It’s a legendary scene. One famous actor shouts, “I want the truth!” The other snaps back, “You can’t handle the truth!“
It’s cinematic genius, and also depicts one of the greatest challenges of communicating during a crisis – including our current public health emergency. How much truth – and what degree of uncertainty — can the public handle?
According to a just-released study from the University of Cambridge, uncertainty about facts can be reported without damaging public trust. These results come at a critical time as leaders, scientists, and professional communicators wrestle with data uncertainty, risk, and disinformation associated with the coronavirus pandemic.
Communicators and leaders of various organizations often assume that communicating uncertainty will undermine trust. Now, research has found that uncertainty related to key facts and figures can be communicated in a manner that maintains public trust in information and its source. And this is true even related to contentious issues. Researchers hope the study encourages communicators as well as leaders to be bolder in reporting uncertainty.
Study co-author Sander van der Linden, director of the Cambridge Social Decision-Making Lab, says that “including an indication of its uncertainty provides the public with better information. In an era of fake news that might help foster trust.”
As an example, the researchers got the best results when a figure was flagged as an estimate and was accompanied by the numerical range from which it had been derived. For example:“…the unemployment rate rose to an estimated 3.9% (between 3.7%-4.1%).”
This study adds to – and supports — considerable research on the topic of trust and credibility.
Given the current landscape, and the support of research, Edward R. Murrow’s words ring more true than ever. “To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; to be credible we must be truthful.”
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