Nonprobative Photos Inflate the Truthiness and Falsiness of Claims

<p>When people evaluate claims they often rely on what comedian Stephen Colbert calls truthiness, judging claims using subjective feelings of truth, rather than drawing on facts. Over seven experiments I examined how nonprobative photos can manufacture truthiness in just a few seconds. I found that a quick exposure to a photo that relates to, but does not provide any probative evidence about the accuracy of claims can systematically bias people to conclude claims are true. In Experiments 1A and 1B, people saw familiar and unfamiliar celebrity names and, for each, quickly responded "true" or "false" to the claim "This famous person is alive" or (between subjects) "This famous person is dead." Within subjects, some names appeared with a photo of the celebrity engaged in his/her profession whereas other names appeared alone. For unfamiliar celebrity names, photos increased the likelihood that subjects judged the claim to be true. Moreover, the same photos inflated the truth of "Alive" and "Dead" claims, suggesting that photos did not produce an "alive bias," but a "truth bias." Experiment 2 showed that photos and verbal information similarly inflated truthiness, suggesting that the effect is not peculiar to photographs per se. Experiment 3 demonstrated that nonprobative photos can also enhance the truthiness of general knowledge claims (Giraffes are the only mammals that cannot jump). In Experiments 4-6 I examined boundary conditions for truthiness. I found that the semantic relationship between the photo and claim mattered. Experiment 4 showed that in a within-subject design, related photos produced truthiness, but unrelated photos acted just like the no photo condition. But unrelated photos were not always benign, Experiment 5 showed that their effects depended on experimental context. In a mixed design, related photos produced truthiness and unrelated photos produced falsiness. Although the effect of related photos was robust across materials and variation in experimental context, when I used a fully between-subjects design in Experiment 6, the effect of photos (related and unrelated) was eliminated. These effects add to a growing literature on how nonprobative information can influence people’s decisions and suggest that nonprobative photographs do more than simply decorate, they can rapidly manufacture feelings of truth. As with many effects in the cognitive psychology literature, the photo-truthiness effect depends on the way in which people process and interpret photos when evaluating the truth of claims.</p>

Nonprobative Photos Inflate the Truthiness and Falsiness of Claims

<p>When people evaluate claims they often rely on what comedian Stephen Colbert calls truthiness, judging claims using subjective feelings of truth, rather than drawing on facts. Over seven experiments I examined how nonprobative photos can manufacture truthiness in just a few seconds. I found that a quick exposure to a photo that relates to, but does not provide any probative evidence about the accuracy of claims can systematically bias people to conclude claims are true. In Experiments 1A and 1B, people saw familiar and unfamiliar celebrity names and, for each, quickly responded "true" or "false" to the claim "This famous person is alive" or (between subjects) "This famous person is dead." Within subjects, some names appeared with a photo of the celebrity engaged in his/her profession whereas other names appeared alone. For unfamiliar celebrity names, photos increased the likelihood that subjects judged the claim to be true. Moreover, the same photos inflated the truth of "Alive" and "Dead" claims, suggesting that photos did not produce an "alive bias," but a "truth bias." Experiment 2 showed that photos and verbal information similarly inflated truthiness, suggesting that the effect is not peculiar to photographs per se. Experiment 3 demonstrated that nonprobative photos can also enhance the truthiness of general knowledge claims (Giraffes are the only mammals that cannot jump). In Experiments 4-6 I examined boundary conditions for truthiness. I found that the semantic relationship between the photo and claim mattered. Experiment 4 showed that in a within-subject design, related photos produced truthiness, but unrelated photos acted just like the no photo condition. But unrelated photos were not always benign, Experiment 5 showed that their effects depended on experimental context. In a mixed design, related photos produced truthiness and unrelated photos produced falsiness. Although the effect of related photos was robust across materials and variation in experimental context, when I used a fully between-subjects design in Experiment 6, the effect of photos (related and unrelated) was eliminated. These effects add to a growing literature on how nonprobative information can influence people’s decisions and suggest that nonprobative photographs do more than simply decorate, they can rapidly manufacture feelings of truth. As with many effects in the cognitive psychology literature, the photo-truthiness effect depends on the way in which people process and interpret photos when evaluating the truth of claims.</p>

How Perceptions of Caller Honesty Vary During Vishing Attacks That Include Highly Sensitive or Seemingly Innocuous Requests

