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How laypeople evaluate scientific explanations containing jargon

Nature Human Behaviour volume 9, pages 2038–2053 (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

Individuals rely on others’ expertise to achieve a basic understanding of the world. But how can non-experts achieve understanding from explanations that, by definition, they are ill-equipped to assess? Across 9 experiments with 6,698 participants (Study 1A = 737; 1B = 734; 1C = 733; 2A = 1,014; 2B = 509; 2C = 1,012; 3A = 1,026; 3B = 512; 4 = 421), we address this puzzle by focusing on scientific explanations with jargon. We identify ‘when’ and ‘why’ the inclusion of jargon makes explanations more satisfying, despite decreasing their comprehensibility. We find that jargon increases satisfaction because laypeople assume the jargon fills gaps in explanations that are otherwise incomplete. We also identify strategies for debiasing these judgements: when people attempt to generate their own explanations, inflated judgements of poor explanations with jargon are reduced, and people become better calibrated in their assessments of their own ability to explain.

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Fig. 1: Explanatory satisfaction and comprehensibility as a function of jargon in Studies 1A–C.
Fig. 2: Explanatory satisfaction and perceived gappiness as a function of jargon and explanation completeness in Study 2A.
Fig. 3: Sample stimuli and results for explanatory satisfaction and perceived gappiness as a function of jargon in Study 2C.
Fig. 4: Explanatory satisfaction, perceived gappiness and explanation quality in Studies 3A and B.
Fig. 5: Quality ratings from Studies 3B and 4, as well as correlations between those ratings as a function of (coded) jargon.

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Data availability

Data for all studies are publicly available in a dedicated OSF folder at https://osf.io/ytakw/?view_only=f3c34c42f79d4ecca2ab5502c35c0591 (ref. 86).

Code availability

Code for all analyses, figures and tables in both the main text and Supplementary Information is publicly available in a dedicated OSF folder at https://osf.io/ytakw/?view_only=f3c34c42f79d4ecca2ab5502c35c0591 (ref. 86).

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Acknowledgements

We thank Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (Doctoral Fellowship 2022.13009.BD) and Fulbright Portugal (Fulbright Research Fellowship 2023–2024) for their support in sponsoring F.C.’s visit to Princeton University, as well as the Concepts and Cognition Lab for feedback on subsets of this work. This work was not supported by any external funding, and the entities mentioned above had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript. A subset of these experiments was presented at the 51st Annual Meeting of the Society for Philosophy and Psychology and at the 46th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. CICPSI, Faculdade de Psicologia, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal

    Francisco Cruz

  2. Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA

    Francisco Cruz & Tania Lombrozo

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  1. Francisco Cruz
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  2. Tania Lombrozo
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Contributions

F.C. and T.L. contributed equally to this work. F.C. and T.L. conceptualized the studies and research designs, and developed the relevant stimuli. F.C. carried out experiment programming and data analysis, and wrote the original draft. T.L. provided funding and supervision. F.C. and T.L. read, reviewed and agreed to the published version of the Article.

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Correspondence to Francisco Cruz.

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Additional analyses, and Supplementary Tables 1–31 and Figs. 1–7.

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Cruz, F., Lombrozo, T. How laypeople evaluate scientific explanations containing jargon. Nat Hum Behav 9, 2038–2053 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-025-02227-0

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