Evidence map›Paper›PMID 35132171›Full record

ArticleNature human behaviour2022

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

Suzanne Hoogeveen, Julia M Haaf, Joseph A Bulbulia, Robert M Ross, Ryan McKay, Sacha Altay, Theiss Bendixen, Renatas Berniūnas, Arik Cheshin, Claudio Gentili and 15 more

Abstract read
PubMed Publisher
In one paragraph

Article in Nature human behaviour, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
10citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

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.

2 · The registry

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.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

10 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. A Health Media Literacy Intervention Increases Skepticism of Both Inaccurate and Accurate Cancer News Among U.S. Adults.Annals of behavioral medicine : a publication of the Society of Behavioral Medicine · 2024
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

25 authors.

Suzanne HoogeveenDepartment of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. suzanne.j.hoogeveen@gmail.com.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1304-8615
Julia M HaafDepartment of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Joseph A BulbuliaSchool of Psychology, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand.
Robert M RossDepartment of Psychology, Macquarie University, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8711-1675
Ryan McKayDepartment of Psychology, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, UK.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7781-1539
Sacha AltayDépartement d'études cognitives, Institut Jean Nicod, Paris, France.
Theiss BendixenDepartment of the Study of Religion, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5729-1281
Renatas BerniūnasInstitute of Psychology, Vilnius University, Vilnius, Lithuania.
Arik CheshinDepartment of Human Services, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0921-0675
Claudio GentiliDepartment of General Psychology, University of Padova, Padua, Italy.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2579-8755
Raluca GeorgescuInternational Institute for the Advanced Studies of Psychotherapy and Applied Mental Health, Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8329-0063
Will M GervaisCentre for Culture and Evolution, Brunel University London, Uxbridge, UK.
Kristin HagelMax Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany.
Christopher KavanaghSchool of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
Neil LevyDepartment of Psychology, Macquarie University, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5679-1986
Alejandra NeelySchool of Psychology, Adolfo Ibáñez University, Santiago, Chile.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5565-9676
Lin QiuDepartment of Psychology, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore.
André RabeloDepartment of Social and Work Psychology, Universidade de Brasília, Brasília, Brazil.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5236-7574
Jonathan E RamsaySchool of Social and Health Sciences, James Cook University, Singapore, Singapore.
Bastiaan T RutjensDepartment of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3163-4156
Hugh TurpinSchool of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
Filip UzarevicDepartment of Psychology, Catholic University of Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.
Robin WuytsDepartment of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Dimitris XygalatasDepartment of Anthropology and Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1561-9327
Michiel van ElkInstitute of Psychology, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

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 information.

Indexed as

JudgmentReligionHumansReproducibility of ResultsTrust

Identifiers

PMID35132171

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

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.