It's All About Popular

Popularity gets you far. Being liked by others means people will go out of their way to please you, and try to link themselves to you in some way, so that they too can benefit. On the other hand, we distance ourselves from unpopular people, to try to salvage our own self-esteem and sense of belonging. In social psychology, two concepts get at this notion of linking ourselves to the popular and successful and distancing ourselves from the unpopular and unsuccessful: basking in reflected glory (BIRGing) and casting off reflected failure (CORFing), respectively. So what happens when the leader of the US is so unpopular?

FiveThirtyEight explored this notion of popularity with regard to the recent presidential election. It shouldn't come as a surprise, based on his treatment in the media, that Donald Trump is the least-liked presidential candidate in recent history. What is unusual is that he won despite this fact:

[I]t would be wrong to look at the 2016 election results and conclude that favorability ratings are irrelevant. Trump actually did about as well nationally as you’d expect, given his and Hillary Clinton’s favorability ratings. She was a little more popular than he was and she will probably win the national popular vote by a couple of percentage points. In state after state, people who had a favorable view of Clinton generally voted for her, and people who had a favorable view of Trump generally voted for him.

But here’s the deciding factor: The group that made the difference turned out to be people who disliked both candidates. They swung toward Trump, giving him the White House.

Gee, thanks, guys.

But now that Trump is the president-elect, he needs to get ready to govern and then, you know, actually govern. And he's doing this with a net favorability rating of -13. For comparison, Obama's post-election favorability rating was +13. Even George W. Bush's post-election favorability rating for his second term was positive, +9. And this last fact is important because Bush faced major struggles with enacting his agenda during his second term. People aren't motivated to help you out if they perceive you as unpopular, because they risk tarnishing their own reputation as a result.

Now, it's likely that Trump's favorability rating will improve after his inauguration, a relationship that has been observed in recent elections:

Still, even if Trump gets a 20-point bump, the highest post-inauguration bump observed in recent history, that would only get him to +7. The last time an incoming president had that low of a rating was FDR when he entered his third term in 1941. That would be a difficult year for FDR and the US, as in that year the US experienced the bombing of Pearl Harbor - which some leaders blamed on FDR. Of course, it can be argued that FDR won his fourth term because the US was at war, and people don't tend to want a leadership change during that kind of conflict.

It's unclear exactly what will happen during the Trump administration, but what we can guess from past data is that he's going to experience roadblocks, which will only get worse if/when his favorability slides even lower.

Studying Real-Time Decision-Making

We are called upon to make decisions thousands of times a day, from the moment we wake up to the moment we go to bed. Some of these decisions we think through systematically, while others are made quickly with little conscious thought. Though I've blogged before that quick decisions are not necessarily less accurate than slow decisions, there are certainly situations where you need to think through your options before making a choice.

There are a variety of factors that can affect your decision-making. And today I learned that time of day may be one of them. A group of Argentinian researchers decided to study the impact of time of day on decision-making. And they did it in a brilliant way - by examining online chess matches:

The research team, which included postdoctoral fellow María Juliana Leone (who won a Woman International Master chess title in 1999) and APS Fellow Mariano Sigman, found that decision-making abilities do appear to fluctuate across the day: In the morning decisions tend to be slower but more accurate, and late in the day decisions were made more abruptly with less accuracy.

When it comes to our behavior and time of day, individual differences in circadian rhythms, called chronotypes, play a role in when people prefer to go to sleep and when they wake up. Individuals who prefer to stay up late are called “owls” and those who prefer to get up early are called “larks.” Other individuals are somewhere in the middle.

The researchers recruited samples of players who had played at least 2,000 games. Approximately 100 participants were asked to note their Time Zone, age, and to complete a Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire (MEQ), which indicates morning or evening preferences. The players also completed a short questionnaire about daily sleep routines, meal habits, and wake-up times.

As a control group, the researchers also included games from 14 computers that regularly play in FICS, since “computers are not expected to have diurnal fluctuations in the decision process.”

The results showed that chess playing activity tended to follow along with a player’s chronotype: Larks played more games in the morning and owls played more often in the evening. However, chronotype did not appear to have a significant impact on play performance. Regardless of players’ chronotype, the researchers observed a consistent pattern in decision-making quality and time of day.

Sharing in Ignorance

This morning, a friend shared this article: Scientists say giant asteroid could hit earth next week, causing mass devastation.

You should really read it.

No, really, read it. Go ahead, I'll wait.

