Believing What We Want? Myside Bias and the Role of Open Science Practices in Public Trust in Science

Public trust in science may depend not only on the quality of the research but also on laypersons’ attitudes towards the underlying topic. Although Open Science practices are meant to signal credibility, their influence on laypersons remains unclear, especially for scientifically controversial topics. In this preregistered Austrian study (N=1,083), general trust in science and myside bias strongly predicted trust in certain popular-scientific summaries, while explicit Open Science cues did not show an effect. Exploratory analyses showed that participants’ optimistic conceptions of science were also linked to higher trust. Overall, biased beliefs appear more influential than transparency-related cues for trust in science.