31 - Cognitive friction: Why hard-to-hear means hard-to-believe
The Credibility Minute · Jen deHaan
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Show Notes
Cognitive friction occurs when your content is difficult for the brain to process. Research shows that listeners rate information as less true when they struggle to understand it.
This effect is driven by Cognitive Fluency: the easier your message is to process, the more credible it feels. Factors like background noise, poor microphone quality, mumbling, or overly complex sentence structures all increase processing load. Your listener's subconscious does not separate the value of your message from the difficulty of hearing it.
In this micro-episode:
- How "truthiness" is linked to processing ease
- Why accents and audio quality affect credibility ratings (it's not just prejudice)
- Practical ways to reduce cognitive load and boost authority
Resources:
Influence of accent on credibility: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022103110001459
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