When The Public Disagrees: Differential Effects of Negative User Comments and Form of Evidence on Scientists’ Trustworthiness

Social media platforms offer an undeniable potential for science communication. However, scientists and experts who use these platforms to engage with the public risk receiving negative feedback, which can potentially harm their trustworthiness and messages’ credibility. This paper addresses how negative user comments affect experts’ trustworthiness and the messages’ credibility depending on whether they frame their message as scientific versus anecdotal. We use an online study with a 2 (evidence type: scientific vs. anecdotal) x 3 (comments: neutral, negative-factual, negative-emotional) between-subjects design (N = 301). The results suggest that relying on scientific evidence when engaging in emotionally charged discourses benefits the communicators’ epistemic trustworthiness and credibility. Analyses further demonstrate that negative-emotional comments have a significant negative impact on communicators’ trustworthiness, which is especially pronounced with the use of anecdotal evidence compared to scientific evidence.