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Back now? Good. So if you actually read the article, you would see it was just a ruse to get you to click. What the article is actually about is a study finding that people often share articles without having read them first. Specifically, 59% of links on social media have never been clicked on:

To verify that depressing piece of conventional Internet wisdom, Legout and his co-authors collected two data sets: the first, on all tweets containing Bit.ly-shortened links to five major news sources during a one-month period last summer; the second, on all of the clicks attached to that set of shortened links, as logged by Bit.ly, during the same period. After cleaning and collating that data, the researchers basically found themselves with a map to how news goes viral on Twitter.

And that map showed, pretty clearly, that “viral” news is widely shared — but not necessarily, you know, read. (I’m really only typing this sentence for 4 in 10 people in the audience.)

This is especially concerning, given that the study also found that most clicks to news stories were made on posts by regular users, rather than the news organizations themselves. Since the links had to originate with the news organization first, this means that the people who start the share cycle generally don't read the article either. A person starts a viral post without really even knowing what they're sending out.

Even more concerning when you realize how misleading and even incorrect headlines can be. In fact, both of the articles linked in this post have misleading headlines - one purposefully and the other due to a misunderstanding of the results. That is, the study didn't find that 6 out of 10 people don't click on links; it found that 6 out of 10 link shares don't get clicked on. That's a lot of misinformation floating around.

And when you think of topics that can have important ramifications on, say, policy, voting decisions, and so on, it's important to know what an article actually says and whether the headline is accurate. Because if it isn't, and you share it anyway, many people who see your post will make a conclusion just based on the headline. And they may pass it on to others who do the same thing.

Q is for Quick v. Slow Processing

Today is the first cheat day - that is, I kind of cheated in coming up with a q-themed title. Usually, this concept is referred to as fast-slow processing. But close enough, right?

Basically, your thought processes can be divided into two types: fast (quick) and slow. There are a few different theories about these different processes, but they're all categorized as "dual process theories." The two big ones are Chaiken's Heuristic Systematic Model and Petty and Cacioppo's Elaboration Likelihood Model (which is actually a model of persuasion). Additionally, Kahneman calls them "intuition" and "reasoning."

As I've blogged about before, we're cognitive misers - mental energy is a fixed resource and so we save it for the times we really need it. So we tend to go through life on auto-pilot, processing things quickly and with as little effort as needed. In Chaiken's model, we call these heuristics, which are quick categories or mental shortcuts. What feels good or makes us happy? What do we usually do? This is great if you're deciding, for instance, where to go for lunch.

In Petty and Cacioppo's model of persuasion, this is called the peripheral route. We may choose to believe someone because they have a higher degree or are attractive. Persuasion occuring on this route is often temporary. We may be persuaded in the moment, but that attitude change is not likely to "stick." You may have experienced a time before when a friend is persuaded to a new way of thinking, and vehemently expresses that new attitude, only to fall back to their old way of thinking.

The other route is systematic. We think really hard about what we want, employing logic and reason, as well as emotions, to come to a conclusion. In Petty and Cacioppo's model, this is called the central route. We think critically about what the person trying to persuade us is saying and doing, and come to our own conclusions. Persuasion occuring through this route is more long-term. We may have a permanent, or nearly permanent, change in attitude.

Which route or approach we take depends on two things: ability and motivation. We must be able to think critically or systematically about something in order to do that. Therefore, a person with higher intelligence is more likely to engage in central route or systematic processing.

But - and there's always a but - we must also have the motivation to do so. Two people may be of different levels of intelligence, but if the high intelligence person is unmotivated to think critically, s/he won't look much different than the low ability person. Because we're cognitive misers, we tend to function at low motivation for thought.

Now, there are some people who are more motivated to think systematically than others. We call these people "high need for cognition." Those are the people who, for instance, go through all the pros and cons about different lunch options before making a decision. They will still use heuristics or peripheral route processing on occasion, because even though their motivation is high, their ability might be low moment to moment if they've expended a lot of cognitive resources. But because high need for cognition people tend to have higher baseline ability, they have more resources to work with, and it takes them longer to exhaust those resources.

It's important to point out that decisions made using heuristics or peripheral route processing are not necessarily wrong. You may, for instance, choose to believe a person because she has a PhD in a topic, without really processing what she has to say. But another person who thinks critically may also believe the person and be persuaded, because of the strength of the arguments. And there are certainly times when systematic thought is unnecessary.

When Thinking Feels Hard: New Layouts, New Features, and New Thought Patterns

It feels like the Internet landscape is changing.  Recently, Facebook unveiled its new look (as well as some additional features that have had more than a few express concerns about privacy).  As with any new Facebook roll-out, people are complaining.  The news feed has been replaced with Top Stories and Not So Top Stories (okay, not the term, but that's what it comes down to).  On the side, users not only have the chat list that has been available for some time, but a Twitter-style feed (dubbed the ADD bar) giving real-time updates from friends, friends of friends, and the occasional random friend of a friend of a friend.

