As social media continues to thrive in an increasingly digital world, misinformation does as well. Although Twitter has taken steps to reduce false information on their app, it is often left to users to determine the trustworthiness of any given tweet author. Many science communicators may use social media to spread scientific findings to the general public, but they also use Twitter as microblogs in which they can post their opinions on a variety of topics. Due to the hyperpolarization of political ideologies and the mechanisms of online impression formation, users may alter perceptions of trustworthiness, warmth, and competency of science communicators based on political content and any minimal cues that are available.

My primary research questions were as follows:

In order to test my research questions, I created 50 fictional Twitter profiles and included a variable tweet which indicates the profile’s condition (conservative, liberal, moderate, personal, science). Participants were then asked to judge each profile on their trustworthiness, competence, and warmth. Participants judged five profiles and the survey ended with a short demographic section.

Repeated measures MANOVAs and MANCOVAs were used to test my hypotheses. While I was able to find support for my first two hypotheses, further providing evidence that political differences will influence perceptions of trustworthiness, competency, and warmth, there was no evidence to suggest gender plays a significant role. This research continues to shed a light on the spread of misinformation on social networks and how different people have different interpretations of the same information due to political differences.

If you would like to know more about my thesis, please feel free to reach out!