Welcome to the Nexus of Ethics, Psychology, Morality, Philosophy and Health Care

Welcome to the nexus of ethics, psychology, morality, technology, health care, and philosophy
Showing posts with label Certainty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Certainty. Show all posts

Sunday, January 15, 2023

How Hedges Impact Persuasion

Oba, Demi and Berger, Jonah A.
(July 23, 2022). 

Abstract

Communicators often hedge. Salespeople say that a product is probably the best, recommendation engines suggest movies they think you’ll like, and consumers say restaurants might have good service. But how does hedging impact persuasion? We suggest that different types of hedges may have different effects. Six studies support our theorizing, demonstrating that (1) the probabilistic likelihood hedges suggest and (2) whether they take a personal (vs. general) perspective both play an important role in driving persuasion. Further, the studies demonstrate that both effects are driven by a common mechanism: perceived confidence. Using hedges associated with higher likelihood, or that involve personal perspective, increases persuasion because they suggest communicators are more confident about what they are saying. This work contributes to the burgeoning literature on language in marketing, showcases how subtle linguistic features impact perceived confidence, and has clear implications for anyone trying to be more persuasive.

General Discussion

Communicating uncertainty is an inescapable part of marketplace interactions. Customer service representatives suggest solutions that “they think”will work, marketers inform buyers about risks a product “may” have, and consumers recommend restaurants that have the best food“in their opinion”.  Such communications are critical in determining which solutions are implemented, which products are bought, and which restaurants are visited.

But while it is clear that hedging is both frequent and important, less is known about its impact.  Do hedges always hurt persuasion?  If not, which hedges more or less persuasive, and why?

Six studies explore these questions. First, they demonstrate that different types of hedges have different effects. Consistent with our theorizing, hedges associated with higher likelihood of occurrence (Studies 1, 2A, 3, and 4A) or that take a personal (rather than general) perspective (Studies 1, 2B, 3, and 4B) are more persuasive. Further, hedges don’t always reduce persuasion (Studies 2A and 2B). Testing these effects using dozens of different hedges, across multiple domains, and using multiple measure of persuasion (including consequential choice) speaks to their robustness and generalizability.

Second, the studies demonstrate a common process that underlies these effects.  When communicators use hedges associated with higher likelihood, or a personal (rather than general) perspective, it makes them seem more confident. This, in turn, increases persuasion (Study 1, 3, 4A and 4B). Demonstrating these effects through mediation (Studies 1, 3, 4A and 4B) and moderation (Studies 4A and 4B) underscores robustness.Further, while other factors may contribute, the studies conducted here indicate full mediation by perceived confidence, highlighting its importance.


Psychologists and other mental health professionals may want to consider this research as part of psychotherapy.

Monday, March 14, 2022

Can you be too moral?


Tim Dean
TEDx Sydney

Interesting introduction to moral certainty and dichotomous thinking.

One of the biggest challenges of our time is not people without morals, according to philosopher Tim Dean. It is often those with unwavering moral convictions who are the most dangerous. Tim challenges us to change the way we think about morality, right and wrong, to be more adaptable in order to solve the new and emerging problems of our modern lives. Tim Dean is a Sydney-based philosopher and science writer. He is the author of How We Became Human, a book about how our evolved moral minds are out of step with the modern world. He has a Doctorate in philosophy from the University of New South Wales on the evolution of morality and has expertise in ethics, philosophy of biology and critical thinking. 

Sunday, December 6, 2020

The Value of Not Knowing: Partisan Cue-Taking and Belief Updating of the Uninformed, the Ambiguous, and the Misinformed

Jianing Li & Michael W Wagner
Journal of Communication, Volume 70,
Issue 5, October 2020, Pages 646–669.

Abstract

The problem of a misinformed citizenry is often used to motivate research on misinformation and its corrections. However, researchers know little about how differences in informedness affect how well corrective information helps individuals develop knowledge about current events. We introduce a Differential Informedness Model that distinguishes between three types of individuals, that is, the uninformed, the ambiguous, and the misinformed, and establish their differences with two experiments incorporating multiple partisan cues and issues. Contrary to the common impression, the U.S. public is largely uninformed rather than misinformed of a wide range of factual claims verified by journalists. Importantly, we find that the success of belief updating after exposure to corrective information (via a fact-checking article) is dependent on the presence, the certainty, and the accuracy of one’s prior belief. Uninformed individuals are more likely to update their beliefs than misinformed individuals after exposure to corrective information. Interestingly, the ambiguous individuals, regardless of whether their uncertain guesses were correct, do not differ from uninformed individuals with respect to belief updating.

From the Discussion Section

First, and contrary to the impression that many citizens are misinformed, the majority of our respondents are uninformed of a wide range of claims important enough to be verified by journalists. Only a small group of respondents hold confident, inaccurate beliefs.  This builds on the work of Pasek et al. (2015) by distinguishing between the uninformed, who admit that they “don’t know,” the ambiguous, who take a guess with varying degrees of accuracy, and the misinformed, who hold steadfast false beliefs. In the current environment where concerns over misinformation often lead to heightened attention to belief accuracy, our findings highlight the necessity to bridge between work on political ignorance and misperception and the benefit of leveraging belief accuracy, belief presence and belief certainty to better assess public informedness.

(emphasis added)

Saturday, October 6, 2018

Certainty Is Primarily Determined by Past Performance During Concept Learning

Louis Martí, Francis Mollica, Steven Piantadosi and Celeste Kidd
Open Mind: Discoveries in Cognitive Science
Posted Online August 16, 2018

Abstract

Prior research has yielded mixed findings on whether learners’ certainty reflects veridical probabilities from observed evidence. We compared predictions from an idealized model of learning to humans’ subjective reports of certainty during a Boolean concept-learning task in order to examine subjective certainty over the course of abstract, logical concept learning. Our analysis evaluated theoretically motivated potential predictors of certainty to determine how well each predicted participants’ subjective reports of certainty. Regression analyses that controlled for individual differences demonstrated that despite learning curves tracking the ideal learning models, reported certainty was best explained by performance rather than measures derived from a learning model. In particular, participants’ confidence was driven primarily by how well they observed themselves doing, not by idealized statistical inferences made from the data they observed.

Download the pdf here.

Key Points: In order to learn and understand, you need to use all the data you have accumulated, not just the feedback on your most recent performance.  In this way, feedback, rather than hard evidence, increases a person's sense of certainty when learning new things, or how to tell right from wrong.

Fascinating research, I hope I am interpreting it correctly.  I am not all that certain.