Truth beliefs can be evaluatively conditioned

Laypersons can often predict effects studied in psychological research. Corneille and Béna (2023) noted that this questions the boundaries between scientific and folk psychological knowledge and suggested that new psychological phenomena may be discovered by directly asking non-experts about treatment effects: a more inclusive and collaborative approach to psychological science. Here, we followed upon that suggestion. In Study 1, non-experts (N = 125) predicted higher truth ratings for trivia previously paired with positive than negative pictures. Consistent with Study 1’s predictions, this “Truth Beliefs Conditioning" effect was observed in Study 3 (N = 186), which overcame two limitations of Study 2 (N = 187), in which the effect was not significant. This supports our claim that folk mental representations about treatment effects can be usefully probed for discovering new psychological phenomena. Future research should investigate the generalizability of this approach and test the mechanisms underlying truth beliefs conditioning.