ArticlePloS one2015
Measuring Laypeople's Trust in Experts in a Digital Age: The Muenster Epistemic Trustworthiness Inventory (METI).
Article in PloS one, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 56 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
56 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- The relationship between trust and humility: a systematic review.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Pooled it
- Language Use in Conversational Agent-Based Health Communication: Systematic Review.Journal of medical Internet research · 2022Pooled it
- High- versus low-anthropomorphic-cue packages and health-information trust: social presence and source credibility under explicit AI disclosure.Frontiers in public health · 2026Trial
- How Experts' Use of Medical Technical Jargon in Different Types of Online Health Forums Affects Perceived Information Credibility: Randomized Experiment With Laypersons.Journal of medical Internet research · 2018Trial
- Scientists' Experiences With Getting Help Making Strategic Communication Choices.Risk analysis : an official publication of the Society for Risk Analysis · 2026Article
- Trusting Generative AI for Health Advice: Preregistered Survey Experiment.Journal of medical Internet research · 2026Article
- Understanding Healthcare Workers' COVID-19 Vaccination Decision-Making as a Dynamic Process: A Qualitative Meta-Synthesis.Vaccines · 2026Review
- Shedding light on public perceptions of scientists who engage in wrongness admission amidst a failed replication.Public understanding of science (Bristol, England) · 2026Article
- Navigating the credibility risks of environmental scientists' activism.Communications psychology · 2026Article
- Trust in science during the COVID-19 pandemic: A typology of internet users in South Africa.PloS one · 2026Article
- No evidence for causal effects of trust in science on intentions for health-related behavior.Communications psychology · 2025Article
- Quantity-Sourced or Quality-Sourced? The Impact of Word-of-Mouth Recommendations on China Rural Residents' Online Purchase Intention: The Chain Mediating Roles of Social Distance and Perceived Value.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Article
- Always in (partner) action? Working in teams may improve simulated flight performance-but only in the apt cognitive control state.Cognitive research: principles and implications · 2025Article
- The impacts of expertise, conflict, and scientific literacy on trust and belief in scientific disagreements.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Trust in scientists and their role in society across 68 countries.Nature human behaviour · 2025Article
- The effect of seeing scientists as intellectually humble on trust in scientists and their research.Nature human behaviour · 2025Article
- Who is at risk of bias? Examining dispositional differences in motivated science reception.Public understanding of science (Bristol, England) · 2025Article
- Perceptions of science, science communication, and climate change attitudes in 68 countries - the TISP dataset.Scientific data · 2025Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Given their lack of background knowledge, laypeople require expert help when dealing with scientific information. To decide whose help is dependable, laypeople must judge an expert's epistemic trustworthiness in terms of competence, adherence to scientific standards, and good intentions. Online, this may be difficult due to the often limited and sometimes unreliable source information available. To measure laypeople's evaluations of experts (encountered online), we constructed an inventory to assess epistemic trustworthiness on the dimensions expertise, integrity, and benevolence. Exploratory (n = 237) and confirmatory factor analyses (n = 345) showed that the Muenster Epistemic Trustworthiness Inventory (METI) is composed of these three factors. A subsequent experimental study (n = 137) showed that all three dimensions of the METI are sensitive to variation in source characteristics. We propose using this inventory to measure assignments of epistemic trustworthiness, that is, all judgments laypeople make when deciding whether to place epistemic trust in-and defer to-an expert in order to solve a scientific informational problem that is beyond their understanding.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.