Effects of Self- and Other-Referencing Language on Engagement with Science Content on Social Media: A Field Experiment

The present study tested whether the self-reference effect (SRE)—individuals’ tendency to engage with information related to themselves—can increase engagement with science content on social media. In a 12-week field experiment, we published 34 Instagram posts and 10 YouTube videos featuring a science lab’s activities. Captions and video titles were randomly assigned to either a self-referencing (SR) condition (using second-person pronouns), or an other-referencing (OR) condition (using third-person pronouns). Engagement was assessed using platform metrics such as likes and shares. Contrary to expectations, SR content did not yield higher engagement, whereas OR content yielded significantly higher shares. Exploratory analyses further indicated that OR content yielded higher composite engagement scores. These findings suggest that self-referencing language may have limited effectiveness for science communication in social media settings. Importantly, this study opens avenues for further research on how content framing strategies influences science content engagement on social media.