Who's to Blame for Miscommunication? Communicators Are Held More Responsible for Communication Failures (and Successes) Than Receivers

Six preregistered studies (and seven supplemental studies, total N = 4,111), show people tend to blame communicators (e.g., speaker, writers) more than receivers (e.g., listeners, readers) for imagined, recalled, and real-time miscommunication—even when the miscommunication was nobody’s fault and the communication was objectively high-quality.