Evolving informational credentials: The (mis)attribution of believable facts to credible sources

Three studies demonstrate that individuals often rely on a "belief force equals credible source" heuristic to make source judgments, wherein they assume that statements they believe originate from credible sources. In Study 1, participants who were exposed to a statement many times (and hence believed it) were more likely to attribute it to Consumer Reports than to the National Enquirer. In Study 2, participants read a murder investigation article containing evidence against two suspects from credible and noncredible sources. When participants believed a particular suspect to be guilty, they misattributed evidence incriminating that suspect to the high-credibility source. Study 3 demonstrated that this phenomenon occurs because individuals assume their beliefs are true and that true beliefs come from credible sources, when participants were given feedback that their beliefs were incorrect, the relationship between beliefs and source inferences did not occur.