Objective To understand how aspects of vishing calls (phishing phone calls) influence perceived visher honesty. Background Little is understood about how targeted individuals behave during vishing attacks. According to truth-default theory, people assume others are being honest until something triggers their suspicion. We investigated whether that was true during vishing attacks. Methods Twenty-four participants read written descriptions of eight real-world vishing calls. Half included highly sensitive requests; the remainder included seemingly innocuous requests. Participants rated visher honesty at multiple points during conversations. Results Participants initially perceived vishers to be honest. Honesty ratings decreased before requests occurred. Honesty ratings decreased further in response to highly sensitive requests, but not seemingly innocuous requests. Honesty ratings recovered somewhat, but only after highly sensitive requests. Conclusions The present results revealed five important insights: (1) people begin vishing conversations in the truth-default state, (2) certain aspects of vishing conversations serve as triggers, (3) other aspects of vishing conversations do not serve as triggers, (4) in certain situations, people’s perceptions of visher honesty improve, and, more generally, (5) truth-default theory may be a useful tool for understanding how targeted individuals behave during vishing attacks. Application Those developing systems that help users deal with suspected vishing attacks or penetration testing plans should consider (1) targeted individuals’ truth-bias, (2) the influence of visher demeanor on the likelihood of deception detection, (3) the influence of fabricated situations surrounding vishing requests on the likelihood of deception detection, and (4) targeted individuals’ lack of concern about seemingly innocuous requests.

Falsehoods Fly

Why do people believe falsehoods? One reason is “truth bias”; we tend to think that what we hear is true, even if we are explicitly told that it is not. Another reason is that falsehoods often trigger strong emotions, which can intensify their hold on us. Falsehoods also get a grip on people as a result of “cascades,” which occur when misinformation travels from one person to another, increasing the sense that many people think that it is true—which adds force to its credibility. We learn from others, even if what we learn is false. Self-interested people are exploiting that psychological fact every day.

Credibility Perceptions and Detection Accuracy of Fake News Headlines on Social Media: Effects of Truth-Bias and Endorsement Cues

This article focuses on message credibility and detection accuracy of fake and real news as represented on social media. We developed a deception detection paradigm for news headlines and conducted two online experiments to examine the extent to which people (1) perceive news headlines as credible, and (2) accurately distinguish fake and real news across three general topics (i.e., politics, science, and health). Both studies revealed that people often judged news headlines as fake, suggesting a deception-bias for news in social media. Across studies, we observed an average detection accuracy of approximately 51%, a level consistent with most research using this deception detection paradigm with equal lie-truth base-rates. Study 2 evaluated the effects of endorsement cues in social media (e.g., Facebook likes) on message credibility and detection accuracy. Results showed that headlines associated with a high number of Facebook likes increased credibility, thereby enhancing detection accuracy for real news but undermining accuracy for fake news. These studies introduce truth-default theory to the context of news credibility and advance our understanding of how biased processing of news information can impact detection accuracy with social media endorsement cues.

The Indicativity View

This chapter gives a presentation and a justification of the indicativity account of assertion, originally proposed in Pagin (2011). This account is entirely nonnormative. Neither the existence of norms nor the existence of normative attitudes is required. Assertion is explained in terms of credence-related dispositions to utter linguistic expressions and credence-related dispositions to react to such utterances. The view can be briefly summarized as follows: An assertion is an utterance that is prima facie informative. For an utterance to be informative is for it to be uttered partly because it is true. What this amounts to is spelled out differently for the speaker and for the hearer. Simplified, it amounts to the following: the speaker makes the utterance partly because of believing the proposition expressed, and the hearer believes the proposition because of the utterance. Details and qualifications are provided. The two final sections are devoted to empirical support from psychology, especially the so-called truth bias.

Truth Bias and Partisan Bias in Political Deception Detection

This study tests the effects of political partisanship on voters’ perception and detection of deception. Based on social identity theory, in-group members should consider their politician’s message truthful while the opposing out-group would consider the message deceptive. Truth-default theory predicts that a salient in-group would be susceptible to deception from their in-group politician. In an experiment, partisan voters in the United States ( N = 618) watched a news interview in which a politician was labeled Democratic or Republican. The politician either answered all the questions or deceptively evaded a question. Results indicated that the truth bias largely prevailed. Voters were more likely to be accurate in their detection when the politician answered and did not dodge. Truth-default theory appears robust in a political setting, as truth bias holds (as opposed to deception bias). Accuracy in detection also depends on group affiliation. In-groups are accurate when their politician answers, and inaccurate when he dodges. Out-groups are more accurate than in-groups when a politician dodges, but still exhibit truth bias.

Black and White Lies: Race-Based Biases in Deception Judgments

In six studies ( N = 605), participants made deception judgments about videos of Black and White targets who told truths and lies about interpersonal relationships. In Studies 1a, 1b, 1c, and 2, White participants judged that Black targets were telling the truth more often than they judged that White targets were telling the truth. This truth bias was predicted by Whites’ motivation to respond without prejudice. For Black participants, however, motives to respond without prejudice did not moderate responses (Study 2). In Study 3, we found similar effects with a manipulation of the targets’ apparent race. Finally, in Study 4, we used eye-tracking techniques to demonstrate that Whites’ truth bias for Black targets is likely the result of late-stage correction processes: Despite ultimately judging that Black targets were telling the truth more often than White targets, Whites were faster to fixate on the on-screen “lie” response box when targets were Black than when targets were White. These systematic race-based biases have important theoretical implications (e.g., for lie detection and improving intergroup communication and relations) and practical implications (e.g., for reducing racial bias in law enforcement).