Mind Games

Here is taste from an interesting dialog on pschology and behavioural economics:

KAHNEMAN: Those effects would be small at the margin, but there are those effects that are small at the margin that can change election results. You call and ask people ahead of time, "Will you vote?". That's all. "Do you intend to vote?". That increases voting participation substantially, and you can measure it. It's a completely trivial manipulation, but saying 'Yes' to a stranger, "I will vote" ...

MYHRVOLD: But to Elon's point, suppose you had the choice of calling up and saying, "Are you going to vote?", so you prime them to vote, versus exhorting them to vote.

KAHNEMAN: The prime could very well work better than the exhortation because exhortation is going to induce resistance, whereas the prime ‚the mild embarrassment causes you to make what feels like a commitment, and the commitment, if it's sufficiently precise, is going to have an effect on behavior.

THALER: If you ask them when they're going to vote, and how they're going to get there, that increases voting.

KAHNEMAN: And where.

This is a technique used frequently in the classroom by effective teachers. We would typically refer to it as "illiciting an image". When you ask, "Are there any questions?" students instictively think, "no." When you ask, "What questions do you have?" students instinctively start to think of clarifying or probing questions.

The manipulation is fantastically subtle and not without everyday applications.

HT: MR