (motivation, need for cognition, trust in scientists) and the posts (scientific jargon, attitude alignment) affect recipients’ understanding, credibility assessment, and intention to like, share, and comment on social media. Using a mixed-subjects design (N = 726), we identified the posts’ credibility as the central factor for public engagement. The results show that motivational factors play a crucial role in message evaluation, but we observe differences based on the type of engagement and attitude-alignment. This study underlines the importance of audience design as scientific jargon can either boost or diminish credibility.