Thanks for the mention, Matthew!

This also marks the last chapter of my PhD dissertation being published! 🎉

Huge thanks to my coauthors Natalia Zarzeczna, Frenk van Harreveld and Bastiaan Rutjens!

This builds on our work showing that higher psychological distance to science (PSYDISC) predicts science skepticism across multiple science domains (doi.org/10.1177/0146...) & is the first to demonstrate that PSYDISC is a malleable construct that could be useful in science communication efforts!

We find that communicating about GM food (and nanotechnology) science as:

📍 an endeavour happening nearby
⏱️ with implications in the present
🧑‍🔬 done by scientists that are willing to engage with the public
💪 and confident about their work

can improve evaluations and reduce science skepticism.

Thanks for the shout out! :)

Thanks for sharing!

We discuss alternative methods to elicit analytic thinking, as well as recent work pointing to a potentially more complex relationship between analytic thinking and conspiracy beliefs that depends on prior beliefs and motivation to be accurate.

This might not come as a surprise as that the studies in question used priming tasks, but it underscores the need for more work on the causal relationship between thinking styles and belief in conspiracy theories.