Want to be credible? Admit your mistakes

The next time you want someone to trust your opinion, you might consider admitting prior errors in judgment.

That finding is supported in a study by Taly Reich, associate professor of marketing at Yale's School of Management, and her colleague Sam Maglio from the University of Toronto. The pair determined that shoppers were more likely to choose a recommended product if the reviewer describes a previous poor purchase decision. The research was published in the?Journal of Marketing.?

“People tend to be afraid of making and admitting mistakes,” Reich says. “We wanted to see if we could flip that perspective.”

To test the idea that there might be an upside to admitting error, the researchers performed four lab studies. In one experiment, participants were offered a choice between two headphone brands. Each person was also shown?one of two reviews, identical except that one reviewer noted dissatisfaction with a previous headphone purchase. While 79 percent of participants followed the recommendation of the reviewer who did not mention a problem, 93 percent opted for the headphones recommended by the reviewer who described having made a previous mistake.?

The three other experiments, with different designs and featuring other products (mints, florist services, speaker systems) yielded similar outcomes. In addition, Reich and Maglio examined data from the Sephora website, which showed that customers found reviews of hair-care products more helpful when they described a prior purchase mistake. The findings apply, Reich and Maglio note, only when the reviewer’s mistake concerned a similar product.?

Reich posits that if reviewers appear to have learned from their prior mistakes, they’re perceived as having gained expertise that makes their judgment more credible.?The research, she notes, has implications not just for online product reviews, but for any individual or company who wants to build their reputation for expertise and trustworthiness. She adds “Beyond the bottom line, we would probably have a better world if we could take the shame out of admitting and learning from our mistakes.”?

A version of this article?was originally published in the March/April 2020 issue of?Yale Alumni Magazine.