Face Masks Might Protect You From COVID-19: The Communication of Scientific Uncertainty by Scientists Versus Politicians in the Context of Policy in the Making

Abstract

Scientific knowledge is intrinsically uncertain; hence, it can only provide a tentative orientation for political decisions. One illustrative example is the discussion that has taken place on introducing mandatory mask-wearing to contain the coronavirus. In this context, this study investigates how the communication of uncertainty regarding the effectiveness of mandatory mask-wearing affects the perceived trustworthiness of communicators. Participants ( N = 398) read a fictitious but evidence-based text supporting mandatory mask-wearing. First, epistemic uncertainty was communicated by including a high (vs. low) amount of lexical hedges (LHs) to the text (e.g., “maybe”). Second, we varied whether the source of information was a scientist or a politician. Thereafter, participants rated the source's trustworthiness. Results show that the scientist was perceived as more competent and as having more integrity but not as more benevolent than the politician. The use of LHs did not impact trustworthiness ratings.