How Heuristic Credibility Cues Affect Credibility Judgments and Decisions

• Published in: Journal of experimental psychology. Applied 2020-12, Vol.26 (4), p.620-645
• Main Authors: Gugerty, Leo, Link, Drew M
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Credibility; Decision Making; Experience Level; Female; Heuristics; Human; Judgment; Male; Prediction; Prospect Theory; Reputation; Statistical Probability; Test Construction
• ISSN: 1076-898X; 1939-2192
• DOI: 10.1037/xap0000279

We investigated how heuristic credibility cues affected credibility judgments and decisions. Participants saw advice in comments in a simulated online health forum. Each comment was accompanied by credibility cues, including author expertise and peer reputation ratings (by forum members) of comments and authors. In Experiment 1, participants' credibility judgments of comments and authors increased with expertise and increased with the number of reputation ratings for supportive ratings and decreased with number of ratings for disconfirmatory ratings. Also, results suggested that the diagnosticity (informativeness) of credibility cues influenced credibility judgments. Using the same credibility cues and task context, Experiment 2 found that when high-utility choices had low credibility, participants often chose alternatives with lower utility but higher credibility. They did this more often when less utility had to be sacrificed and when more credibility was gained. The influence of credibility and utility information on participants' choices was mediated by their explicit credibility judgments. These findings supported the predictions of a Bayesian belief-updating model and an elaboration of Prospect Theory (Budescu, Kuhn, Kramer, & Johnson, 2002). This research provides novel insights into how cues including valence and relevance influence credibility judgments and how utility and credibility trade off during decision making. Public Significance Statement People often need to judge the credibility of information (e.g., news, advice) that is outside their expertise. Two studies showed that people effectively used rules of thumb like "credibility increases with the amount of corroborating information" when judging the credibility of advice on an online health forum and when making decisions based on low-credibility advice. However, study participants may have overweighted advice from forum members who lacked health expertise.