title: Knowledge central: A central role for knowledge attributions in social evaluations.
abstract: Five experiments (N = 1710) demonstrate the central role of knowledge attributions in social evaluations. In Experiments 1-3, we manipulated whether an agent believes, is certain of, or knows a true proposition and asked people to rate whether the agent should perform a variety of actions. We found that knowledge, more so than belief or certainty, leads people to judge that the agent should act. In Experiments 4-5, we investigated whether attributions of knowledge or certainty can explain an important finding on how people act based on statistical evidence, known as "the Wells effect". We found that knowledge attributions, but not certainty attributions, mediate this effect on decision making.
authors.affiliation: a Philosophy Department and Cognitive Science Program , University of Waterloo , Waterloo , ON , Canada.
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Turri
authors.affiliation: b Psychology , University of Waterloo , Waterloo , ON , Canada.
authors.forename: Ori
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Friedman
authors.affiliation: c Philosophy , University of Waterloo , Waterloo , ON , Canada.
authors.forename: Ashley
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Keefner
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D003657:Decision Making / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D019359:Knowledge; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012938:Social Perception; D056345:Theory of Mind / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Knowledge; decision making; outside/inside evidence; social evaluations; theory of mind