Influence of information sources on escape judgment with intuition and after deliberation

Abstract

We present novel evidence that proves the significant influence of information sources on escape judgment in a crisis situation. These influences are found to differ with intuition and after deliberative thinking. The finding addresses an important gap in crisis decision literature, in which the role of information sources is largely ignored. This omission is striking because crisis situations often involve considerable uncertainty, confusion, and panic. In such situations, the information needed to form judgments is not available. The four experiments we conducted in this study show reliable evidence of the influence of information sources on escape judgment. Experts and acquaintances activated significantly more positive judgments than strangers based on the same information at both the conscious priming level in experiment 1 and at the unconscious priming level in experiment 2. Information sources showed different influences on escape judgment with intuition and after deliberative thinking at both the conscious and the unconscious priming levels. The cross-experimental analysis in experiment 3 confirmed the priming effect of information sources. The control studies in experiment 4 indicated that the results did not reflect word familiarity. Our findings contribute to the crisis literature by demonstrating that information source is more important than information content in escape judgment.