The purpose of the present study was to examine how information source (control—no source, USDA, fictitious hospital, or fictitious social media) impacts perceptions of diet information. Participants included 943 American adults who were aged 18-74 years (M = 37.51, SD = 9.50) and were recruited from across the United States through Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk). As a manipulation check we assessed whether participants accurately completed the manipulation by ensuring their response to the question of who made the flyer. Participants who answered the question incorrectly were excluded from the analysis. In total, 537 answered correctly and were included in the analyses (Control = 113, Hospital = 144, Social Media = 121, USDA = 159). The majority of our eligible sample identified as men (N = 350), while the remainder identified as women (N = 185), nonbinary (N = 1), or “other” (N = 1).Participants completed an online survey in which they viewed one flyer containing dietary information and guidance on consuming pulses. The purported source of the flyer information was manipulated to create the 4 conditions. Participants rated the flyer in terms of perceived accuracy, trustworthiness, reliability, desirability for learning more from the source, and likelihood of following the advice. Attitudes, perceived control and norms, and past behavior were used to measure components of the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). ANOVA results indicated that the USDA and hospital sources were perceived as more accurate, trustworthy, reliable, and more desirable to learn more from relative to control and social media. There were no differences in likelihood of following guidance depending on source. Multiple regression showed that measures of the TPB were predictors of likelihood of following advice. Participants also ranked their top 3 most trusted sources for health information from a list of 29 sources. Doctors, scientists, nurses, and family and friends were among the most frequently trusted sources. Overall, these findings suggest that trust in the source of information does not influence perceived likelihood of following dietary recommendations for pulses.
- XLSXEffect of Source on Trust of Pulse Nutrition Information and Perceived Likelihood of Following Dietary Guidance