Advice taking vs. combining opinions: Framing social information as advice increases source’s perceived helping intentions, trust, and influence

Abstract

People are constantly subject to various types of informational social influences, such as others’ opinions and advice. A tacit assumption in the advice-taking literature is that decision makers treat others’ opinions and advice equally. In this paper, we challenge this assumption by examining the differential effects of advice versus others’ opinions on people’s judgments. Across six preregistered experiments (N = 3,411), we found that participants placed greater weight on and paid more for others’ estimates when presented as advice than when presented as opinions. This advice framing effect substantially reduced egocentric discounting and held across various types of judgments, and for both good and ecological advice. We propose that the advice framing effect stems from higher helping intentions and thereby trustworthiness ascribed to the source of advice (vs. opinions). Both mediational analyses and experimental evidence support this model. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.