Medical research findings are often tentative, and people should be able to perceive this. However, the psychological processes underlying this ability are largely unclear. In a laboratory experiment, we found that the following factors had an impact on perception of tentativeness of research findings reported in a newspaper article: (a) the framing of findings, (b) emphasis on the limited reliability of the findings in the article, (c) people’s provisional opinion on the topic, and (d) their medicine-related epistemological beliefs. We make recommendations to science journalists to help promote the public understanding of health research and provide suggestions for future studies.
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