As people have pointed out, the people who complain about a Facebook update are likely the same people who complained about the update before that, and before that, perhaps suggesting that some people like to complain.  But just like Dr. Gregory House thinks everyone lies, I say, "Everyone complains", at some time or another.  I think there's more to these layout changes than predisposition to complain.  That's right, ladies and gents, I'm talking about the situational influences - notice a theme here? :)

You may also have noticed the look of this blog has changed.  'Tis the season.  It seems like as a child, I would always want to reinvent myself in the Fall.  Perhaps the same is true for websites.  But how might these changes influence our perceptions?

A few years ago, I had the pleasure of listening to researcher Norbert Schwarz give a talk at my grad school alma mater, Loyola University Chicago.  If you've never checked out his research, you definitely should; visit his homepage here.  Not only is he incredibly friendly and funny, his research, while definitely theory-driven, is incredibly applicable to a variety of social situations.  Or maybe it's that he's really good at taking theories and applying them to a variety of situations; either way, I would love to be able to do that.  Theory is not my strong point.

One area Schwarz has studied a great deal is metacognitive experiences, basically thinking about thinking, and how we use cues from our thinking to influence the way we think.  Wow, that made so much more sense in my head.  Okay, how about a concrete example?  Let's say I show you an ad for a car, then ask you to come up with a list of 10 reasons why you should buy that car.

Go ahead and get started on your list; I can wait.

Unless you know a lot about the car or I offered a really great option to consider (Batmobile anyone?), you probably had a lot of trouble coming up with a list of 10 items.  You might use that cue, "Wow, thinking of 10 items was really hard" to tell you something about whether you really want to buy the car.  That is, because thinking felt difficult, you took that as a cue to mean the thing you were considering was not that good.  Schwarz refers to this perceived ease/difficulty as "processing fluency".

Schwarz has shown that processing fluency can be manipulated in many ways, such as by using an illegible font or by asking participants to remember very specific personal events (such as 12 times you behaved assertively).  Another way is familiarity; more familiar things are easier to process.

Now obviously, we don't always need thinking to feel easy.  Sometimes, we encounter things to which we want to devote our full cognitive effort.  But as I mentioned in a previous blog post, we're cognitive misers.  We're choosey with how we spend our cognitive resources.  If we're asked to learn a new software package for work, for example, we might be willing to devote the effort (there are a lot of other variables operating, but this is just a for instance).  Facebook, on the other hand, is a leisure time activity, and many people who aren't high need-for-cognition folks would rather be able to have fun without thinking too hard.

But people continue to use Facebook, and though some users have likely split recently, Facebook currently has 750 million members (according to Google population data, the Earth's population is currently 6,775,235,700, so that means about 1 of every 9 people uses Facebook).  Perhaps processing fluency is not the only issue at work here; the very nature of the social networking site is, well, it's social.  Your friends are there, and in some cases, it might be your only opportunity for interaction.  That might make some people unlikely to leave (of course, since Google+ is now open to the public, the landscape may continue to shift).

For those who left Facebook, I'd love to hear your reasons (in comments below), even if you left long before the recent update.  For those who stuck around, don't worry; eventually you'll get used to the new look and thinking won't feel so difficult... just in time for the next update.

Thoughtfully yours,
Sara

Citizen Journalists and Credibility

Five years ago this month, CNN started an initiative called iReport, where regular people could generate news content. Though visitors to CNN.com can access these iReports via the iReport page, CNN will also occasionally place iReport stories on their main homepage as well. In a recent story covering what the iReport news team consider to be the five stories that defined their "year one", many commenters attacked the initiative, saying iReport stories were "non news-worthy", and "lack the credibility and the training to hold such an important place on the website". Others posted support for iReports, saying that these "iReporters" put more efforts into fact-checking and proofreading than regular CNN reporters. This notion of citizen-journalists is definitely very interesting, and could be the starting point for many interesting debates. For another day, I suppose. What I'd really like to delve into today is this idea about credibility: what determines whether someone is viewed as credible and what biases may influence that judgment?

Human beings are regularly called upon to process large amounts of information from the world around us. This information is perceived by our five senses, and the information has to be interpreted by our brain in order for us to make decisions and navigate our environment. We're very good at processing this information. We're so good in fact that people are always looking for supernatural explanations for why we're so good at it - I know a lot of people who believe in ESP, but honestly, I think that people are just very good at picking up on cues in the environment (and some people are better and faster) and that because of their skill and speed, it appears they reacted before whatever they were reacting to even happened. Once again, another post, another day.

