Author: Randy Stein, Associate Professor of Marketing, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona

Pointing out that someone else is wrong is a part of life. And journalists need to do this all the time – their job includes helping sort what’s true from what’s not. But what if people just don’t like hearing corrections? Our new research, published in the journal Communication Research, suggests that’s the case. In two studies, we found that people generally trust journalists when they confirm claims to be true but are more distrusting when journalists correct false claims. Some linguistics and social science theories suggest that people intuitively understand social expectations not to be negative. Being disagreeable, like…