Research Symposium

BIO

My name is Lucia Spanjol, and I am a sophomore from Greenwich, Connecticut. I play for the FSU Beach Volleyball Club, and I have been playing volleyball since middle school. I hope to continue my education and become an optometrist.

People Love Statistics. But Do They Understand Them?

Abstract

We are testing to see how the use of scientific jargon in advertising affects consumer intentions.
People are affected by the exploitation of jargon daily through product advertising and misinterpretation of research. To test these relationships, we plan to conduct a 2 (presence or absence of scientific jargon) by 2 (presence or absence of percentages) between-subjects experiment through mock social media advertisements created on the popular social media platform TikTok. We expect that there would be more consumer interaction with a TikTok video that includes scientific language than one that does not, as well as more interaction on a TikTok video, including the use of percentages versus without. Our predictions imply that scientific jargon affects consumers positively, as shown by the positive correlation between scientific jargon and video interaction.

Keywords: Scienceploitation, Communications, Jargon