Using selfies to challenge public stereotypes of scientists

In an online Qualtrics panel survey experiment (N = 1620), we found that scientists posting self-portraits (“selfies”) to Instagram from the science lab/field were perceived as significantly warmer and more trustworthy, and no less competent, than scientists posting photos of only their work. Participants who viewed scientist selfies, especially posts containing the face of a female scientist, perceived scientists as significantly warmer than did participants who saw science-only images or control images. Participants who viewed selfies also perceived less symbolic threat from scientists. Most encouragingly, participants viewing selfies, either of male or female scientists, did not perceive scientists as any less competent than did participants viewing science-only or control images. Subjects who viewed female scientist selfies also perceived science as less exclusively male. Our findings suggest that self-portraiture by STEM professionals on social media can mitigate negative attitudes toward scientists.


Supplemental Background
Beyond the Deficit Model: When Perceptions of Scientists Matter The scientific community has long focused on informational and consensus messaging (embodied by terms like "science says") and subscribed to the belief that increased scientific knowledge leads to more support for science, e.g. the "deficit model" 1 . However, the deficit model has come under considerable criticism as scientific knowledge has fallen short of explaining attitudes toward science 2 . We now understand that to know science is not necessarily to love it, and that many factors outside of knowledge influence people's perceptions of and attitudes toward science including cultural cognitions, identity, values and belief systems 3 , gender 4 , political ideology 5 , media use 6 , personal/educational experiences with science 7 , and as we are studying here, perceptions of scientists. Stereotypes that scientists are competent but not warm can be significant communication barriers for scientists trying to engage public audiences 8 . We should address scientists' image problem if we are going to encourage scientists to communicate more often and directly with the public. Now more than ever we need to humanize scientists, diversify their public image and make their warmth traits more visible. Visual storytelling may be one way for scientists to help do this, especially if they can harness psychological processes known to foster individual/group warmth evaluations based on friendly faces and expressions.

Visuals in Science Communication
Visuals can either promote an oversimplification of science, as in popular depictions of DNA 9 , or help promote an understanding of science, who scientists are and what they do on a daily basis.
Researchers have advocated for the use of visual literacy paradigms in science communication since at least the late 1990s 9,10,11 . Science bloggers have advocated for matching the style of visual imagery to particular science communication goals, for example using cartoons to deflate anxieties that are scientifically unfounded (such as fear of vaccines or GMO-foods) 12 . But there has been very little Scientists Who Selfie -Supporting Information S1 Appendix research on the types of visual communication in science that can accomplish the goals of building trust and changing stereotypes.

Instagram
Scientists and citizens alike are increasingly using social media to get and spread news and information about science 13 , yet few peer-reviewed research studies have explored how social media and interactions between scientists and citizens in social media environments are shaping perceptions of scientists. We use Instagram, a photo and video sharing platform released in 2010, as an experimental platform to present and measure the impacts of friendly self-images of scientists on public science stereotypes. As McIntyre and colleagues have pointed out 14 , modern social media networks are perfect venues to study the impact of the growing number of non face-to-face yet very visual and social interactions that occur between individuals of different groups, and how these drive social cognition.
Traditionally, science museums and outreach events such as science cafes and fairs have been the only real opportunities for scientists and citizens to meet, exchange knowledge and begin to build mutual understanding and trust. However, Instagram is a space where scientists can connect on a personal level with non-experts. Instagram encourages public as well as one-on-one sharing of visual stories, particularly personal stories, and allows viewers to enter the Instagrammers' worlds and get to know them through selfies and self-videos.
The percentage of U.S. adult users using Instagram (18 to 50+ years of age) increased from 28% in 2016 to 35% 2018 15 , with 60% of users visiting the platform daily. A whopping 71% of Americans between 18 to 24 years are Instagram users 15 . Instagram has fostered the development diverse communities around many topics and interests, including around science. A number of large scientific institutions and agencies regularly post to Instagram as a form of outreach, including NASA, with 33.9 million followers, the European Space Agency, CERN and the Society for Neuroscience. Scientists are also using Instagram, although in smaller in numbers than for Twitter. Celebrity scientists on Instagram include Neil Degrasse Tyson, Bill Nye, and Mitchell Moffit and Gregory Brown of YouTube's Scientists Who Selfie -Supporting Information S1 Appendix AsapScience (@asapscience, 511k followers). Early scientist adopters have also gained large followings: Aaron Pomerantz (@nextgenscientist, 31.9k followers) and neuroscientist Samantha Yammine (@science.sam, 28.9k followers) are examples. With its one billion monthly active users as of June 2018 (https://instagram-press.com/our-story/), Instagram holds great potential for bolstering trust in scientists and scientific content if scientist Instagrammers can reach broad audiences with humanized visuals that promote perceptions of scientists' warmth, sociability, helpfulness and honesty. Instagram's culture of self-disclosure and humanization through "selfies" or self-portraits may further reinforce its potential as a tool for for science communication that builds public trust, by making the warmth traits of scientists more visible.
Both to promote this study and to increase friendly images of scientists on Instagram, we introduced the account @scientistselfies and the hashtag #scientistswhoselfie to social media in August, 2017. As of August, 2018, over 8k posts with the hashtag, and growing, have since been uploaded to Instagram by diverse scientists around the world.

