Analyses of relational coherence and rule following: Consistent liars are preferred over occasional truth tellers
Steady speakers win trust, even steady liars—so keep your own cues rock-solid.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Adults listened to two speakers. One speaker always lied. One speaker always told the truth. A third speaker mixed lies and truths.
The adults then had to pick which speaker’s rules to follow with new pictures. The team watched who they trusted and when.
What they found
People stuck with the steady liar or the steady truth-teller. They ignored the half-right speaker, even though that speaker was actually right half the time.
The choice held up with brand-new pictures and no prizes. Coherence beat accuracy.
How this fits with other research
Cortez et al. (2022) showed that kids tell the truth only when an adult is in the room. The new study shows adults also use simple social cues, but they want consistency, not presence.
Najafichaghabouri et al. (2024) found only two of five children changed their answers when the interviewer acted different. That looks like a clash, but it isn’t: kids react in their own way; adults follow clear rules.
Meyer et al. (2019) taught college students to say “same/different” out loud and saw new reasoning pop up. The target paper shows the same leap: once a speaker makes sense, people apply the rule to things they never saw.
Why it matters
Your clients judge you on consistency, not perfection. If you give mixed cues, they may tune you out even when you are right. Speak in steady patterns: always label the red card “stop,” always praise with the same tone. The rule will travel to new tasks and stick without candy or tokens.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The current study explored the influence of different levels of speaker coherence on rule following and speaker preference. In Experiment 1, rules provided by three different speakers were either 100% accurate, 0% accurate, or 50% accurate/inaccurate. Experiment 2 was similar to Experiment 1 except that the speaker's coherence was adjusted to 80% accurate, 20% accurate, and 50% accurate/inaccurate, respectively. Overall, participants tended to follow coherent speaker rules and avoid following incoherent speaker rules during training and testing phases. The results also indicated that following and not following rules provided by speakers may be generalizable to novel stimuli and maintained in the absence of differential reinforcement (i.e., in experimental test phases). Additionally, in a preference test, participants tended to prefer coherent over incoherent and partially coherent speakers. Furthermore, participants tended to prefer the relatively more incoherent speaker (i.e., 0% or 20% accurate) over the 50% accurate coherent speaker in both experiments. Finally, a comparison of the results of both experiments indicated that different levels of relational coherence affected the variability of rule-following and speaker preference behaviors. These findings are discussed in the context of the complexities that appear to be involved in rule-following behaviors and speaker preference.
Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 2024 · doi:10.1002/jeab.907