Engaging the dismissive: An assessment of humor-based strategies to support global warming action.

This study aims to understand the influence of mirth, anger, and hope, as elicited by messages with different humor types, on support for global warming action, and the potential moderating role of individual climate concern. Although mirth did not significantly vary across the different stimuli, the analysis found that climate concern moderated the influence of hope on support for global warming actions. The implications of these findings, especially for respondents who were least supportive of actions to combat global warming, are discussed.

Emotion and humor as misinformation antidotes.

Many visible public debates over scientific issues are clouded in accusations of falsehood, which place increasing demands on citizens to distinguish fact from fiction. Yet, constraints on our ability to detect misinformation coupled with our inadvertent motivations to believe false science result in a high likelihood that we will form misperceptions. As science falsehoods are often presented with emotional appeals, we focus our perspective on the roles of emotion and humor in the formation of science attitudes, perceptions, and behaviors. Recent research sheds light on how funny science and emotions can help explain and potentially overcome our inability or lack of motivation to recognize and challenge misinformation. We identify some lessons learned from these related and growing areas of research and conclude with a brief discussion of the ethical considerations of using persuasive strategies, calling for more dialogue among members of the science communication community.

Following science on social media: The effects of humor and source likability.

Science communicators have been encouraged to use humor in their online engagement efforts. Yet, humor's effectiveness for engaging people with science remains an open question. We report the results of an experiment designed to elicit varied levels of mirth in respondents, which was positively associated with perceived likability of the communicator and motivation to follow more science on social media. Furthermore, mirth and perceived likability serially mediated the effect of the experimental manipulation on motivation and factual science knowledge served as a moderator. This indicates that, while humor might be an effective means of reaching audiences, downstream effects are likely to vary depending on individuals' knowledge.

Scientists as comedians: The effects of humor on perceptions of scientists and scientific messages.

Humor has been recommended for scientists looking to conduct communication activities despite relatively little empirical evidence demonstrating its effectiveness. Here, we examine the social environment of a joke through a two-condition experimental design that manipulates the presence or absence of audience laughter. Specifically, we examine how humor experienced from viewing a video clip of a science comedian embedded in an online survey can have downstream effects on whether people view comedy as a valid source of scientific information. We found that respondents who perceived more humor in the video clip (i.e. those in the condition with audience laughter) had more positive views about comedy as a valid source of scientific information. Interestingly, this relationship was mediated by perceived expertise, not likability, of the scientist engaging in comedy.

Disgusting microbes: The effect of disgust on perceptions of risks related to modifying microbiomes.

Research on perceived risks of scientific issues has largely overlooked the influence of disgust as a predictor. Here, we examine the impact of disgust on perceived risks of modifying microbiomes using a 2 (emotion) × 2 (focus) experiment embedded in an online survey. We find evidence of moderated mediation where individuals exposed to an article about microbiome research and therapies with explicit references to disgusting stimuli perceived greater risk through a mediating variable, elicited disgust. This indirect effect is moderated by the focus of the article; those who viewed a human-focused article experienced greater disgust and reported greater perceived risks. These findings have implications for assessing and addressing lay audiences' reactions to an emerging issue that has significant societal implications.

The case of #arseniclife: Blogs and Twitter in informal peer review.

Using the "#arseniclife" controversy as a case study, we examine the roles of blogs and Twitter in post-publication review. The controversy was initiated by a scientific article about bacteria able to substitute arsenic for phosphorus in its genetic material. We present the debate chronologically, using prominent online media to reconstruct the events. Using tweets that discussed the controversy, we conducted quantitative sentiment analysis to examine skeptical and non-skeptical tones on Twitter. Critiques of and studies refuting the arsenic life hypothesis were publicized on blogs before formal publication in traditional academic spaces and were shared on Twitter, influencing issue salience among a range of audiences. This case exemplifies the role of new media in informal post-publication peer review, which can complement traditional peer review processes. The implications drawn from this case study for future conduct and transparency of both formal and informal peer review are discussed.

The lure of rationality: Why does the deficit model persist in science communication?

Science communication has been historically predicated on the knowledge deficit model. Yet, empirical research has shown that public communication of science is more complex than what the knowledge deficit model suggests. In this essay, we pose four lines of reasoning and present empirical data for why we believe the deficit model still persists in public communication of science. First, we posit that scientists' training results in the belief that public audiences can and do process information in a rational manner. Second, the persistence of this model may be a product of current institutional structures. Many graduate education programs in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields generally lack formal training in public communication. We offer empirical evidence that demonstrates that scientists who have less positive attitudes toward the social sciences are more likely to adhere to the knowledge deficit model of science communication. Third, we present empirical evidence of how scientists conceptualize "the public" and link this to attitudes toward the deficit model. We find that perceiving a knowledge deficit in the public is closely tied to scientists' perceptions of the individuals who comprise the public. Finally, we argue that the knowledge deficit model is perpetuated because it can easily influence public policy for science issues. We propose some ways to uproot the deficit model and move toward more effective science communication efforts, which include training scientists in communication methods grounded in social science research and using approaches that engage community members around scientific issues.

Disentangling the influence of value predispositions and risk/benefit perceptions on support for nanotechnology among the American public.

Using nanotechnology as a case study, this article explores (1) how people's perceptions of benefits and risks are related to their approval of nanotechnology, (2) which information-processing factors contribute to public risk/benefit perceptions, and (3) whether individuals' predispositions (i.e., deference to scientific authority and ideology) may moderate the relationship between cognitive processing and risk perceptions of the technology. Results indicate that benefit perceptions positively affect public support for nanotechnology; perceptions of risk tend to be more influenced by systematic processing than by heuristic cues, whereas both heuristic and systematic processing influence benefit perceptions. People who are more liberal-minded tend to be more affected by systematic processing when thinking about the benefits of nanotechnology than those who are more conservative. Compared to less deferent individuals, those who are more deferent to scientific authority tend to be less influenced by systematic processing when making judgments about the benefits and risks of nanotechnology. Implications are discussed.

Coastal bacterioplankton community dynamics in response to a natural disturbance.

In order to characterize how disturbances to microbial communities are propagated over temporal and spatial scales in aquatic environments, the dynamics of bacterial assemblages throughout a subtropical coastal embayment were investigated via SSU rRNA gene analyses over an 8-month period, which encompassed a large storm event. During non-perturbed conditions, sampling sites clustered into three groups based on their microbial community composition: an offshore oceanic group, a freshwater group, and a distinct and persistent coastal group. Significant differences in measured environmental parameters or in the bacterial community due to the storm event were found only within the coastal cluster of sampling sites, and only at 5 of 12 locations; three of these sites showed a significant response in both environmental and bacterial community characteristics. These responses were most pronounced at sites close to the shoreline. During the storm event, otherwise common bacterioplankton community members such as marine Synechococcus sp. and members of the SAR11 clade of Alphaproteobacteria decreased in relative abundance in the affected coastal zone, whereas several lineages of Gammaproteobacteria, Betaproteobacteria, and members of the Roseobacter clade of Alphaproteobacteria increased. The complex spatial patterns in both environmental conditions and microbial community structure related to freshwater runoff and wind convection during the perturbation event leads us to conclude that spatial heterogeneity was an important factor influencing both the dynamics and the resistance of the bacterioplankton communities to disturbances throughout this complex subtropical coastal system. This heterogeneity may play a role in facilitating a rapid rebound of regions harboring distinctly coastal bacterioplankton communities to their pre-disturbed taxonomic composition.