Humbling findings Trust in scientists hasnt recovered from COVID. Some humility could help. Intellectual humility could win back much-needed trust in science, study finds Beth Mole Nov 18, 2024 4:52 pm | 110 Illustration of a scientist speaking in front of an audience. Credit: Getty | BRO Vector Illustration of a scientist speaking in front of an audience. Credit: Getty | BRO Vector Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreScientists could win back trust lost during the COVID-19 pandemic if they just showed a little intellectual humility, according to a study published Monday in Nature Human Behavior.It's no secret that scientistsand the science generallytook a hit during the health crisis. Public confidence in scientists fell from 87 percent in April 2000 to a low of 73 percent in October 2023, according to survey data from the Pew Research Center. And the latest Pew data released last week suggests it will be an uphill battle to regain what was lost, with confidence in scientists only rebounding three percentage points, to 76 percent in a poll from October.Building trustThe new study in Nature Human Behavior may guide the way forward, though. The study encompasses five smaller studies probing the perceptions of scientists' trustworthiness, which previous research has linked to willingness to follow research-based recommendations."These are anxiety-provoking times for people, and they feel uncertain about who to trust and which recommendations to follow," said study co-author Karina Schumann, a psychology professor at the University of Pittsburgh. "We wanted to know what can help people feel more confident putting their faith in scientists working to find solutions to some of the complex global challenges we are facing."Schumann and her colleagues homed in on the role of intellectual humility. Unlike general humility, intellectual humility focuses on the limitations of one's knowledge. Specifically, a scientist with high intellectual humility would show a willingness to admit gaps in their knowledge, listen to input from others, and update their views based on new evidence. These characteristics may be viewed by the public as particularly critical among scientists, given that science is rife with uncertainties and lacks complete and unequivocal conclusions, especially from individual studies.There's also good reason to think that scientists may be doing a poor job of displaying intellectual humility. The latest survey data from Pew found that 47 percent of Americans perceive scientists as feeling superior to others, and 52 percent indicated that scientists communicate poorly.Study seriesFor a look into how intellectual humility could help, Schumann and her colleagues first surveyed 298 people and looked to see if there was a link between viewing scientists as intellectually humble and believing in scientific topics considered polarizing. The sub-studystudy 1found strong links between the perceived intellectual humility of scientists, trustworthiness, and support for human-driven climate change, lifesaving vaccinations, and genetically modified foods.In studies 2 through 4, the researchers experimentally tested expressions of intellectual humility (IH)either high or low levelsand how they affected perceived trustworthiness. In study 2, for instance, 317 participants read one of three articles involving a fictional scientist named Susan Moore, who was researching treatments for long COVID. There was a neutral article that functioned as a control, and articles with cues that Dr. Moore had either high or low IH. The cues for high IH included text such as: "Dr. Moore is not afraid to admit when she doesnt yet know something." For low IH, the article included statements such as: "Dr. Moore is not afraid to assert what she knows."The high IH article spurred significantly more trust in Dr. Moore than the low IH articles, the researchers found. However, there wasn't a statistically significant difference in trust between the control and high IH groups. This might suggest that people may have a default assumption of high IH in scientists without other cuesor they are especially annoyed by low IH or arrogance among scientists.Study 3 essentially replicated study 2, but with the tweak that the articles varied whether the fictional scientist was male or female, in case gendered expectations affected how people perceived humility and trustworthiness. The results from 369 participants indicated that gender didn't affect the link between IH and trust. Similarly, in study 4, with 371 participants, the researchers varied the race/ethnicity of the scientist, finding again that the link between IH and trust remained."Together, these four studies offer compelling evidence that perceptions of scientists IH play an important role in both trust in scientists and willingness to follow their research-based recommendations," the authors concluded.Next stepsIn the final study involving 679 participants, researchers examined different ways that scientists might express IH, including whether the IH was expressed as a personal trait, limitations of research methods, or as limitations of research results. Unexpectedly, the strategies to express IH by highlighting limitations in the methods and results of research both increased perceptions of IH, but shook trust in the research. Only personal IH successfully boosted perceptions of IH without backfiring, the authors report.The finding suggests that more research is needed to guide scientists on how best to express high IH. But, it's clear that low IH is not good. "[W]e encourage scientists to be particularly mindful of displaying low IH, such as by expressing overconfidence, being unwilling to course correct or disrespecting others views," the researchers caution.Overall, Schumann said she was encouraged by the team's findings. "They suggest that the public understands that science isnt about having all the answers; it's about asking the right questions, admitting what we dont yet understand, and learning as we go. Although we still have much to discover about how scientists can authentically convey intellectual humility, we now know people sense that a lack of intellectual humility undermines the very aspects of science that make it valuable and rigorous. This is a great place to build from."Beth MoleSenior Health ReporterBeth MoleSenior Health Reporter Beth is Ars Technicas Senior Health Reporter. Beth has a Ph.D. in microbiology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and attended the Science Communication program at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She specializes in covering infectious diseases, public health, and microbes. 110 Comments