JonT
12-02-2005, 09:06 AM
Hello there again,
I’ve been looking through the archives for the use of logical fallacies as a technique for deliberately creating beliefs. Apart from a few heated debates, there doesn’t seem to have been much discussion. The person in question doesn’t seem to post here any more, but they’re something I’m particularly interested in, however, because unpicking the mental messes my friends get themselves into yields quite a few. I started studying them seriously about a year ago, and I must admit to being a bit of a geek about collecting new ones and using them deliberately.
For instance, A came to me to say how much she disliked a mutual friend, B. She was sad because they’d been such good friends. We explored what A felt, and it seemed that she had decided she disliked B based on what’s called the Negativity Effect. That is to say, she was attributing B’s adverse actions towards her due to B being a nasty person, with perfectly good evidence for arriving at that conclusion. The flipside is the Positivity Effect, whereby people attribute adverse actions of others to their circumstances rather than their character. I decided to put the evidence A had used to arrive at the conclusion about B’s character through the Positivity effect and play it back to her. Surprisingly, A saw this new conclusion as being perfectly reasonable too and adopted it without question. That led her to trying to get closer to B again and they’re once more the best of friends.
I’ve collected and documented several dozen fallacies in some depth, so much so that their use in several ad campaigns is becoming quite apparent. For instance, over here, the National Lottery uses the slogan “Think Lucky”. If that’s all it took to win the jackpot, well, you can imagine the outcry! This, as far as I can see, is an example of the Illusion of Control. People do strange “lucky” things, like buying certain things when they buy their lottery tickets, crossing their fingers, or tying their shoes in a certain way to ensure success. There’s even some research into the psychology of people at the craps table: they shake longer if they need higher numbers – which is nonsensical given that they then throw the dice about ten feet! In my own observations during games of Monopoly, the tendency is to shake harder to get past squares containing hotels, even though the dice produce random numbers regardless of how much you shake. But here’s the thing: if you say something like “shake harder because you need to pass go”, people tend to find this entirely reasonable and do so without question.
I’ve been experimenting further, and it seems that people are more prone to accepting the conclusion of a fallacy if it has a pleasing outcome, whatever “pleasing” means to them. For instance, “we could leave the pub after this one, but it’s still raining outside, so if I get another round in, we’ll really be sheltering from the rain on the way home.” This is an example of a fallacy known as an appeal. Another good one you see in advertising runs something like, “ten thousand women can’t be wrong.” Oh yes they can! This is an example of the appeal to popularity.
The list seems endless. Put a pretty girl next to her less attractive friend and the contrast effect makes her look prettier. “All people from country X are lazy. Y is from country X. I hate him because he’s a lazy X.” Clearly, this is nonsense (it's an example of the the existential fallacy). Everyone’s an individual, but you try telling a racist!
Being a writer with an interest in conversational techniques, and looking for an interesting book project to get me partly out of magazine writing, I’m just wondering; has this sort of thing been done? Amazon only lists “Nonsense - A Handbook of Logical Fallacies” by Robert Gula, and nothing on using them deliberately to create specific beliefs and to produce actions.
Sorry. I’m rambling again. I really must cut down on the coffee.
I’ve been looking through the archives for the use of logical fallacies as a technique for deliberately creating beliefs. Apart from a few heated debates, there doesn’t seem to have been much discussion. The person in question doesn’t seem to post here any more, but they’re something I’m particularly interested in, however, because unpicking the mental messes my friends get themselves into yields quite a few. I started studying them seriously about a year ago, and I must admit to being a bit of a geek about collecting new ones and using them deliberately.
For instance, A came to me to say how much she disliked a mutual friend, B. She was sad because they’d been such good friends. We explored what A felt, and it seemed that she had decided she disliked B based on what’s called the Negativity Effect. That is to say, she was attributing B’s adverse actions towards her due to B being a nasty person, with perfectly good evidence for arriving at that conclusion. The flipside is the Positivity Effect, whereby people attribute adverse actions of others to their circumstances rather than their character. I decided to put the evidence A had used to arrive at the conclusion about B’s character through the Positivity effect and play it back to her. Surprisingly, A saw this new conclusion as being perfectly reasonable too and adopted it without question. That led her to trying to get closer to B again and they’re once more the best of friends.
I’ve collected and documented several dozen fallacies in some depth, so much so that their use in several ad campaigns is becoming quite apparent. For instance, over here, the National Lottery uses the slogan “Think Lucky”. If that’s all it took to win the jackpot, well, you can imagine the outcry! This, as far as I can see, is an example of the Illusion of Control. People do strange “lucky” things, like buying certain things when they buy their lottery tickets, crossing their fingers, or tying their shoes in a certain way to ensure success. There’s even some research into the psychology of people at the craps table: they shake longer if they need higher numbers – which is nonsensical given that they then throw the dice about ten feet! In my own observations during games of Monopoly, the tendency is to shake harder to get past squares containing hotels, even though the dice produce random numbers regardless of how much you shake. But here’s the thing: if you say something like “shake harder because you need to pass go”, people tend to find this entirely reasonable and do so without question.
I’ve been experimenting further, and it seems that people are more prone to accepting the conclusion of a fallacy if it has a pleasing outcome, whatever “pleasing” means to them. For instance, “we could leave the pub after this one, but it’s still raining outside, so if I get another round in, we’ll really be sheltering from the rain on the way home.” This is an example of a fallacy known as an appeal. Another good one you see in advertising runs something like, “ten thousand women can’t be wrong.” Oh yes they can! This is an example of the appeal to popularity.
The list seems endless. Put a pretty girl next to her less attractive friend and the contrast effect makes her look prettier. “All people from country X are lazy. Y is from country X. I hate him because he’s a lazy X.” Clearly, this is nonsense (it's an example of the the existential fallacy). Everyone’s an individual, but you try telling a racist!
Being a writer with an interest in conversational techniques, and looking for an interesting book project to get me partly out of magazine writing, I’m just wondering; has this sort of thing been done? Amazon only lists “Nonsense - A Handbook of Logical Fallacies” by Robert Gula, and nothing on using them deliberately to create specific beliefs and to produce actions.
Sorry. I’m rambling again. I really must cut down on the coffee.