Advanced Code of Influence

Book 3

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Table of Contents

BOOK 3: COGNITION, HEURISTICS & CATEGORIZATION ............................................................... 3

Social Cognition........................................................................................................................................ 3

The Role of Heuristics .............................................................................................................................. 8

Representativeness Heuristic .................................................................................................................. 10

Availability Heuristic .............................................................................................................................. 15

False Consensus Effect ........................................................................................................................... 17

Anchoring Heuristic ................................................................................................................................ 19

We Are Social Tacticians ........................................................................................................................ 22

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BOOK 3: COGNITION, HEURISTICS &

CATEGORIZATION

Social Cognition

The world we live in makes sense to us because

humans are capable of social cognition. Social

cognition is an over-arching term that refers to

how people process and encode information at

any given time and how people recall and utilize

the same when they need to understand the

behavior of other people.

It is very important to understand how people

actually process information when they are

trying to make sense of other people‟s speech

and actions. Earlier in the book we focused on

some primary theories regarding attribution,

self-esteem and so forth.

Attribution is a vital social process that allows

people to analyze behaviors and events easily.

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However, more recent studies in social

psychology reveal that people do not necessarily

engage in critical/analytic processes all the time.

So it is possible for a person to attribute causal

relations but it is also possible that he is

working purely on „gut feel‟. Does this mean

that people are just plain lazy because they don‟t

like to „think things through‟? Not necessarily.

We have to remember that people have to face a

lot of information on a daily basis. Analysis and

critical thinking are very taxing and people have

limited cognitive resources. Due to the

limitations of the human mind when it comes to

processing large volumes of information, people

have to use „shortcuts‟ to arrive at

rationalizations that will still help them make

sense of the world at large.

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Back in the 70s and 80s, social scientists and

psychologists championed the idea that people

were constantly thinking about people and

physical reality. Scientists came up with models

that answered some questions about how people

actually attributed causal relations to the things

they encounter on a daily basis.

Social scientists came up with the idea that

people were „naïve scientists‟ because they

believed that we were always constantly testing

our theories and inferences about reality. Fast

forward to the nineties – younger researchers

began seeing the flaws of the earlier models of

attribution.

For one, these models were inherently limited

because of fixed coordinates (consistency,

frequency, etc.). And statistically there was no

hard data that proved that people were indeed

naïve scientists all the time.

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And so they created another theory: that people

are actually cognitive misers. Cognitive misers,

as the name implies, do not expend a lot of

effort in trying to critically analyze available

information.

Instead, they take shortcuts or they take „thin

slices‟ of information so they can make an

analysis of a particular situation instead of using

a longer process of deduction and attribution.

Since humans are essentially limited when it

comes to cognitive resources, it is worthwhile to

explore the newer theories of social cognition

because you would be able to apply these in

your question for influence.

We must remember though that even though

people have a tendency to take cognitive

shortcuts to make inferences, it doesn‟t mean

that they will be at risk for inaccurate

inferences.

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Amazingly, even though people have a tendency

to skip long attribution processes, they are still

able to produce accurate inferences about events

and most importantly, the behavior of the people

they meet.

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The Role of Heuristics

How are people able to create snappy yet

accurate judgments without going through

complex mental calculations? How can a person

remain rational or logical even if he is

essentially a cognitive miser? The answer lies in

heuristics.

Heuristics works in this manner: people take a

large chunk of information (i.e. casual relations)

and create a „rule of thumb‟ based on what they

have understood from the large chunk of casual

relations. After creating the rule of thumb,

similar situations will trigger the memory of the

rule of thumb and people can then make quick

judgments based on the rule of thumb alone.

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It is very easy to create inferences based on pre-

formulated rules of thumb. However, this

method „thin slicing‟ information does come

with a downside. Social scientists discovered

that no matter how objective a person is,

heuristics still produces biased output (just like

attributions). Now, there are actually two kinds

of heuristic cognitive methods:

representativeness heuristic and availability

heuristic.

Information Heuristics:

"Rule of thumb"

Instant judgment/

inferences

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Representativeness Heuristic

This type of heuristic utilizes general categories

or prototypes to produce valid inferences about

a situation, thing or behavior. When a person

receives an input (i.e. a peculiar behavior from

someone), he will immediately reach into his

reservoir of categories to check if he already has

a schema or category for this type of behavior.

If he is able to match the behavior with a

category that already exists in his memory, he

will stick to this category and make a decision

based on what the heuristic method has given

him. The representativeness heuristic is present

even in the small things that we do on a daily

basis. Here are some examples:

When you go to a clinic, you try to find:

1. A man or woman wearing a scrub suit

(NURSE)

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2.A man or woman wearing a stethoscope and

a white laboratory gown (DOCTOR)

If you want to find a commodity in an

unfamiliar grocery store:

1.You try to find an aisle that has similar

products

You are lost and you don‟t know which

direction to go:

1.You try to find road signs to more familiar

areas

2.You try to find a sign that will lead you to a

gas station or someplace where you can ask

directions

The representativeness heuristic is a deeply

ingrained skill that every person has. Though it

is still essentially a theoretical model, I can say

with confidence that this heuristic is used by

people very frequently and on a daily basis.

