lecture 7 - persuasive communication - heuristics and compliance Flashcards
Heuristics and Compliance
○ We must make efficient decisions in an uncertain world
○ So people have shortcuts
○ System I: Fast and Focused - allows us to make smart quick descisions
○ We must preserve System I worldviews - we don’t want to constantly have to go back to the foundations and start all over again in how we see the world
BUT: May cause incorrect inferences and suboptimal decisions
system 1
motivation
attention
cognition
emotion
Linda problem
Linda is 31 years old, single, outspoken, and very bright. She majored in philosophy. As a student, she was deeply concerned with issues of discrimination and social justice, and also participated in anti-nuclear demonstrations.
A: Bank teller?
B: Bank teller and a feminist?
Answer is A = conjunction fallacy
Less likely to be B as she is then two different things rather than just one
With a its just not specifying if she is a feminist or not so saying B is more likely has to be fallacious
Heuristics and Compliance
Two related heuristics:
- Availability heuristic: estimating likelihood of events based on ease by which information from existing worldviews comes to mind.
- E.g. Tversky & Kahneman (1973): availability à fame
They exposed people to a set of names and later were asked have famous do you think these people are, the names they were repeatedly exposed to were believed to be famous people even though they were made up by the experimenters - those names came to mind more easily as they were primed
Heuristics and Compliance
Availability Heuristic: Risk Estimates
- When participants asked - What leads to more deaths per year? (Russo & Shoemaker, 1989; Lichtenstein et al., 1978)
- Stomach cancer or traffic accidents?
- Tuberculosis or fire?
Cause of death (in the U.S. 1980s) Estimation Actual frequency(per 1000) Times in paper Stomach cancer 14% 95 1 Traffic accidents 86% 46 137 Tuberculosis 23% 4 0 Fire 77% 5 24
Heuristics and Compliance
Availability Heuristic: Behavioural Judgments
- Schwarz et al. (1991) asked subjects for 6 (easy) or 12 (hard) examples of assertive or un-assertive behaviour.
Afterwards: how assertive are you (1-9)?
graph in notes
You would assume those who had 12 examples would say they are more assertive as they came up with more but not the case its hard to come up with 12 examples so with 6 being easier it makes those accomplishing it feel fluent so it makes it feel accessible.
If you give people an opportunity to think of many examples of something they will find it disfluent and hard to do - low accessibility
Heuristics and Compliance
Two related heuristics:
- Representativeness heuristic: interpreting events based on preformed categories/expectations.
- E.g. Linda often marches for civil rights, has glasses, has strong opinions. (Tversky & Kahneman, 1983)
Bank teller? (~20%)
Or Bank teller AND feminist? (~80%)
But it MUST be ‘A’;
this is a conjunction fallacy
Heuristics and Compliance
Representativeness Heuristic: Base Rate
images in notes
Green: engineers.
Red: psychologists.
Jim works at company A.
What are the chances that he is an engineer?
Jim works at company A. Jim is 45 years old. He isn’t that interested in social
problems. He loves modern technology and Sudoku.
What are the chances that Jim is an engineer?
People estimate a 70% likelihood that Jim is an
engineer – just as high as for Company B.
(Base rate neglect: Kahneman & Tversky, 1973)
Heuristics and Compliance
Representativeness Heuristic: Base Rate
Heuristics and Compliance
Representativeness Heuristic: Base Rate
- Jack’s ‘representativeness’ of our expectations for engineers is of predictive value.
- But we overestimate the predictive value of this stereotype.
- Given this overestimation, we often ignore base-rates
Representativeness Heuristic: Confirmation Bias
Is Oliver an extravert?
“Hypothesis Testing Approach”: check for diagnostic attributes that confirm and disconfirm this possibility.
pro (extravert):
- dances at parties
- likes to sing
- has many friends
- doesnt talks to everyone
con (introvert):
- enjoys crosswords
- prefers Bach
- seldom smiles
- doesnt likes long forest walks
Is Oliver an extravert?
“Hypothesis Testing Approach”: 3 (out of 4) pro and 3 (out of 4) contra. Hence, Oliver is ‘average’ in Extraversion.
Is Oliver an extravert? - people sometimes only ask extrovert questions
“Verificationist Approach”: check for diagnostic attributes that confirm this question.(Klayman & Ha, 1987)
–>
Aka confirmation bias
Is Oliver an extravert?
pro:
- dances at parties
- likes to sing
- has many friends
- doesnt talks to everyone
3 out of 4 says Yes! Extravert!
And don’t ask introvert questions
is Oliver an introvert?
pro:
- enjoys crossword puzzles
- prefers Bach
- seldom smiles
- doesnt likes long forest walks
3 of 4 says Yes! Introvert! - this is a misleading and bias set of questions so you get a misleading and bias set of answers
Heuristics and Compliance
Representativeness Heuristic: Confirmation Bias
- Oliver’s ‘representativeness’ is judged based on the stereotype activated by the framing of the question.
- We are biased to look for information confirming this stereotype.
We often ignore information that falsifies this conclusion.
Heuristics and Compliance
Representativeness Heuristic: Illusory Correlation
image in notes
People concluded that these bombs must have been guided because they tended to land towards regents park and towards river thames - but they were not targeted people were seeing a pattern where there was none = illusory correlation
Heuristics and Compliance
Representativeness Heuristic: Illusory Correlation
Heuristics and Compliance
Representativeness Heuristic: Illusory Patterns
- Many phenomena are random.
The representativeness heuristic biases us to see an expected pattern where there is none.
Heuristics and Compliance
Representativeness Heuristic: Illusory Patterns
https://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations
graph in notes
The correlation is nearly perfect as correlation 0.093 with 87% shared variance
Its easy to look at patterns of variables and begin to stich something more meaningful out of it. Because its our basic motivation - we want to give causal explanations.
Heuristics and Compliance
Compliance: Foot-in-the-Door
comply with initial request —> comply with later larger request
Heuristics and Compliance
Compliance: Foot-in-the-Door - you do something to elicit compliance from the person on a smaller initial request and then they are more likely to comply with a larger request compared to if you skipped step one
Freedman & Fraser (1966)
- Dependent Measure: Women were asked to put an ugly “Drive Carefully” sign in their front gardens.
- Experimental Manipulation: Some women first agreed to sign a petition for safe driving, whereas others had not been asked.
- 17% complied in absence of previous request
55% complied when agreed to initial request
Heuristics and Compliance
Compliance: Door-in-the-Face
refuse initial large request —> comply with later smaller request
Heuristics and Compliance
Compliance: Door-in-the-Face
Cialdini et al. (1975)
- Dependent Measure: Students were asked to chaperon a group of juvenile delinquents to the zoo.
- Experimental Manipulation: Some students first refused to spend two hours a week counselling juvenile delinquents, whereas others had not been asked.
- 17% agree in absence of initial request
50% agree if refused initial request
Heuristics and Compliance
Summary
We are motivated to maintain our efficient and effective worldviews
Occasionally suboptimal judgments and decisions via:
Availability: influential power of information that comes easily to mind
Representativeness: judging new information as congruent with expectations
Compliance techniques apply these heuristics to the activation of identity and goals
