Marlene Sophie Altenmüller

• Dr.
• Junior Professor at Leibniz Institute for Psychology

This 68-country survey (n = 71,922) examines how people encounter information about science and communicate about it with others, identifies cross-country differences, and tests the extent to which economic and sociopolitical conditions predict such differences. We find that social media are the most used sources of science information in most coun...

Conspiracy beliefs have been linked to perceptions of collective victimhood. We adopt an individual perspective on victimhood by investigating the relationship between conspiracy beliefs and the individual disposition to perceive and react to injustice as a victim (i.e., victim justice sensitivity; VJS). Data from two German samples (Ns = 370, 373)...

Science is crucial for evidence-based decision-making. Public trust in scientists can help decision makers act on the basis of the best available evidence, especially during crises. However, in recent years the epistemic authority of science has been challenged, causing concerns about low public trust in scientists. We interrogated these concerns w...

Science is integral to society because it can inform individual, government, corporate, and civil society decision-making on issues such as public health, new technologies or climate change. Yet, public distrust and populist sentiment challenge the relationship between science and society. To help researchers analyse the science-society nexus acros...

Communication style is critical in fostering and maintaining trust in private and professional relationships. Anecdotal evidence and applied communication strategies suggest that an informal communication style not only reflects but also causes feelings of closeness and trust. However, the experimental evidence on this is mixed, which suggests that...

Human experiences are highly sensitive toward social cues, and art appreciation is no exception. In the present article, we consider the role of social influence for aesthetic experiences. Specifically, we compared three experimental conditions varying implicit social cues (N = 533): Participants viewed a muted video of the expressionist painting “...

Communicating research findings to the public in a clear but engaging manner is challenging, yet central for maximizing their societal impact. This systematic review aimed to derive evidence-based strategies for science communication from experimental studies. Three databases were searched in December 2022. Experimental studies published in English...

Science museums face the challenge of communicating the inherent uncertainties of science without risking the public’s trust and interest in science. Here, we investigated potential museum visitors’ (N = 466) reception and support for such uncertainty communication by combining an experimental and survey approach as well as quantitative and qualita...

The motivated reception of science in line with one’s preexisting convictions is a well-documented, pervasive phenomenon. In two studies ( N = 743), we investigated whether this bias might be stronger in some people than others due to dispositional differences. Building on the assumptions that motivated science reception is driven by perceived thre...

Science and religion are influential social forces, and their interplay has been subject to many public and scholarly debates. The present article addresses how people mentally conceptualize the relationship between science and religion and how these conceptualizations can be systematized. To that end, we provide a comprehensive, integrative review...

Science and religion are influential social forces, and their interplay has been subject to many public and scholarly debates. The present article addresses how people mentally conceptualize the relationship between science and religion and how these conceptualizations can be systematized. To that end, we provide a comprehensive, integrative review...

Activists face a dilemma: The more disruptive their protest, the more attention they will get – but they will also be perceived more negatively. Can aesthetic tactics alleviate such adverse effects? In two experiments (N1 = 828; N2 = 1203; German access panel), we investigate whether artistic activism (e.g., performance art during protests) is judg...

Imagery rescripting (ImRs) is a prominent approach to help individuals alleviate the negative consequences following victimization. In two studies (total N = 641), participants experienced a victimization incident induced by a video. In subsequent audio‐guided (ImRs or control) interventions, we examined the impact of imagined (i) victims' active o...

Scientific information is crucial for evidence-based decision-making. Public trust in science can help decision-makers act based on the best available evidence, especially during crises such as climate change or the COVID-19 pandemic 1,2. However, in recent years the epistemic authority of science has been challenged, causing concerns about low pub...

Science is integral to society because it can inform individual, government, corporate, and civil society decision-making on issues such as climate change. Yet, public distrust and populist sentiment may challenge the relationship between science and society. To help researchers analyse the science society nexus across different cultural contexts,...

