TY - JOUR
T1 - The Truth-Default and Video Clips
T2 - Testing the Limits of Credulity
AU - Levine, Timothy R.
AU - Punyanunt-Carter, Narissra M.
AU - Moore, Alivia
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Central States Communication Association.
Copyright:
Copyright 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2020
Y1 - 2020
N2 - Truth-default theory posits that absent a trigger, people passively accept communication content as truthful and honest. Most often, the idea that some communication might be deceptive does not come to mind. The current research exposed participants to one of six video clips that varied in credibility and credulity. The clips included educational lectures, political speeches, an investigative news report, and an over-the-top satirical investigative news report. Participants completed a thought-listing task about the video they watched. Automated word searches for deception-relevant terms were used to assess the frequency of expressions of skepticism and attributions of deception. Consistent with strong truth-default predictions, except for the satirical video, little evidence of incredulity was observed. The results suggest that the truth-default holds for a variety of online video content, but also that it has its limits. Extreme implausibility most often, but not always, overcomes the truth-default.
AB - Truth-default theory posits that absent a trigger, people passively accept communication content as truthful and honest. Most often, the idea that some communication might be deceptive does not come to mind. The current research exposed participants to one of six video clips that varied in credibility and credulity. The clips included educational lectures, political speeches, an investigative news report, and an over-the-top satirical investigative news report. Participants completed a thought-listing task about the video they watched. Automated word searches for deception-relevant terms were used to assess the frequency of expressions of skepticism and attributions of deception. Consistent with strong truth-default predictions, except for the satirical video, little evidence of incredulity was observed. The results suggest that the truth-default holds for a variety of online video content, but also that it has its limits. Extreme implausibility most often, but not always, overcomes the truth-default.
KW - Credibility
KW - credulity
KW - deception
KW - honesty
KW - implausibility
KW - truth-default theory
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85092741690&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/10510974.2020.1833357
DO - 10.1080/10510974.2020.1833357
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85092741690
JO - Communication Studies
JF - Communication Studies
SN - 1051-0974
ER -