25 checked facts

Communication

Everything on this site about communication — each one naming the study behind it.

Asking why makes you more stubborn than asking how.
A 2013 study found that asking someone to explain 'why' they hold a position strengthens their opposition.…
You act as if you know what others are thinking.
A 1998 study demonstrated that people consistently believe they are more transparent to others than they actually are.…
You misjudge the competence of people who speak rapidly.
Listeners may perceive faster speakers as more credible and knowledgeable, but this effect is moderated by argument qu…
You underestimate how much others appreciate your kindness.
People consistently expect their expressions of gratitude to be less impactful than they actually are to the recipient…
You unconsciously copy the sentence structure of people you speak to.
Syntactic priming makes you more likely to repeat the grammatical structure of the sentence you just heard.…
You overestimate how clearly your feelings show to others.
In a 1998 study, individuals consistently rated their internal anxiety as being significantly more visible to observer…
You cannot un-know what you have already learned.
Once you acquire knowledge, you systematically overestimate how easily others can grasp the same concept.…
You cannot imagine not knowing what you already know.
A 1990 experiment showed that people assume listeners will identify a tapped song 50% of the time, while the actual ra…
You cannot imagine what it is like not knowing.
A 1990 study found that people who knew a song's rhythm consistently overestimated how many people would recognize it …
You assume experts share your clarity of thought.
The curse of knowledge is a cognitive bias where you find it difficult to imagine what it is like not to know what you…
You trust a statement more if it rhymes.
The rhyme-as-reason effect makes you perceive rhyming phrases as more truthful than identical statements written in pr…
You find it nearly impossible to ignore what you know.
The curse of knowledge describes a cognitive bias where individuals are unable to ignore their own knowledge when pred…
You find it impossible to imagine not knowing something.
The curse of knowledge prevents you from accurately predicting the perspective of someone who lacks your expertise.…
You believe media affects everyone but you.
The third-person effect describes your tendency to estimate that media influence is significantly stronger on others t…
You lose the ability to teach once you learn.
The curse of knowledge describes the inability to imagine that other people do not know what you know.…
You trust information more when it is easier read.
A 2008 study found that simple, easy-to-read fonts make statements seem more factual and credible.…
You believe you know others better than they you.
A 2001 study showed that people consistently rate their understanding of others as superior to the understanding other…
You cannot imagine a world where you do not know this.
Once you possess information, you find it nearly impossible to simulate the mindset of someone who lacks it.…
You automatically assume that fluent speech equals high intelligence.
A 2006 study found that writers who use complex, unnecessary words are perceived as less intelligent.…
You are physically unable to forget what you already know.
Once you learn a piece of information, you consistently overestimate others' ability to guess it.…
You believe you understand others better than they understand you.
The illusion of asymmetric insight is the tendency for people to believe that they know others better than others know…
You find it impossible to ignore what you already know.
The curse of knowledge causes you to overestimate how well others understand what you are explaining.…
You believe you see the world objectively as it is.
Naive realism is the tendency to assume our perception of reality is the only accurate one.…
You find it impossible to remember what it is like to be ignorant.
A 1989 study found that better-informed agents cannot accurately anticipate the judgments and market valuations of les…
You assume your opinions are more common than they are.
People consistently overestimate the extent to which others share their own beliefs.…