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Imagine how you can apply this knowledge to

increase your influence. Since people use the

representativeness heuristic to make quick

judgments, you can shape your words and

behavior so that people would become confident

of what you are trying to convey more quickly,

since you are sending out the right signals that

trigger both emotional and logical responses

from the other person.

So for example, if you are trying to sell a

product or service to another person, you won‟t

have to think of very complex ways to influence

the other person to trust in what you say. You

just have to identify potential triggers that will

convert the other person‟s thinking pattern.

Now, while it is very convenient for a person

who is trying to influence someone to use a

particular tendency or weakness (in this case,

representativeness heuristic), we must also

remember that the representativeness heuristic

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still produces biased inferences or causal

relations.

Each person‟s particular bias to different social

representations can produce desirable or no so

desirable valuations of your own words and

actions. For example, if you try to dress up well

just before a meeting to impress your bosses,

you may impress your bosses but other

members of the meeting (i.e. your team

members or project co-workers) may think of

you as a complete braggart because you dressed

above them.

The bosses think you are showing your

professionalism since you dressed well before

presenting facts to them. However, your co-

workers will think that you might be trying to

make them look bad because some of them are

wearing old suits and shirts while you chose to

wear new suit on the day of your big

presentation.

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Regardless of your actual intentions, people

would still use the representative heuristic to

categorize you the moment they see you. Going

back to the presentation/meeting scenario, if you

overdress, members of the upper echelon of

your company will immediately categorize you

with terms like “well dressed” or “smartly

dressed” while your co-workers will probably

think of you as “over-dressed” or “a braggart”.

As you can see, when a person makes an

inference using the representative heuristic, he

automatically misses out on other potential

inferences that may be more accurate than his

first inference.

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Availability Heuristic

While the representative heuristic is used to

analyze people‟s behavior, the availability

heuristic is more frequently used to determine

whether or not an event is likely to happen

based on available information about similar

events.

The availability heuristic is intimately

associated with informational accessibility or

the degree at which a person can easily recall a

situation or event from his own memory. The

big difference between the availability heuristic

and informational accessibility is that there is a

subjective participation when one uses the

availability heuristic.

For example, the concept of cookies is easily

accessible for most people but that does not

mean that a person would be constantly

recalling his subjective experiences about

cookies. The only time that the information

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becomes part of s heuristic would be when a

person has to recall something related to cookies

when he has to make a decision related to

cookies.

The availability heuristic in situations where we

feel anxious about doing something because we

have read or heard about something similar. For

example, if there are a string of muggings in

your area, you would have a natural fear to go

out alone at night because of the stories that you

hear from your neighbors.

Because of the high accessibility of related

information (i.e. stories about the muggings),

you are led to believe that you should not go out

at night alone because you might be mugged,

too.

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False Consensus Effect

The false consensus effect is a specific bias that

usually results from the use of the availability

heuristic. The false consensus effect points to

the tendency of some people to exaggerate the

validity of their own opinion by thinking that

the majority of those around them will have the

same opinion.

There is no way to measure whether or not the

majority of the population will agree with a

person and therefore, the false consensus effect

will never generate anything that is truly

objective/neutral or statistics-based. People just

think that other agree with them. For example, if

you ask someone if he likes a particular

restaurant, his train of thought would be

something like:

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1.“Yes, I like that restaurant it serves really

good food at really great prices.”

2.“I think other people like this restaurant,

too”

3.“9 out of 10, people around this area will

choose this restaurant over other

restaurants.”

As you can see, a person who has a false

consensus effect will defend his positive or

negative statement about something by citing

false consensus, regardless of what other people

actually think or feel about something.

The false consensus effect is quite common

among people because long standing beliefs are

easily pulled from the conscious memory.

Strongly held beliefs are tied integrally to our

own behaviors and tendencies and therefore, our

judgment of other people‟s appearance,

behavior, credibility, etc., are partially

influenced by our own behavioral biases.

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Anchoring Heuristic

The anchoring heuristic has some similarities to

the availability heuristic. First, it is also based

on informational accessibility. The more

accessible the information, the more quickly this

heuristic is used. Second, the anchoring

heuristic can also result in a false consensus

effect.

However, the big difference between the

anchoring heuristic and the availability heuristic

is that with the anchoring heuristic it is not the

informational accessibility that is the primary

influence but the order at which options are

given to a person.

The anchoring heuristic is also more commonly

used when a person has to give a quantitative

analysis of a situation. Studies regarding the

anchoring heuristic have shown that people are

more likely to provide a higher quantitative

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estimate if a person was given a higher starting

point.

So for example, if you asked a person if there

would be a 90% chance of his favorite team

winning (as opposed to asking him if there was

more than a 1% chance of the team winning), he

would probably state a higher quantitative

estimate if you use the “90%” anchor.

According to social scientists, our own use of

the anchoring heuristic is dependent not only on

our own capacity to analyze but also on a

peculiar mechanism in our minds. You see,

when something is presented to you in a series,

the first thing that is given to you becomes the

most accessible piece of information in the

series.

