The Effects of Confidence and Advisor Motives on Advice Utilization

<jats:p> This article examined the premises of interpersonal deception theory (IDT) within an advice-giving context. Advisors with quality and persuasion goals provided advice concerning stock rankings to decision makers either primed or not primed to be suspicious of advisors’ motives. Two competing hypotheses were proposed. First, suspicious decision makers were predicted to accept less advice from all advisors and be no more likely to detect advisors’ motives than nonsuspicious decision makers. Second, suspicious decision makers were predicted to be better able to detect the motives of advisors and accept less advice from the advisor with the persuasive motive than nonsuspicious decision makers. The first hypothesis was supported. The persuasive advisor had significantly higher confidence than the quality advisor on the rankings used to give advice, although not on private rankings. Advisors’ confidence on these rankings fully mediated their influence on the decision maker. </jats:p>