Do Open-Science Badges Increase Trust in Scientists Among Undergraduates, Scientists, and the Public?

In three experimental studies, we investigated whether badges for open-science practices have the potential to affect trust in scientists and topic-specific epistemic beliefs by student teachers (n = 270), social scientists (n = 250), or the public (n = 257), all of whom were at least 16 years old. Furthermore, we analyzed the moderating role of epistemic beliefs for badges and trust. Each participant was randomly assigned to two of three conditions: badges awarded, badges not awarded, and no badges (control). In all samples, our Bayesian analyses indicated that badges influence trust as expected, with one exception in the public sample: An additional positive effect of awarded badges (compared with no badges) was not supported. For students and scientists, we found evidence for the relation of badges and epistemic beliefs as well as epistemic beliefs and trust. Further, we found evidence for the absence of moderation by epistemic beliefs.