Listeners influence speakers’ perceived communication effectiveness

People have an exaggerated sense of self-efficacy. This paper investigates the mechanism behind speakers’ tendency to overestimate their communication efficacy. Two competing mechanisms were tested: intrapersonal and interpersonal. Speakers communicated a series of ambiguous statements to a co-present or absent listener and then estimated their success. Speakers overestimated their ability to communicate their intended message (relative to listeners’ actual comprehension of their message) when a listener was co-present, but not when a listener was absent. Our findings support an interpersonal explanation of speakers’ perceived communication efficacy.