Source Credibility/Trust and Science Communication!
Imagine you come across a new makeup product from a new brand with all-natural ingredients and limited side-effects that are rarely available in the market. Though you are using makeup for a very long time you are still hesitant to try the best available product. Since its something new and also from an unknown brand with no endorsements. At the same time, the same makeup product when sold by a well-known brand or by any of the well-known actresses with experience of using it, you are somehow convinced in trying this product. The same analogy can be applied to science communication as well. We need a trusted person to comprehend a piece of complex information especially when we are not from the science field and it's related to Science.
Trust and credibility develop from complex interactions within the communication process and influence how people interpret, evaluate, and make decisions regarding sources and information. Source credibility is more accurately described as a perception that is bestowed by an audience. So, how much a speaker can influence the listeners depend on a variety of factors but the 3 main important factors are Commonality of interests, Relative expertise and penalty for wrongdoing.
The first one is the commonality of interests which simply means the extent to which the speaker’s and the listener’s utility functions overlap. So if I am interested in the neuroscience area in a particular topic and someone related to that is a speaker I am more likely to listen to them as compared to someone coming from an entirely different interest that we have. The second one is relative expertise that refers to the extent to which the speaker knows more about a topic than the listener. This always works because in order to trust the information that the speaker is giving they must have expertise in that field. But sometimes perceived expertise also works here. The third is penalty of wrongdoing which simply means that if the scientists or any expert makes a fraudulent claim they must be punished for doing so. This is rare in our country but if it’s applied then the public will be more likely to trust any experts or scientists giving out a piece of scientific information that must be known to all of us. Besides this, the listeners these days also prefer the creative way of representing complex scientific information like storytelling, analogies, more visually stimulating etc. But nothing can beat a trusted person or Source credibility in science communication because if an expert or an institute is trusted by the audience no matter how the presentation or the manner of scientific communication is, the listeners will be ready to listen anyway!
