Tell Me What I Wanted to Hear: Confirmation Effect in Lay Evaluations of Financial Expert Authority

Abstract

In real life, people engage in interactive decision processes by consulting with experts. However, before taking advice, they must recognise the authority of an expert to assess the quality of the advice. The main goal of this research was to investigate how the confirmation effect affects lay evaluations of the epistemic authority of financial experts. Experiment 1 showed that lay people tend to ascribe greater epistemic authority to those experts whose advice confirms peoples opinions, both measured and manipulated. Experiment 2 revealed that when participants own opinions are not salient, people tend to evaluate experts authority as higher when their advice confirms social norms. In Experiment 3 we jointly investigated the effects of participants own opinions and social norms on the evaluations of authority. When both sources of expertise were made salient, decision-makers favoured advice confirming their own beliefs and used it to evaluate experts authority. Three interpretations of the role confirmation plays in the experts authority evaluations are proposed: (1) self-defensive strategies; (2) processing fluency; and (3) psychological consequences of na€ ıve realism. The paper discusses practical implications of the results. We propose that increasing consumers knowledge about biases might protect their evaluations of financial advice from being susceptible to the confirmation effect.

On the Conditional Acceptance of Arguments from Expert Opinion

“…Biased evaluation of experts was shown in empirical work reported in Zaleskiewicz and Gasiorowska (2018;cf. Zaleskiewicz et al, 2016, Study 3).…”

Evaluating experts may serve psychological needs: Self-esteem, bias blind spot, and processing fluency explain confirmation effect in assessing financial advisors’ authority.

“…Our recent research (Zaleskiewicz & Gasiorowska, 2018; Zaleskiewicz, Gasiorowska, Stasiuk, Maksymiuk, & Bar-Tal, 2016) has shown that decision-makers, when evaluating the financial expertise of prospective advisors, are vulnerable to preferring advice that is consistent, as opposed to inconsistent, with their own beliefs. In brief, we investigated how financial recommendations concerning individual investing on the stock market were perceived depending on whether they were, or were not, consistent with laypeople’s own opinions of this financial activity (Zaleskiewicz & Gasiorowska, 2018).…”

“…Our recent research (Zaleskiewicz & Gasiorowska, 2018; Zaleskiewicz, Gasiorowska, Stasiuk, Maksymiuk, & Bar-Tal, 2016) has shown that decision-makers, when evaluating the financial expertise of prospective advisors, are vulnerable to preferring advice that is consistent, as opposed to inconsistent, with their own beliefs. In brief, we investigated how financial recommendations concerning individual investing on the stock market were perceived depending on whether they were, or were not, consistent with laypeople’s own opinions of this financial activity (Zaleskiewicz & Gasiorowska, 2018). In other words, we examined the degree to which lay evaluations of financial experts’ epistemic authority—defined in terms of “the extent to which an individual is inclined to treat a source’s information as incontrovertible evidence for her or his judgment” (Kruglanski, 2012, p. 212)—expressed “my side” thinking.…”

“…We chose this area because most people, sooner or later, need to make decisions related to managing their money (e.g., saving, investing, or borrowing)—an endeavor that often requires turning to financial experts for recommendations. Because the size of the financial advice sector is extensive, the consequences of correct or incorrect recognition of an advisor’s competence and authority are not trivial matters (Zaleskiewicz & Gasiorowska, 2018).…”

La teoría epistémica laica y su enfoque cognitivo-motivacional del conocimiento.

“…Los individuos que atribuyen el consenso reducen la carga cognitiva y confían en la deducción del grupo. Es decir, la representación compartida influye en la atribución de los sujetos a los comportamientos (Kelley, 1967;Zaleskiewicz & Gasiorowska, 2018).…”