Stimulus Photos and Captions
All of our stimulus photos and captions were created by scientists whom we recruited via Instagram. In early 2017, we publicly invited scientists on Instagram to create a series of photos for our study based on a specific set of guidelines. See the next section for photo submission guidelines. We received submissions from more than 50 different scientists. We narrowed them down based on similarity between photos in a series. Volunteers (n = 15) helped us rate each photo series based on the quality of the photos, how interesting the photos were and how similar the photos were in composition, facial expressions/gestures, apparent age/ethnicity/physical attractiveness, scientific elements, etc. We used seven of the highest rating (in similarity and quality) images series in studies. These photo series varied in terms of field of science depicted (one physics, two cellular biology, two plant science/ecology, two animal/field biology) and scientist race/ethnicity in selfie photos (two hispanic, two middle eastern, two white/caucasian). Scientists were identified by name, age and location in IG post captions, e.g. "Deboki, 27 years old, Boston." All scientists were depicted as being under 35 years of age.
For our pilot study, stimulus IG photos and captions were published to "Scientists of Instagram" IG accounts over time and then recycled throughout the data collection phase to keep the posts current.
Participants viewed the posts in different orders depending on the date of data collection. Stimulus IG accounts all included the same avatar and bio, reading "a new #RotationCuration account featuring a different scientist every Monday and Friday!" For our online survey experiment, all of these IG posts were embedded into single scrollable web-pages for easy viewing, always in the same order (see scientistsofig.com -pages weren't indexed on the homepage during the experiment). We did this to avoid issues of stimulus viewing via the IG platform for Qualtrics participant, such as the fact that our stimulus accounts were necessarily private.

Guidelines for Study Photos Contributions
We collected stimulus photos from scientists on Instagram, by promoting an opportunity to contribute to a study on perceptions of scientists. Participating scientists were instructed to create a photo of a scientific object or workstation in the lab or field, with a caption authentically and accurately describing the science/research they were working on with some accessible but specific details, and then recreate that photo with a) themselves in the shot; b) a stand-in colleague or friend of opposite sex in the shot. Participants were given the following instructions when they expressed interest in contributing to

Procedures:
To contribute photos that will be included in this project, please follow the following procedures: 1. Take an interesting science-only photo. 2. Take the same photo, but include your smiling face, looking at the camera. 3. Take the same photo, but include the smiling face of someone who is of a different gender than you (who is representing you as the scientist in this photo), looking at the camera.

Steps:
Step #1. Take a photo of a visually interesting specimen, piece of equipment, workspace, science product/process, fieldwork scene, or something else you work with in a scientific lab or field environment.
Step #2 requires you to take this same photo, but including your own face. You may need to prop up your photo to take this picture, such that you can easily insert yourself in the photo for Step #2 without changing the other elements of the photo. For example, if you take a Scientists Who Selfie -Supporting Information S1 Appendix photo of a microscope with a sample under it, set up your phone/camera to the side of the mictroscope with enough space in the photo that you could easily insert yourself into the photo without changing the phone/camera angle or position drastically. (Example of a photo that could be reproduced easily with and without the human element: https://www.instagram.com/p/BQ0T7dPhap1/?taken-by=lsuscience) Examples: 1a 2a Step #2. Reproduce the photo you took in Step #1, but this time include yourself (your face) in the photo. The photo must include your smiling/happy face (We should see your eyes and smiling face, but if photo calls for looking somewhere not directly at the camera, e.g. at a specimen in your hand, that is OK) The main subject of your photo from Step #1 should still be clearly visible/distinguishable in the photo. Other elements should remain unaltered if possible. For example, if you took a photo of a petri dish on the lab bench, you might be holding this petri dish titled toward in the camera in this second photo, so that the same elements are still prominent. Try to keep the background and other elements in the photo as similar to the photo in Step #1 as possible. If possible, take this photo as both a normal photo (where your camera is propped up, on a tripod, or someone else is holding the camera) AND as a "selfie" (e.g. holding the camera). In this case, you'll produce two versions of this photo.
1b 2b Step #3. Reproduce the photo you took in Step #2, but instead of having your face in the photo, include the face of a colleague or student around your age (and similar ethnicity) who is of opposite/different sex/gender than you. As much as possible, please have the person in this photo use the same stance, position, gestures and eye direction/contact as you did in Step #2. If possible, they should be wearing similar clothing or protective equipment as you did in Step #2. If possible, take this photo as both a normal photo (where your camera is propped up, on a tripod, or someone else is holding the camera) AND as a "selfie" (e.g. holding the camera). In this case, you'll produce two versions of this photo.  Step #4 -Caption. Include a descriptive, first-person scientific caption that can apply to all three photos. In the caption, include a lay summary of the science that is happening in the photo, relevant details of how you are conducting the science/research, and other context necessary to fully understanding what is happening in the photo. Also please include a sentence or two about the relevance, importance and/or broader implications of the research. This caption should be written such that it is understandable at a 6th-grade reading level.
Also include location data / country where you live or are doing science.

