Patrycja Rogozinska-Heiler - 2nd year PhD presentation

Supervisors: Michele Beretta & Lars Frederiksen
Discussants: Claus Holm & Jonas Andersen

Abstract
Digital innovation platforms increasingly rely on endorsements to help users navigate large pools of ideas. But do these signals help users identify high-quality ideas, or do they systematically distort evaluative accuracy by inflating support for low-quality ideas and penalizing strong ones that go unendorsed? 

Drawing on source credibility theory, this seminar examines how the perceived credibility of an endorser shapes trust, which in turn promotes cognitive delegation users' willingness to rely on the endorser's judgment rather than independently scrutinizing the idea. While this reduces evaluation effort, it also raises the risk of uncritical acceptance, with potentially systematic consequences for which ideas get supported.

I present preliminary results from an online study manipulating endorsement presence, idea quality, and endorser type (human expert vs. AI), and discuss plans for a follow-up preregistered lab experiment. Feedback on the findings and experimental design is very welcome.

Everyone is welcome!