An experiment in uncertainty

This interesting study tested the hypothesis that giving people a handle on the uncertainty in numerical measures does not affect their trust in the source. The experiment was conducted using a BBC News article on unemployment. The headline finding was that uncertainty communication does not reduce trust.

However, I draw attention to this sentence

An ANOVA showed a significant main effect of uncertainty communication on perceived uncertainty [F(2, 1526) = 4.67, P = 0.01; η2=0.006].

So the effect of uncertainty communication on perceived uncertainty was absolutely minuscule (partial-eta 0.006)! The findings on trustworthiness then need to be taken with a large pinch of salt.

I would then revise the take-home message of this paper to be - the methods used to communicate uncertainty in this study were pretty ineffective.



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