Photo guidelines:
• All photos should be original and created by you.
• Take photos in portrait mode / vertical (on your mobile device or camera). **Note -Instagram will slightly crop vertical photos from top and bottom, so try to leave "room" at top and bottom (or center the most important elements / faces in the photo).
• Do not apply any filters to the photos, or other editing techniques.
• Take photos you could find interesting, visually-appealing, or that might make you go "wow" if you saw them from another scientist on Instagram.
• Use lighting effectively. In most cases, that means using very well-lit conditions, in rooms or spaces with lots of ideally natural light. Other visually interesting lighting conditions specific to the conditions of your research might also be appropriate (for example, see the lighting here: https://www.instagram.com/p/BRbGfIFBmPT/?taken-by=lsuscience)

Lab Pilot Study Supplemental Methods and Notes
In a pilot study, students at a major state university viewed experimental science Instagram accounts designed to look like Rocur (rotation/curation) accounts featuring a different real-life scientist every week. We recorded a total of 162 research participant survey responses. A majority of the students were female (70%) and white/caucasian (83%), had taken fewer than three science courses in college (58%), and were Instagram users (89%).
Students came into a computer lab study space on campus where we (a female researcher and a student research associate, male in roughly half of the data collection sessions and female in the other half) handed them iPod Touch devices and gave them a minimum of eight minutes to browse content from either a control IG account or an experimental science IG account. Browsing of this content occurred via researcher-created, private "viewing" IG accounts, one for each iPod Touch. Each viewing account followed one of our private experimental science IG accounts, or a public control account, and was followed by six other accounts (our personal accounts) for external validity.
All students received equivalent bonus points in their respective courses for participating in the pilot study. For stimulus exposure, we had students use iPods to access private experimental Instagram accounts. iPods were in "guided access" mode to prevent navigation to the "explore" and "profile" tabs of Instagram, but otherwise students were allowed to browse our experimental IG content from the "viewing" accounts in any way they wished. Students were instructed to "like" and comment on posts freely. After at least eight minutes of browsing, we instructed students to complete a survey about their impressions of the Instagrammers they encountered during the exercise.
After running into an issue of students following hashtags in stimulus Instagram posts to other accounts and then following/subscribing to non-target accounts, the researchers began to instruct students not to follow or subscribe to any other Instagram accounts from their devices. We also occasionally ran into issues of students "liking" so many of the stimulus account posts that our user accounts were Scientists Who Selfie -Supporting Information S1 Appendix temporarily blocked from "liking." We navigated this issue by reporting the blocked action to Instagram after each data collection session and waiting 24-48 hours between data collection sessions.

Perceptions of Instagrammers.
Following stimulus browsing on iPod devices, we asked students to answer a series of questions about the content and the Instagrammers they had encountered.
With screenshots embedded in an online questionnaire, we re-displayed select photographs from the experimental IG accounts students had browsed during stimulus exposure (visuals only, no captions) and asked them to rate the warmth and competence (single items) of the Instagrammers who had taken or who were in these photos 1  There were no significant differences in competence. In an analysis of variance including perceived physical attractiveness of the Instagrammer as a covariate, students found female scientists in selfie photos to be slightly warmer (estimated mean = 3.71, SE = .13) than male scientists (estimated mean = 3.66, SE = .13), but the difference was not significant.
We also ran an exploratory linear regression to investigate other predictors of perceived warmth  Attractiveness of Female Instagrammers. We ran an ANCOVA analysis exploring attractiveness evaluations by stimulus scientist gender in stimulus IG posts. We included participant age Scientists Who Selfie -Supporting Information S1 Appendix and sex as covariates. We found a significant effect of stimulus and scientist gender on attractiveness, such that scientists in selfies were evaluated as more attractive than scientists posting science-only IG

Explorations of the Role of Individual Instagrammer Evaluations on Warmth Stereotypes.
In linear regression analyses including a selfie vs. science-only stimulus variable and other factors as listed in Table B  Scientists Who Selfie -Supporting Information S1 Appendix Supplemental Discussion

Pilot Study Discussion
Limitations. In debriefing following our pilot study data collection sessions, we found that many students who participated in our pilot study did not realize during stimulus browsing that the primary Notes: β = standardized coefficient. B = unstandardized regression coefficient. CI = confidence interval. Only weak correlations are found between predictors: Instagrammer attractiveness and selfie stimulus condition are weakly correlated (Pearson coefficient = .32, p < .001), as are age and number of science classes completed (Pearson coefficient = .38, p < .001). Gender variables are coded as Male (0) vs Female (1). *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.