Stranger correction (psychology)

Stranger correction is a psychological event where a person is more likely to correct a stranger who is incorrect on a particular fact about that person, compared to someone who you're familiar with.

Context
A person is less likely to know you well, and therefore is eager to correct any misinterpretations (as you're a stranger), either as hostile behaviour (correcting your mistake to demonstrate superiority of knowledge) or to prevent any misconceptions during impressions (which may be a part of self-corrective socialising behaviour EG they will correct you so they don't appear bad in the social context of the group).

A friend or family member may be less likely to correct you, especially if they know you well, in order to avoid potentially offending or alienating you, or may only offer a 'weaker' correction (as a suggestion rather than a statement of fact).

Usage
It's possible to make baited questions (see bi-logic trap) where you present intentionally incorrect information (something that only an expert, a person living in their area, their country, place, etc would know) and allow them to correct you (you may already know the answer and this is a form of confirmation).

For example, you might ask "As an electrical engineer, you must be familiar with the two-way properties of a diode?". An electrical engineer would then correct that observing that under normal conditions a diode is one-way and not two-way, however, an individual unfamiliar with a diode (and thus not an electrical engineer or at least with some basic electrical engineering skills) would merely agree this was the case and would oust themselves as a non-engineer.

Baited statements can also be made instead of questions (statements are more likely to be corrected than questions). So, you might say "I like the two-way properties of diodes." - an electrical engineer would then either query this statement or correct it, and a non-electrical engineer would ignore it.