Spurious consensus and opinion revision: Why might people be more confident in their less accurate judgments?
Open accessAbstract
In the interest of improving their decision making, individuals revise their opinions on the basis of samples of opinions obtained from others. However, such a revision process may lead decision makers to experience greater confidence in their less accurate judgments. The authors theorize that people tend to underestimate the informative value of independently drawn opinions, if these appear to conflict with one another, yet place some confidence even in the spurious consensus, which may arise when opinions are sampled interdependently. The experimental task involved people's revision of their opinions (caloric estimates of foods) on the basis of advice. The method of sampling the advisory opinions (independent or interdependent) was the main factor. The results reveal a dissociation between confidence and accuracy. A theoretical underlying mechanism is suggested whereby people attend to consensus (consistency) cues at the expense of information on interdependence. Implications for belief updating and for individual and group decisions are discussed.
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Disagreement among advisors reduces trust and decreases the weight assigned to external inputs.
“Disagreement among advisors reduces trust and decreases the weight assigned to external inputs (Bonaccio and Dalal 2006;Wanzel et al. 2017;Yaniv et al. 2009).”
From When Recruiters Meet Algorithms: Advice Taking and Bias in AI‐Assisted Recruitment (2026) · cites this paper as Yaniv et al. 2009
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On the psychology of prediction.
Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1973) · Psychological Review · doi:10.1037/h0034747 · Cited by 6,202 · see citing works
Frequency and the conference of referential validity
Hasher, L., Goldstein, D., & Toppino, T. (1977) · Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior · doi:10.1016/s0022-5371(77)80012-1 · Cited by 920 · see citing works
Begg, I. M., Anas, A., & Farinacci, S. (1992) · Journal of Experimental Psychology: General · doi:10.1037//0096-3445.121.4.446 · Cited by 650 · see citing works
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Human Decision Making with Machine Assistance: An Experiment on Bailing and Jailing
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Public perception and communication of scientific uncertainty.
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When Recruiters Meet Algorithms: Advice Taking and Bias in AI‐Assisted Recruitment
Lacroux, A., & Martin Lacroux, C. (2026) · International Journal of Selection and Assessment · doi:10.1111/ijsa.70085
- Authors
- Yaniv, I., Choshen-Hillel, S., & Milyavsky, M.
- Affiliations
- Hebrew University of Jerusalem (IL)
- Corresponding author
- Yaniv, Ilan
- ORCID
- Yaniv, Ilan
- Venue
- Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition
- Published
- 2009
- Volume
- 35
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 558-563
- ISSN
- 0278-7393 (ISSN-L)
- 1939-1285
- OpenAlex
- W2092120039
- Cited by
- 108
- References
- 3
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 31 · 2021: 5 · 2020: 10 · 2019: 9 · 2018: 7 · 2017: 2 · 2016: 3 · 2015: 9 · 2014: 3 · 2013: 2 · 2012: 3
- FWCI
- 2.23
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- papers.ssrn.com
- Locations
- Journal of Experimental Psychology Learning Memory and Cognition (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- SSRN Electronic Journal (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Israel Science Foundation (344/05)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › General Decision Sciences › Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Social and Intergroup Psychology
- Keywords
- belief updating, independent sampling, advice taking, group decision making
- MeSH terms
- Energy Intake, Conflict, Psychological, Culture, Decision Making, Humans, Judgment, Nutritive Value, Reality Testing, Social Conformity, Consensus
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