The effect of advocacy on perceived credibility of climate scientists in a Dutch text on greening of gardens

Abstract

Many climate scientists refrain from advocacy and activism because they worry it decreases their credibility. Through a survey of almost 1000 Dutch respondents, we compare responses to a text written in a neutral tone to those of a text written in an advocating tone on perceived credibility of the authoring scientist in these texts. Analyses show that the perceived credibility of the scientist who authored the text increases by advocacy overall, and that the advocating scientist is considered more credible than the neutral scientist specifically in their perceived sensitivity and care for society. We also analyse the effect of the type of visual element in the text, to test whether a visual element that is more science-based can increase the perceived credibility of the scientist in the knowledge domain. However, we do not find any significant differences between a scientific bar chart and a stock photo. Based on these results, we conclude that advocacy can increase the climate scientist's average perceived credibility. However, we find that the fraction of respondents that feels called to action is not higher for those who read the advocacy text, suggesting that advocacy does not stimulate behavioural change in this case.