Citation

Fragale AR, Heath C. Person. Soc. Psychol. Bull. 2004; 30(2): 225-236.

Affiliation

Stanford University, Graduate School of Business, Stanford, CA 94305-5015, USA. afragale@stanford.edu

Copyright

(Copyright © 2004, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/0146167203259933

PMID

15030635

Abstract

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.

Language: en