Scientese and Ambiguous Citations in the Selling of Unproven Medical Treatments

Abstract

Unproven medical treatments are widely marketed, and are especially accessible via the Internet. Little is known about factors that may increase the persuasiveness of information used to promote such unproven treatments. This article examines the effect of scientese (use of scientific jargon) and attributed versus unattributed citations on message persuasiveness on science and nonscience majors. Scientese, as expected, increased message persuasiveness. Contrary to expectations, this effect was not moderated by science versus nonscience major, graduate versus undergraduate status, or potential involvement with the message topic. In addition, no effect was found for attributed versus unattributed citations either as a main effect or in interaction with science major, graduate or undergraduate status, or for an indicator of involvement with the health topic. These findings are consistent with Food and Drug Administration concerns about the ability of the public to critically discern the quality of evidence supporting use of unproven remedies and dietary supplements. Similarly, they raise questions about the judicial reasoning that presumes consumers can make such judgments, though replication with clinical populations would be desirable to strengthen policy-relevant inferences.