Is it possible to increase one's influence simply by behaving more confidently? Prior research presents two competing hypotheses: (1) the confidence heuristic holds that more confidence increases credibility and (2) the calibration hypothesis asserts that overconfidence will backfire when others...

Marketers have a choice of what to tell consumers and consumers must consider what they are told or not told. Across six experiments, we show that consumers fail to differentiate between deliberate and non-deliberate missing information (strategic naiveté) and make generous inferences when they...