Evolving informational credentials: the (mis)attribution of believable facts to credible sources.
Three studies demonstrate that individuals often rely on a "belief force equals credible source" heuristic to make source judgments, wherein they assume that statements they believe originate from credible sources. In Study 1, participants who were exposed to a statement many times (and hence believed it) were more likely to attribute it to Consumer Reports than to the National Enquirer. In Study 2, participants read a murder investigation article containing evidence against two suspects from credible and noncredible sources. When participants believed a particular suspect to be guilty, they misattributed evidence incriminating that suspect to the high-credibility source. Study 3 demonstrated that this phenomenon occurs because individuals assume their beliefs are true and that true beliefs come from credible sources; when participants were given feedback that their beliefs were incorrect, the relationship between beliefs and source inferences did not occur.
Fragale
Alison R
AR
Stanford University, Graduate School of Business, Stanford, CA 94305-5015, USA. afragale@stanford.edu
Heath
Chip
C
D003406:Credentialing; D003469:Culture; D006801:Humans; D008606:Mental Processes; D012938:Social Perception