The Stakes Effect: New Evidence from a Retraction-Based Experimental Design

Abstract The paper examines the influence of stakes on knowledge attributions, building on the retraction-based experimental design introduced by Dinges and Zakkou. Experiment 1 replicates Dinges and Zakkou’s original findings and extends the research to third-person knowledge ascriptions. The results show that raising the stakes increases the percentage of retraction in both first- and third-person scenarios. Experiment 2 addresses potential concerns about the retraction-based design, specifically whether participants genuinely endorse the initial claim and the worry of scenario sceptics – participants who disagree with a knowledge attribution. Experiment 2 introduces a modification to the initial design by adding a knowledge-ascribing question. This addition makes the act of retraction more realistic. The results confirm that the stakes effect persists even in an improved design. I argue that these findings constitute a serious challenge to classic invariantism and a potential challenge to subject-sensitive invariantism. Their competitors – epistemic contextualism and relativism – seem to be in a better position, even though the retraction-based design at its current stage is unlikely to distinguish between these two.