Scientific information is crucial for evidence-based decision-making. Public trust in science can help decision-makers act based on the best available evidence, especially during crises such as climate change or the COVID-19 pandemic. However, in recent years the epistemic authority of science has been challenged, causing concerns about low public...

Trust in science is polarized along political lines—but why? We show across a series of highly controlled studies (total N = 2,859) and a large-scale Twitter analysis ( N = 3,977,868) that people across the political spectrum hold stereotypes about scientists’ political orientation (e.g., “scientists are liberal”) and that these stereotypes decisiv...

The motivated reception of science in line with one’s preexisting convictions is a well-documented, pervasive phenomenon. In two studies (N = 743), we investigated whether this bias might be stronger in some people than others due to dispositional differences. Building on the assumptions that motivated science reception is driven by perceived threa...

While Open Science has arguably initiated positive changes at some stages of the research process (e.g., increasing transparency through preregistration), problematic behaviors during data collection are still almost impossible to detect and pose a great risk to the validity and integrity of psychological research—especially, when researchers use d...

Bartels (2023; this issue) argues that (a) classic studies and topics covered in psychological textbooks and introductory classes are often misrepresented, (b) that there is an ideological bias among scholars in psychology towards the left side of the political spectrum, and (c) this bias is responsible for the misrepresentation of studies and topi...

In an attempt to display themselves as warm, approachable, and trustworthy, researchers might reveal personal details about themselves (i.e., self-disclosure) when communicating their science to the public. Here, we test whether self-disclosure in science communication can actually increase public trust in science. We present six online experiments...

Communicating research findings to the public in a clear but engaging manner is challenging, yet central for maximizing their societal impact. This systematic review aimed to derive evidence-based strategies for science communication from experimental studies. Three databases were searched in December 2022. Experimental studies published in English...

War photography is not only used illustratively in news media but also displayed as controversial art objects. The ethics and impact of aestheticization in war photography have long been debated. In three studies (N1= 243, N2= 251, N3= 254), we contribute empirically to this debate by testing the impact of aesthetics in war photography (ie, aesthet...

Knowledge hiding in academia—the reluctance to share one’s ideas, materials or knowledge with other researchers—is detrimental to scientific collaboration and harms scientific progress. In three studies, we tested whether (a) knowledge hiding can be predicted by researchers’ latent fear of being exploited (i.e., victim sensitivity), whether (b) thi...

Science museums face the challenge of communicating the inherent uncertainties of science without risking the public’s trust and interest in science. Here, we investigated potential museum visitors’ (N = 466) reception and support for such uncertainty communication by combining an experimental and survey approach as well as quantitative and qualita...

Public trust in science is polarized along political lines. Conservatives trust scientists and their findings less than do liberals – but why? Here, we show that people across the political spectrum hold stereotypes about scientists' political orientation (e.g., "scientists are liberal"), compare that to their own political orientation, and only tr...

Science is unthinkable without collaboration between scientists. Yet, science is also unthinkable without competition (i.e., competing for the best and most solid arguments and for limited, precious resources). In this review, we argue that scientific work routines represent social dilemmas, and that two facets of prosociality help researchers solv...

Research is often fueled by researchers’ scientific, but also their personal interests: Sometimes, researchers decide to pursue a specific research question because the answer to that question is idiosyncratically relevant for themselves: Such “me-search” may not only affect the quality of research, but also how it is perceived by the general publi...

Science should be self-correcting. However, researchers often hesitate to admit errors and to adopt reforms in their own work. In two studies (overall N = 702), we test whether scientific self-criticism and reform intentions expressed by researchers damage or rather improve their reputation in the eyes of the public (i.e. perceivers). Across both s...

In clinical psychology, imagery rescripting (ImRs) is a promising intervention to target negative emotional memories after victimization experiences. The present research tested the effects of ImRs in “minor” cases of experienced injustice. After imagining being the victim of an injustice, participants (N = 272) were randomly assigned to one of fou...