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Extraneous neuroscience information improves ratings of scientific explanations, and affects mock juror decisions in many studies, but others have yielded little to no effect. To establish the magnitude of this effect, we conducted a random-effects meta-analysis using 60 experiments from 28 publications. We found a mild but highly significant effect, with substantial heterogeneity. Planned subgroup analyses revealed that within-subjects studies, where people can compare the same material with and without neuroscience, and those using text, have stronger effects than between-subjects designs, and studies using brain image stimuli. We serendipitously found that effect sizes were stronger on outcomes of evaluating satisfaction or metacomprehension, compared with jury verdicts or assessments of convincingness. In conclusion, there is more than one type of neuroscience explanations effect. Irrelevant neuroscience does have a seductive allure, especially on self-appraised satisfaction and understanding, and when presented as text. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As appropriations earmarks return to Congress, every legislator faces a decision: pursue or refuse congressionally mandated federal spending projects. This decision is likely influenced by public messaging concerns. We theorize that both credit claiming for federal projects and position taking against spending projects ("pork busting") can benefit legislators as they look to improve future electoral returns. We field a nationally representative survey experiment to estimate the effect of credit‐claiming and pork‐busting messages on the perceived effectiveness, fiscal responsibility, and overall approval of an unnamed member of Congress. We find that respondents are likely to penalize the representative's approval assessment when presented with an out‐party message strategy. Conversely, respondents are likely to increase the representative's personal trait assessments when presented with an in‐party message strategy. We expand on these results in an additional analysis and find that these trends persist when controlling for other partisan and demographic factors. We discuss our results in light of traditional expectations, potential mechanisms, and future directions for related research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]