So in essence, the mind latches on to this first

element and slowly, the mind‟s ability to latch

on to the second element, third element and so

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forth, is reduced over time (since our cognitive

resources are inherently limited).

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We Are Social Tacticians

Reading through all the strategies that I have

included in this book, you might be thinking:

which strategy is really being used by people?

Which theory is the correct theory? Truth be

told, we cannot really pin down a single social

theory when it comes to influence and identity.

In fact, if we were to do that, we would

continually hit a brick wall because people don‟t

process information using just one internal

paradigm. People are essentially social

tacticians regardless of culture and education.

Over time, people learn how to use different

processing strategies to protect and enhance

their self-concepts. And over time, people are

also able to examine different human behaviors

and events using different theoretical models.

Of course, people don‟t have to read about

social attribution, social representation and all

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these theories to be able to use them. Always

remember that the social aspects of culture were

formed before these theories were created.

These theories only describe the existing social

phenomena. Now if we were to think about how

people process information, you might think

that there would be some incongruence between

reality and these theories.

For example, we discussed earlier that people

can be cognitive misers because they make use

of „rule of thumb‟ to „thinly slice‟ information

to make quicker evaluations of what‟s in front

of them.

While it is true that this situations, people

choose to expend their cognitive resources to

come up with a critical appraisal of an event or

situation. What does this all mean? Does this

mean that people are thinking chaotically and

that meaningfulness can only be derived through

this chaos? Not necessarily.

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What we do know now is that people also

evaluate their inferences and attributions before

they can wholeheartedly believe in these and

that there are also other factors that affect a

person‟s approach to analysis.

People can also make use of a variety of

different methods to come up with a satisfactory

analysis of a situation. Now, social scientists

have been able to identify four major factors

that affect how a person chooses his strategies

when analyzing social situations:

1.Time availability

2.Cognitive load

3.Importance

4.Informational availability

Let‟s discuss the first factor, which is time

availability. If a person is in a rush and he has to

make a quick judgment about something, which

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strategy would be most likely? Well, it has been

discovered that people choose heuristics over

other methods because this approach offers the

fastest route to a sound and accurate judgment.

I‟m not saying that every decision based on

heuristics is a sound one, but we have to admit

that heuristics (anchor, representativeness and

availability) is a fairly easy way to get a good

answer to our personal queries.

If a person does not have enough time to think

of something critically, using heuristic methods

is the best option because it produces an answer

that would at least be close to a critical answer.

The soundness of an attribution created with

heuristics will not be questioned because a

person who is using heuristics would be making

use of his long-standing beliefs and subjective

experiences to “thinly slice” a situation.

The next major factor in our list is cognitive

load. Cognitive load refers to the amount of

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cognitive resources needed to carry out a mental

task. Among all the theories we have discussed

so far, heuristics offers the lowest cognitive load

among all the methods.

Inversely, a person who wishes to test his

theories about the world at large would have to

expend a lot more mental energy to get

satisfactory answers because he would analyze

variables from the target situation itself,

whereas in heuristics, you don‟t even have to

analyze the situation anymore.

You just note the event and try to match the

event with an existing experience in your

memory. Also, if you have a high cognitive load

to begin with (i.e. you are thinking about your

work all the time), you simply won‟t have any

time left to engage in more critical/analytical

thought patterns. The mind would shift gears

and choose heuristics over long attribution

processes because you already have something

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in your mind that you have to pay close

attention to.

The third factor is importance. We all know that

not all information is important. In fact, I‟m

willing to bet that 85% of all the information

that you receive on a daily basis is not crucial

and does not require your immediate attention.

This is one unfortunate truth that we have to

contend with in our modern time. With the

further evolution of the Internet, things have

changed considerably. Thirty years ago, people

were only barraged by advertisements and other

wads of „disposable information‟ when a person

choose to read a newspaper or any other printed

medium.

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With the Internet, information overload is

highly likely. The human mind is extremely

efficient. It won‟t allow the information

overload to get the best of it. What it will do is it

will simply raise its selectivity level so that only

the most crucial bits of information are

processed thoroughly.

For example, if you receive an advertisement for

a hair growth solution, would you think about

that more than a call that says that your house

was on fire? Of course not. The mind

automatically (and urgently) pulls to the surface

memories and schemas so you make a quick and

almost reflexive decision to disregard the hair

growth advertisement because your house is on

fire.

Also, people tend to be more critical if the

information at hand is vital to one‟s career, life,

etc. You won‟t be making snap judgments if

you received information that your debt has

tripled in the past three months. You will

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immediately discard the heuristics in favor of

the more critical thinking process.

And finally, the fourth major factor is

informational availability. When someone tells

you that a new burger joint down the block is

serving the best food because their hamburgers

are extremely fat and juicy, is it possible to

critically analyze the situation? Sadly, no.

There is simply too little information at hand

and you don‟t even have subjective experience

yet. So in some instances, it is impossible to be

critical immediately if informational availability

is far too low.

In such instances, you will be forced to resort to

heuristics to make a decision. Will you go to the

new burger joint? You can only make an

informed decision by pulling out similar

experiences and memories and thus, you would

be using heuristics instead of critical attribution.