The Role of Confidence in Social Judgment

信心在社会判断中的作用

• 批准号: 0847834
• 负责人: Richard Petty
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Ohio State University Research Foundation -DO NOT USE
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2009-03-01 至 2015-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0847834&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Role; Confidence; Social; Judgment

The goal of this research program is to examine the role that "thought confidence" plays in determining how people form their opinions and other judgments. After decades of research on persuasion in which the number and valence of the primary thoughts people generate to a message have been seen as the key to thoughtful persuasion, more recent work by the PI holds that generating thoughts is not sufficient for them to have an impact on judgment. Rather, people must also have confidence in their thoughts. The extent of thought confidence affects whether people use their thoughts or not. That is, the extent of confidence determines whether people translate their individual thoughts into more general judgments or evaluations that in turn guide behavior. Given how essential thought confidence is in determining whether thoughts are used, it is important to know from where people get their sense of confidence or doubt in their thoughts. This project includes two distinct lines of research. The first set of studies examines how learning that a proposal is supported by a majority of other people or only a minority of others affects thought confidence and persuasion. The second set of studies examines the role of thought confidence in increasing or decreasing attitudinal ambivalence. Ambivalence often freezes people into inaction. Although traditional approaches to reducing ambivalence involve trying to change people's perceptions of the positive or negative aspects of the attitude object, the current approach focuses on affecting confidence in these evaluations. This research has implications for the psychology of deception as well as the deterrence of terrorists. In each case, understanding the role of confidence in judgment is critical. In the case of deception, the issue is the extent to which people can have confidence in lies that they tell and come to believe as true. In the case of terrorists, the issue is how people come to have confidence in radical beliefs - in the most extreme case having so much trust in an idea that they will commit suicide to support it. Thus, the current research has the potential to contribute to understanding issues of national importance.

该研究计划的目标是研究“思想信心”在决定人们如何形成观点和其他判断方面所发挥的作用。 经过数十年的说服研究，人们对信息产生的主要想法的数量和效价被视为深思熟虑的说服的关键，PI 最近的工作认为，产生想法不足以对判断产生影响。相反，人们还必须对自己的想法有信心。 思想自信的程度影响着人们是否运用自己的思想。也就是说，信心的程度决定了人们是否将个人想法转化为更普遍的判断或评估，从而指导行为。 鉴于思想信心对于决定是否使用思想至关重要，了解人们从哪里获得对自己思想的自信或怀疑感非常重要。 该项目包括两个不同的研究方向。 第一组研究考察了得知一项提案得到大多数人或只有少数人的支持如何影响思想信心和说服力。 第二组研究考察了思想信心在增加或减少矛盾态度方面的作用。 矛盾心理常常使人们陷入无所作为。 尽管减少矛盾情绪的传统方法涉及尝试改变人们对态度对象的积极或消极方面的看法，但当前的方法侧重于影响对这些评估的信心。 这项研究对于欺骗心理学以及恐怖分子的威慑具有重要意义。在每种情况下，理解信心在判断中的作用至关重要。就欺骗而言，问题在于人们对自己所说的谎言有多大程度的信心，并逐渐相信这些谎言是真实的。就恐怖分子而言，问题在于人们如何对激进信仰产生信心——在最极端的情况下，人们对某个想法如此信任，以至于他们会自杀来支持它。因此，当前的研究有可能有助于理解具有国家重要性的问题。