When leaders disclose uncertainty: Effects of expressing internal and external uncertainty about a decision

Abstract

It is generally assumed that decision makers appear more competent and trustworthy when exuding confidence in their choices. However, many decisions are by their nature uncertain. Is it possible for a decision maker to admit uncertainty and still be trusted? We propose that the communicated type of uncertainty may matter. Internal uncertainty, which signals lack of knowledge or a low degree of belief, may be viewed more negatively than external uncertainty, which is associated with randomness and complexity. The results of a series of experiments suggested that people viewed leaders as more competent when they expressed uncertainty about a decision in external (“It is uncertain”) rather than internal terms (“I am uncertain”), overall effect size d = 0.45 [0.16, 0.74]. Paradoxically, when asked directly, participants expressed that leaders should be open about uncertainty rather than exuding confidence and downplaying uncertainty. A final study suggested that decision makers were more willing to reveal uncertainty about a choice to others when they perceived the uncertainty as more external and less internal, and expected more positive and fewer negative consequences from expressing external rather than internal uncertainty.

Uncertainty, expertise, and persuasion: A replication and extension of Karmarkar and Tormala (2010)

“…As explained above, many studies have documented a positive effect of expressing certainty rather than uncertainty on for instance advice taking and perceived competence (e.g., Bonaccio & Dalal, 2006;Løhre & Teigen, 2023;Price & Stone, 2004). Similarly, some studies of expert communication of risks argue that expressing uncertainty may negatively influence public attitudes towards scientists and their claims (Gustafson & Rice, 2020).…”

“…These questions were included since previous studies indicate that responses to (un)certainty may differ depending on the type of uncertainty. For instance, in Løhre and Teigen (2023) there was a larger difference between responses to internal certainty vs. uncertainty as compared to external certainty vs.…”

“…A similar dichotomy uses the labels epistemic ("knowable") and aleatory ("random") uncertainty (Ülkümen et al, 2016;Walters et al, 2023), referring to whether the uncertainty is due to missing information or expertise about an event that is knowable in principle (epistemic uncertainty) vs. due to the stochastic/random nature of a class of events (aleatory uncertainty). 1 These distinctions are important, as the effects of expressing uncertainty on observer perceptions may depend on the type of uncertainty and/or on how uncertainty is conceptualized (Gaertig & Simmons, 2018;Gustafson & Rice, 2020;Løhre & Teigen, 2023;van der Bles et al, 2020), although the research on this topic is scarce. In the present investigation, we focus on the concept of attitude certainty (Tormala & Rucker, 2007), which can be seen as a type of internal or epistemic certainty; a subjective feeling regarding the conviction with which one holds an attitude.…”

“…If the aim is to persuade or influence others, expressing certainty about an opinion seems like an intuitively appealing strategy. There is a stream of research supporting this [Registered Report Stage 2]: Replication and extension of Karmarkar and Tormala (2010) view: people are more likely to follow advice from sources with high confidence (Bonaccio & Dalal, 2006;Radzevick & Moore, 2010;Sniezek & Van Swol, 2001), to judge leaders as more competent when they express certainty rather than uncertainty (Løhre & Teigen, 2023), and eyewitnesses who express higher confidence are seen as more credible (Tenney et al, 2007) and have greater influence on courtroom decisions (Brewer & Burke, 2002). Price and Stone (2004) have called this a confidence heuristic: people assume that those who are highly confident are confident because they know what they are talking about, and hence confidently expressed opinions are more persuasive than humbly or uncertainly expressed opinions.…”

“…Stage 2]: Replication and extension of Karmarkar and Tormala (2010) Perceived type of (un)certainty. We included also two questions adapted from Study 5 in Løhre and Teigen (2023), measuring whether the uncertainty was perceived as external or internal and four questions adapted from Ülkümen et al's (2016) epistemic-aleatory rating scale (EARS). First, participants rated their agreement on scales from Completely disagree (1) to Completely agree (7) with statements that the reviewer expressed that he was [un]certain about his assessment of Bianco "…based on objective facts that would be apparent to other people" (external uncertainty) and "…because of a subjective feeling he had" (internal uncertainty).…”