Suspicion and discounting: Ignoring invalid information in an uncertain environment

Suspicion is a fact of life. Of the many people with whom we communicate daily, some, unbeknownst to us (or to them), are very likely to be telling us an untruth. The threat of receiving invalid information is sufficiently pervasive in social life that some argue that people have evolved an "early warning" system that comes into play when an action on the basis of erroneous knowledge has significant costs. In this chapter, we discuss how people attempt to cope in such an uncertain environment. In particular, we focus on how people prepare for falsehoods while receiving information, and how they ignore them once they are discovered.
Topics discussed include: sensitivity to falsehood (reasons for mistrust, the case of multiple sources), preparing to discount in case of unfocused suspicion (the role of integrative encoding in failure to discount, combating the effect of integrative encoding, counterscenarios), and discounting invalid messages (retrieval processes, correction processes, awareness of bias, motivation and ability to correct, suspicion and success of discounting).