The effect of source claims on statement believability and speaker accountability

Abstract

What is the effect of source claims (such as “I saw it” or “Somebody told me”) on the believability of statements, and what mechanisms are responsible for this effect? In this study, we tested the idea that source claims impact statement believability by modulating the extent to which a speaker is perceived to be committed to (and thereby accountable for) the truth of her assertion. Across three experiments, we presented participants with statements associated with different source claims, asked them to judge how much they believed the statements, and how much the speaker was responsible if the statement turned out to be false. We found that (1) statement believability predicted speaker accountability independently of a statement’s perceived prior likelihood or associated source claim; (2) being associated with a claim to first-hand (“I saw that . . .”) or second-hand (“Somebody told me that . . .”) evidence strengthened this association; (3) bare assertions about specific circumstances were commonly interpreted as claims to first-hand evidence; and (4) (everything else being equal) claims to first-hand evidence increased while claims to second-hand evidence decreased both statement believability and speaker accountability. These results support the idea that the believability of a statement is closely related to how committed to its truth the speaker is perceived to be and that source claims modulate the extent of this perceived commitment.