Appearing more confident makes people believe you, in certain situations.

What is it about?

According to the confidence heuristic, people are confident when they know they are right, and their confidence makes them persuasive. We report 3 experiments to test the heuristic using incentivized interactive decisions with financial outcomes in which pairs of participants with common interests attempted to identify target stimuli after conferring, only 1 pair member having strong information about the target. Experiment 1, through the use of a facial identification task, confirmed the confidence heuristic. Experiment 2, through the use of geometric shapes as stimuli, elicited a much larger confidence heuristic effect. Experiment 3 found similar confidence heuristic effects through both face-to-face and computer-mediated communication channels, suggesting that verbal rather than nonverbal communication drives the heuristic. Suggesting an answer first was typical of pair members with strong evidence and might therefore be a dominant cue that persuades. Our results establish the existence of the confidence heuristic and we discuss circumstances where it may operate, and where it may not.

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Photo by Alena Jarrett on Unsplash

Photo by Alena Jarrett on Unsplash

Why is it important?

The confidence heuristic has important implications for everyday life, because it facilitates the emergence of truth in a cacophony of falsehood and misinformation. The finding that the confidence heuristic works equally well through computer-mediated communication is important at a time when “fake news” is increasingly being disseminated face-to-face and through Facebook, Twitter, text messages, and other CmCs.