Jargon satisfies lay audiences—even as clarity falters. In a study with almost 6,700 people, jargon made circular explanations feel more satisfying, even though it made them less clear. That’s an important warning for science communicators: jargon can create an illusion of understanding.
How do we decide who to trust about scientific information—or any information, for that matter? Because even if we may feel we can research topics outside our fields of expertise and think critically about them, we still need others to guide us through the complexities. We depend on others’ knowledge and their ability to communicate it, and others rely on ours. It’s known as the “division of cognitive labor.”
This dependence also creates doubts. How do we know who or what to trust, especially if we lack familiarity with a topic? The most obvious answer to this question is “we trust specialized knowledge.” But scientific literature is laden with technical terminology, known as jargon, and lacks the pedagogical structure, style, or pizazz to capture the general audience. At the same time, science news can sometimes lack quality or even understanding of a specific topic, and will (intentionally or unintentionally) spread misinformation.
As science communicators, we also struggle to balance accessible language with the more technical jargon found in the scientific literature. Jargon is, after all, there to help us condense our content and clarify complex ideas (and, let’s be honest, hide our limitations).
In fact, the perception of jargon poses a conundrum. Jargon can make laypeople perceive an explanation of a complex topic as more satisfying than a simplified (lay-friendly) explanation. By contrast, understanding jargon requires specialized knowledge, which can also hinder general understanding of the topic.
Jargon satisfies audiences when the arguments are poor
A 2025 publication in Nature Human Behaviour, authored by Francisco Cruz and Tania Lombrozo, investigated how laypeople evaluate the quality of content with or without jargon. Their research included almost 6,700 participants who read and rated explanations with or without jargon, which were either circular, simply restating the premise as a conclusion, or complete, with a cause and effect.
Participants reported that jargon reduced the clarity of all explanations, whether circular or complete. But the researchers found that jargon in circular explanations had a double effect: it consistently reduced clarity but also increased participants’ satisfaction. Jargon, even when meaningless, gave participants the impression of completeness of an otherwise circular explanation, creating an “illusion of understanding.”
These findings suggest that people perceive jargon as a proxy for quality, credibility, or satisfaction, even when they don’t fully understand the logic. Accepting the jargon as satisfying becomes a mental shortcut to accepting the whole argument. Jargon also increased participants’ impression of a communicator’s expertise, more so in circular than in complete explanations.
“If you are a non-expert trying to pose as an expert, if you are going for those really bad explanations, as long as you sprinkle them with jargon, you’ll be perceived as more credible,” Cruz told me.
Decoupling jargon from accuracy
Readers can use simple strategies to make sure they don’t accept explanations at face value. Writing about the topic helps.
In one of their studies, Cruz and Lombrozo asked participants to generate their own explanations after rating circular or complete explanations to questions. This task alone reduced satisfaction with explanations that contained jargon and increased satisfaction with explanations that did not.
When the researchers asked participants who’d read the jargon explanation to estimate how well they’d be able to explain the content before generating their own, they generally overestimated their ability. Engaging more deeply with the content reduced their otherwise inflated satisfaction, possibly by revealing their knowledge gaps.
“The presence of jargon creates this illusion that [people] have more knowledge than they actually have,” Cruz explains.
We also find this connection in the Dunning-Kruger effect and the Four Stages of Competence, where our confidence drops as we begin to recognize our gaps.
Why do people use jargon?
Where do these findings leave us, science communicators? We may feel inclined to use jargon now that we know that, beyond covering up our knowledge gaps, it can also satisfy our audiences.
But we’ve seen that jargon is a tool for masking weaknesses rather than enhancing strengths. It gives reader an illusion of understanding. Using jargon strategically, as opposed to unintentionally, will likely backfire, as the average reader prefers simple writing over technical formulations. This preference is not always evident to professional writers, who typically read more and accept complex writing more than the average reader.
Complex writing may increase audiences’ satisfaction and perhaps boost our own perceived expertise, but it also alienates and disengages readers from the topic. For example, charlatans or pseudoscientists use complex, technical language to boost their credibility or perceived expertise artificially. But while their audiences may look up to these characters and even spend money on their products, they rarely become independent, critical thinkers on the topic.
What do we want to achieve with our writing? If we want to educate and engage our audience, which I argue lays the foundation for trust in science and sound decision-making, we’re better off simplifying how we present the content, not the content itself.
“You are not actually simplifying the content itself, but just the way in which it is presented. And that will be the correct way to go,” says Cruz.
That doesn’t mean we should all start writing at a level a nine-year-old can understand. It means we know our audience and write intentionally in line with our goals. So next time we communicate science, we can keep these in mind:
- Explain the mechanism, not just the label.
- Define a term the first time you use it.
- Test a draft by asking a reader to explain it back. That echoes the study’s own finding: generating explanations punctured the illusion.
Watch the full interview with Francisco Cruz
I spoke with Francisco Cruz, co-author of the study, about why jargon sounds convincing and when it’s worth using.
You can read more about evidence-based science communication here.
