[HN Gopher] The piranha problem in social psychology / behaviora...
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The piranha problem in social psychology / behavioral economics
(2017)
Author : Tomte
Score : 38 points
Date : 2022-05-06 17:20 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu)
| notahacker wrote:
| The problem with the piranha analogy is you can apply the _large
| number of possible causes and effects which occur in different
| directions_ to pretty much any science, social or otherwise.
| There are at any one time a very large number of pathogens
| competing for the attention of the immune system all associated
| with overlapping symptoms and thus many competing hypotheses
| about the cause of a particular ailment, but this doesn 't make
| the study of medicine futile.
|
| Even if you've got competing parties actively trying to nudge
| people in a particular direction, it doesn't mean there is no
| discernible effect; increases in political polarisation and
| emotional attachment to brands can be observed even as people
| consciously attempt to nudge other people in broadly opposite
| directions.
|
| This doesn't mean the social psychology and behavioural economics
| experiments hypotheses are necessarily good ones or the
| experiments well constructed. But complex systems and competing
| hypotheses are present in all science and are what controlled
| experiments and statistical controls are for...
| dash2 wrote:
| There's a related criticism made by some economists about
| psychology: the 1-800 critique.[1] The pattern is that
| psychologists claim that effect X exists, e.g. "hostile media
| bias" or "social identity" or "priming". But they don't say
| _when_ it will apply, i.e. in what circumstances. So the critique
| was, these guys need to put a 1-800 number on their papers, so
| you can call them and ask, hey will your effect apply in my
| situation?
|
| [1]
| http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.199....
| [deleted]
| booboofixer wrote:
| Always thought the 'nudges' often referred to in these
| experiments would only work if participants were unaware of their
| existence. If participants become aware of the fact that they're
| being 'nudged' one way or the other, then their reaction will
| depend on whether or not they have issues with authority, whether
| they value their freedom enough to fight for their right to have
| an independent opinion free from manipulation by other actors,
| and probably a few other factors.
| krageon wrote:
| Most normal people can be told they are being manipulated and
| it will still work. The percentage that will actually hold the
| thought that they should resist in their mind without losing
| focus is very small, in my experience.
| shanusmagnus wrote:
| Many of the successful nudges are things that people don't
| _want_ to resist, it's just taking frictions away, e.g., organ
| donation, saving in your 401k, registering to vote, not eating
| garbage, etc. Stuff people would generally express interest in
| doing.
| shanusmagnus wrote:
| This was a great article -- would love recommendations of
| anything else in a similar vein!
| lupire wrote:
| The comment about "color of a box vs its volume" is even better
| than the "piranha" metaphor.
| tbm57 wrote:
| Somebody's reaction to the color blue is probably socially
| constructed, like the author suggests. There's several
| generations of popular culture in the US that reinforce the idea
| that 'blue equals sad.'
|
| But someone's reaction to a smile is on a more instinctual level.
| I'm pretty sure that smiles carry a universal meaning for people
| going as young as infancy. So, it doesn't seem misguided to look
| for these effects that happen outside of a particular cultural
| context.
| barry-cotter wrote:
| > Somebody's reaction to the color blue is probably socially
| constructed, like the author suggests.
|
| On some level this is obviously true. The important question is
| on what level? Blue being male coded, socially construed. Blue
| being perceived as colder probably not, which leans me towards
| sadness association being real. Something to test.
|
| On a related note I listened to an Agnes Callard podcast we
| here she used small girls as examples of experts, on
| prettiness, as that's the thing they care about
| disproportionately much. Thus the fact that they agree pink and
| purple are the prettiest colors is evidence this is in some
| real way true. I thought that was interesting as my son's
| favorite colors at the time were purple and mauve. He's now
| moved on to pink. I'm persuaded that something like an
| objective ranking of color pleasantness exists. Obviously you
| can self-modify to like things, like architects self-modify to
| find Brutalism and other crimes a against beauty good, or how
| people grow to like coffee.
| [deleted]
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