Dissemin is shutting down on January 1st, 2025

Published in

SAGE Publications, Psychological Science, 5(33), p. 699-715, 2022

DOI: 10.1177/09567976211049439

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Says Who? Credibility Effects in Self-Verification Strivings

Journal article published in 2022 by Ewa Szumowska ORCID, Natalia Wójcik, Paulina Szwed, Arie W. Kruglanski ORCID
This paper was not found in any repository, but could be made available legally by the author.
This paper was not found in any repository, but could be made available legally by the author.

Full text: Unavailable

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Abstract

Research shows that people prefer self-consistent over self-discrepant feedback—the self-verification effect. It is not clear, however, whether the effect stems from striving for self-verification or from the preference for subjectively accurate information. We argue that people prefer self-verifying feedback because they find it to be more accurate than self-discrepant feedback. We thus experimentally manipulated feedback credibility by providing information on its source: a student (control condition) or an experienced psychologist (experimental condition). In line with our expectations, the results of two preregistered studies with 342 adults showed that people preferred self-verifying feedback only in the control condition. In the experimental condition, the effect disappeared (or reversed, in Study 1). Study 2 showed that individual differences in credibility (epistemic authority) ascribed to the self and to psychologists matter as well. These findings suggest that feedback credibility, rather than the desire for self-verification, often drives the self-verification effect.