That's not to say that biases can't be introduced into our processing. We often see what we want to see and hear what we want to hear. It's true that our current experiences are often colored by our past experiences, which I think is just another example of how awesome our brain is; not only do we process what's directly in front of us, we are processing past experiences in tandem and drawing connections between the two. This means, however, that we can make mistakes.

Want to learn more about some of these "mistakes"? Check out this list of cognitive biases.

Of course, just because we're capable of systematic processing doesn't mean we will always be raring to think things through at that level all the time. On the contrary, thinking through everything at this level would lead us to become quickly overwhelmed. Therefore, we've created mental shortcuts that help us to navigate our environment while saving our cognitive resources for the things that really matter; Susan Fiske and Shelly Taylor referred to this tendency, calling us "cognitive misers". It is important to note, however, that some people really enjoy thinking and engage in it much more than the average person; we would say they have a "high need for cognition". Even these people will occasionally engage in mental shortcuts, they just do so less frequently than the average person.

One mental shortcut is called a heuristic. Heuristics are quick rules or devices, which allow someone to draw a conclusion or solve a problem quickly and without a great deal of thought. Heuristics are not always wrong. For example, if you see someone standing on a busy street carrying a map, you can probably safely assume they are a tourist. True, you could cycle through all the possible reasons a person would be carrying a map, but the cognitive miser in you will probably just think, "Tourist", and move on (or if you're feeling altruistic, offer to help said tourist find his or her next destination). The problem is when we use these shortcuts in situations where more systematic thought is necessary.

For example, imagine you've been called for jury duty. You're presented with lots of competing evidence, and you have to use that information to determine whether the defendant is guilty or not guilty. Now would probably be a bad time to use a heuristic, but some research evidences suggest that people do use heuristics in these situations, especially when the evidence is confusing or points equally to guilt or innocence. One heuristic is referred to as "what is beautiful is good"; it is a belief that, if a defendant is physically attractive, he or she must be innocent.

Another well-known heuristic is called the "availability heuristic". When we believe something is true - such as, "Women are bad at telling jokes" - we can easily think of many examples that support our conclusion, but often have difficulty remembering examples that refute the conclusions - such as times when women showed excellent comedic skills or times when men showed poor skills. Based on having many available examples that support our conclusion, we develop even stronger beliefs that our initial conclusion is correct.

The heuristic that is probably operating here deals with source credibility. When someone is presenting information, and especially, trying to convince you of something, you could 1) listen to her arguments and systematically think through them to determine if her conclusions are valid, or 2) decide whether you agree with her based on her education and/or title. Research shows that arguments presented by someone with, for example, a PhD are judged to be more sound than the same arguments presented by, say, a high school student. True, when studies manipulate how good the arguments really are, people are generally able to differentiate good arguments from bad arguments, but even then, the PhD often still has an advantage over Joe H.S. Student.

I don't often read the iReport stories, so I don't really have any conclusions about whether there is any truth to claims of inaccuracy. It stands to reason, however, that some of these commenters are reacting to job title rather than content. An iReporter could be anybody. CNN does provide information on their vetting process - how they determine whether an iReport is accurate and worthy of being called news - but someone who is applying a heuristic to determine whether to believe this particular story may not be very motivated to read about the vetting process and determine whether that raises their estimation of an iReporter's credibility.

That’s not to say that job title is the only marker of credibility people use. For instance, Elizabeth Smart, whose kidnapping case received widespread media attention, is now a contributor to ABC News on stories involving kidnappings. ABC News clearly feels this experience qualified her to talk about kidnapping in general (and many viewers likely do, as well). Of course, her hiring did prompt the Daily Beast to ask, “Other than fame – as the victim of a horrifying crime – what exactly are her qualifications?” True, the qualifications they would like see, such as a degree in psychology or years of experience in studying kidnapping victims, could be considered a metric of knowledge – we assume someone which such training to have a lot of knowledge on the topic, but this is not always the case; once again, this is just a heuristic at work.

Heuristics are not likely to go away. Despite their flaws, these shortcuts are necessary. Imagine if every decision you made (paper or plastic, boxers or briefs, soup or salad) involved the same careful thought you currently reserve for the important decisions (city or suburbs, car or SUV, Cubs or White Sox). So what is the best way to deal with this dilemma of credibility? Other than what CNN currently does – provide a document detailing the vetting process – what could they do to set your mind at ease?

Thoughtfully yours,
Sara