Scientists Carry Greater Credibility Than Spiritual Gurus

Summary: Both the majority of religious and non-religious people consider information provided by scientists to be more credible and reliable than information provided by religious leaders, a new study report.

Source: University of Amsterdam

What influence does the source of information have on its credibility? Scientists have more authority than spiritual sources, both among religious and non-religious people. This is apparent from a large-scale experiment conducted by UvA researchers working in an international team. In the experiment, the researchers presented nonsense claims made by both a scientist and a spiritual guru to more than 10,000 subjects from 24 countries.

They describe the universal effect found, which they call the Einstein effect, in a publication that appears in Nature Human Behavior.

The corona crisis has recently brought the subject of the credibility of science to the fore. Does keeping 1.5 meters apart really work? Are vaccinations safe? Does wearing a face mask help? In many cases, the answers to such questions ultimately boil down to who we trust most and consider the most credible authority. Should we take the word of an anti-vaxxer or listen to the national health authorities to guide our beliefs and behaviour regarding the virus?

‘In our research, we looked at the influence that the source of the information has on its credibility, apart from the content of the information itself. We did that with a simple experiment using nonsense claims. They were not about corona, but our findings are also very relevant to the debates around corona,’ says UvA psychologist Suzanne Hoogeveen, who led the study.

Meaningless, but profound–sounding

The 10,195 participants in the experiment were presented with two meaningless but profound-sounding statements: ‘We are called to explore the cosmos itself as an interface between faith and empathy. We must learn how to lead authentic lifes in the face of delusion. It is in refining that we are guided.’ and ‘Yes, it is possible to exterminate the things that can confront us, but not without hope on our side. Turbulence is born in the gap when transformation has been excluded. It is in evolving that we are re-energized.’

One claim was attributed to a scientist and the other to a spiritual guru. Participants were then asked to indicate on a 7-point scale to what extent they found the claims credible.

Cross-cultural differences

Even the most religious subjects saw the scientist’s claim as more credible than that of the spiritual guru, although the effect was less strong in that group. They found the spiritual guru’s words relatively more credible than the non-religious participants in the experiment.

The effect found was universal; at the same time, there were also differences between countries. For instance, the Dutch participants were the most skeptical about the claims across the board. The difference between credibility of the scientist and the guru was greatest in Turkey and smallest in India, China and Japan.

‘It could be that the relatively smaller effect in Southeast Asia is because the spiritual guru, as presented in the study, is more closely aligned with Eastern belief systems than with the more Western Christian traditions,’ explains Hoogeveen. ‘However, based on our data, we cannot make firm statements about this.’

‘Our findings suggest that regardless of one’s worldview, science is seen worldwide as a powerful indicator of the reliability of information. In these times when there is a lot of talk about skepticism with regard to, for example, climate change and vaccinations, that is hopefully reassuring,’ says Hoogeveen.

Abstract

The Einstein effect provides global evidence for scientific source credibility effects and the influence of religiosity

People tend to evaluate information from reliable sources more favourably, but it is unclear exactly how perceivers’ worldviews interact with this source credibility effect. In a large and diverse cross-cultural sample (N = 10,195 from 24 countries), we presented participants with obscure, meaningless statements attributed to either a spiritual guru or a scientist.

We found a robust global source credibility effect for scientific authorities, which we dub ‘the Einstein effect’: across all 24 countries and all levels of religiosity, scientists held greater authority than spiritual gurus. In addition, individual religiosity predicted a weaker relative preference for the statement from the scientist compared with the spiritual guru, and was more strongly associated with credibility judgements for the guru than the scientist. Independent data on explicit trust ratings across 143 countries mirrored our experimental findings.

These findings suggest that irrespective of one’s religious worldview, across cultures science is a powerful and universal heuristic that signals the reliability of the information.