Says Who? Credibility Effects in Self-Verification Strivings

Area of Science:

• Social Psychology
• Cognitive Psychology
• Behavioral Science

Background:

• The self-verification effect describes the tendency for individuals to prefer self-consistent feedback over self-discrepant feedback.
• Existing research has not definitively determined if this preference stems from a drive for self-verification or a preference for subjectively accurate information.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate whether the self-verification effect is driven by the desire for self-verification or by the perceived credibility of the feedback.
• To examine the role of feedback source credibility in modulating the preference for self-verifying versus self-discrepant information.

Main Methods:

• Two preregistered studies involving 342 adult participants were conducted.
• Feedback credibility was experimentally manipulated by varying the source of the feedback (a student vs. an experienced psychologist).
• Individual differences in the perceived credibility of the self and psychologists were assessed.

Main Results:

• Participants preferred self-verifying feedback significantly more when it came from a student (control condition).
• This preference for self-verifying feedback diminished or reversed when the feedback originated from an experienced psychologist (experimental condition).
• Individual differences in epistemic authority attributed to the self and psychologists influenced feedback preferences.

Conclusions:

• The findings suggest that feedback credibility, particularly the perceived expertise of the source, plays a crucial role in the self-verification effect.
• The desire for self-verification may be secondary to the perceived accuracy and trustworthiness of the information received.
• Understanding the influence of feedback source is critical for explaining why individuals prefer certain types of information about themselves.