ABSTRACT

In light of public examples of false denials, it is unsurprising that people’s beliefs about denials often are negative. However, inconsistent with such beliefs, denials often are sincere, and can facilitate trust repair. To illuminate this mismatch, we advance a framework based on Construal Level Theory, to explain how people may make a forecasting error when predicting their responses to denials. In two experimental studies, we reveal that people who actually received a denial after a possible transgression (a) were less suspicious, and experienced greater trust, and (b) displayed more trusting behavior than people who imagined this. These results suggest that people underestimate the effectiveness of denials in the reconciliation process.

摘要

鉴于公开的虚假否认实例，人们对否认的信念常常是负面的，这一点不足为奇。但是，与这种信念不一致的是，拒绝通常是真诚的，并且可以促进信任的修复。为了阐明这种不匹配，我们提出了一个基于解释层次理论的框架，以解释人们在预测他们对拒绝的反应时可能会产生预测错误。在两项实验研究中，我们揭示了在可能的犯罪之后实际遭到拒绝的人（a）不太可疑，并且拥有更大的信任，并且（b）表现出比想象中的人更多的信任行为。这些结果表明，人们低估了否认在和解进程中的有效性。