Speaking From Ignorance: Not Agreeing With Others We Believe Are Correct

Speaking From Ignorance: Not Agreeing With Others We Believe Are Correct. Bert Hodges et al. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2014, Vol. 106, No. 2, 218–234. DOI: 10.1037/a0034662

Abstract: Values-pragmatics theory (Hodges & Geyer, 2006) predicts that people will sometimes disagree with others they believe are correct, for reasons similar to those explaining agreement with incorrect answers in an Asch (1956) situation. In 3 experiments, we found evidence that people in a position of ignorance sometimes do not agree with the correct answers of others in positions of knowledge. Experiments 1a and 1b found this speaking-from-ignorance (SFI) effect occurred 27% of the time. Experiment 2 introduced experimental controls and self-report data indicating that the SFI effect (30%) was generated by realizing values (e.g., truth, social solidarity) and pragmatic constraints to act cooperatively, rather than by a wide array of alternatives (e.g., normative pressure, reactance). Experiment 3 experimentally manipulated concern for truthfulness, yielding 49% nonagreeing answers, even though there were monetary incentives to give correct, agreeing answers. The overall pattern suggests that people are not so much conformists or independents as they are cooperative truth tellers under social and moral constraints. Results, while surprising for social influence theories, illustrate the dynamics of divergence and convergence that appear across studies in cultural anthropology and developmental psychology, as well as in social psychology.

Keywords: conformity, divergence, pragmatics, truth, values