Dataset for: Information easiness affects non-experts’ evaluation of scientific claims about which they hold prior beliefs

Non-experts tend to overlook their evaluative limitations when encountering scientific information that is easy to comprehend on a surface level – at least when they do not possess any prior beliefs about the issue at hand. We conducted an experiment that examined whether text easiness also influences non-experts’ evaluation of scientific claims if they possess previous beliefs about the claim’s validity. In a 2x2 repeated measures design, 43 undergraduate students who strongly believed that climate change is anthropogenic read brief argumentative texts that supported a claim either consistent or inconsistent with their beliefs and that were either easy or difficult to understand. Before and after reading, they indicated their agreement with the text’s major claim, perceived credibility of the text’s author, and the extent that they would rely on their own claim evaluation. In a free writing task, they also provided the reasons for their claim judgment. Results suggest that the previously observed influence of text easiness on non-experts’ reliance on their own evaluative capabilities translates to situations in which they hold prior beliefs about the text claim – but only when the claim is consistent with their beliefs. Apparently, both text difficulty and belief inconsistency remind non-experts of their own evaluative limitations. The file Scharrer et al 2021 Easiness Prior Beliefs TEXT MATERIAL contains the text materials used in this experiment. The materials consist of four text pairs, each pair addressing a different topic related to climate change. Two text pairs proposed a claim consistent with the notion that climate change is anthropogenic (belief-consistent), and two pairs proposed a claim consistent with the notion that climate change is brought about by non-human, natural causes (belief-inconsistent). In addition, one text of a pair was easy to comprehend for non-expert readers (comprehensible version), whereas the other text contained a large number of technical terms and abbreviations and was hence less easy to comprehend (less comprehensible version). The stimulus texts are presented here in their original German version.