Comprehension of Socioscientific Controversies Through Multiple Documents: Language as Credibility Cue

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Tobias Richter
• Subject Area: Developmental and Educational Psychology
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 494819633

The text-belief consistency effect, i.e. better comprehension of text information consistent with readers’ prior beliefs, is a well-established phenomenon. Previous research has found text-belief consistency effects in readers who read multiple documents that present opposing perspectives on controversial socioscientific issues in a single language. However, when people research information about socioscientific issues on the Internet, they regularly read across a multiplicity of documents in several languages—often in their native language and in English as the lingua franca of the current information society. Therefore, the current project sets out to investigate text-belief consistency effects when readers read controversial information across documents in readers native language and in their second language English.Considering the differential epistemic statuses of languages within the current knowledge society, the project proceeds with the assumption that document language could serve as a source characteristic, which might affect the way the information is comprehended. In particular, documents written in English as the major language of science might be associated with higher credibility than documents written in other languages of lesser global importance. Against this background, we aim to investigate how document language as a source characteristic moderates text-belief consistency effects when bilinguals read multiple controversial documents on a single topic across their first and second languages. We also aim to establish perceived credibility as the mechanism of this effect.Eight experiments are planned that examine these general assumptions in German and Iranian students who read multiple documents about socioscientific issues in their first language (German or Persian) and in their second language English. The study of text-belief consistency effects among English-German bilinguals will be conducted in Würzburg, Germany, by the applicant’s team. The study of text-belief consistency effects in English-Persian bilinguals will be conducted in Tehran, Iran, by Prof. Dr. Mohammad Nabi Karimi who will be involved in the project as prospective Mercator fellow. The applicant’s team and the Mercator fellow will closely collaborate in the development of text materials and items. All materials will be thoroughly pre-tested, with an eye on their equivalence in terms of linguistic difficulty and content familiarity. The project will provide theoretical contributions to the research on text-belief consistency and sourcing by extending the focus of previous research to multilingual reading contexts, a point that has received no attention in the empirical research in the two areas.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants