The credibility of a source influences the rate of unconscious plagiarism

Three experiments were conducted to investigate the relationship between th e credibility of information and later unconscious plagiarism of that infor mation. In each experiment, ideas concerning ways to reduce traffic acciden ts were presented from a more credible source (traffic planners) and a less credible source (college freshmen). After a distracter task, participants were asked to generate novel ways to reduce traffic accidents. In Experimen ts 1 and 2, unconscious plagiarism of ideas presented from the more credibl e source was greater than from the less credible source. In neither experim ent was explicit memory for ideas from each source different in tests of so urce monitoring or free recall. However, the difference in unconscious plag iarism was eliminated in Experiment 3 by having participants generate the i mplications of ideas at study. The results are discussed in terms of the ex plicit factors that affect the incidence of unconscious plagiarism.