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It’s something I’ve been always struggling to accept. Be it sales, academic debates, court cases, or just dinner table conversations. Why does the outcome depen

It’s something I’ve been always struggling to accept. Be it sales, academic debates, court cases, or just dinner table conversations. Why does the outcome depend on the timing and specific choice of words used? Isn’t it a proof or irrationality of it all? Shouldn’t the outcome converge to the "best" one (optimal, true) the longer the process takes?

htrp 5y ago
There's a nobel prize awarded in 02 for the guys who figured out that people are irrational
ProjectArcturis 5y ago
Yes, of course it's irrational. People are not machinelike optimizers of information accuracy. If that's your mental model of people, you're going to have a bad time.
- wombatmobile 5y ago
  The explanation is perfectly rational. Once the buyer has been convinced, his worldview is dependent upon a number of assumptions he's made by extrapolating limited information. He makes a number of those assumptions on the basis of trusting the seller. If that trust wavers, the assumptions crumble and the worldview collapses. The buyer's trust in the seller is fragile because the buyer doesn't really know the seller. His image of the seller is based on an internal model that the seller has triggered by being similar on a few heuristic markers. The buyer jumps to the conclusion that the seller is that good guy he's been waiting for, on the strength of a few matching signals. But the more the seller says after that point to demonstrate defining characteristics of his knowledge, personality, or character, the more he risks varying from the buyer's internal model. Less is more, because by increasing the number of points of comparison, the more the seller risks spoiling the match.
jfengel 5y ago
Because nobody knows the optimal, true outcome. That outcome probably doesn't exist, and even if it does, it's impossible to know with the limited information available. Practically every significant real-world interaction involves judgment calls, heuristics, and personal feelings. They feed in to you taking your best guess based on your limited information. So adding more time to the process doesn't always make it better. You may learn, for example, that the person seems untrustworthy. "Selling past the close" implies that the person doesn't understand the situation, and is pursuing more contact for some reason other than your own best interest. The disconnect suggests that you may not understand what's going on, and it may be in your best interest to break off a deal that may not be what you think it is. Humans do practically everything on the basis of very incomplete information. They use timing and word choice, among many other things, to try to close that gap. This is a very important lesson. This isn't a case of humans failing to be logical. It's a case of incomplete information, and if you treat it as if it were a complete-information game, you're going to lose. That's illogical. If it were a job that we could send computers to, we would. We can't, because we can't define the job well enough for the computers to do it. And this is a lesson for all programmers as well: most of our job is not talking to the computers, but talking to the humans to figure out what they actually want. If they could have said it in complete and logical terms, they'd have written the programs themselves.
majormajor 5y ago
Is the optimal outcome really the same as the one that would result from the most complete presentation of the facts? If you're buying an appliance, and you already agreed, and then the salesperson gives you additional info, you might change your mind ("oh, I thought the failure rate was 0.1%, you said it's 1%") even if in reality this may be a perfectly good enough appliance for you and a good sale for the seller. Optimal would probably be getting the sale done - even if that depends on untrue assumptions in your head not being challenged. Not getting the sale done means your back at square one, depending on what else you want to be doing with your time, that's not good. When interacting with another party you have a mental model you build to try to figure out what they're thinking, but it's very incomplete. Adding information can change your mind, and even not necessarily in a "true" way - imagine you're on a date, it's going well, both parties want to hook up... and then they say something that makes you think maybe their political views are offensive to you. You might be making a wrong assumption based on what they said. Or they might just disagree with you that much. But you're probably not going to have as much fun tonight anymore! You may have a more "true" outcome but is that what you wanted?
FredPret 5y ago
In a universe without inherent meaning, define best, optimal, and true. We all choose paths forward with uncertainty both about what is desirable and about how each path might get us there. The perceived trustworthiness of the people pitching each path factors into that decision, precisely because of the uncertainty involved. Calling people "rational" or "irrational" doesn't make sense if there isn't an end goal to measure us against.
NikolaNovak 5y ago
The techie in me, paying attention to technology, thought exactly precisely that way for 20 years. But it is in itself an irrational thought, focusing on some ideal platonic "what should be" which is eminently not observable anywhere in the real world. NONE of us are hyper-rational creatures of pure logic. Myself too, holding that thought of "shouldn't we converge on strictly logical optimal resolution", were in fact influenced by emotion, timing, personalities, circumstance, and other carp going on in my life. As was everybody else. Now, though I'm not in sales, I'm in people management role, and I've learned quickly that timing and choice matters. It matters in sales, but it also matters in architecture, requirements gathering, solution design, project planning, everything. No matter how technical or sales your role, you eventually HAVE to deal with people, they need to agree/approve/confirm, and people ARE people. If you have a goal in mind, it is only rational for you to take into account the personalities involved and realities of the process, and be aware of timing and emotions and words. Note - This is what I say now; I'm still struggling to implement it fully myself - the decades of sciencey-techy are still strong in me :D
blacktriangle 5y ago
Because the timing IS information. Why was a piece of information stated up front, or last, or in the fine print, or released to the public on friday at 5pm, etc. We're not evaluating an arbitrary collection of facts, we're evaluating a flow (ie time varient) of information from a source of unknown trusthworthyness and as such we are looking for more information than just taking everything stated at face value.
solarmist 5y ago
This argument ignores the context of the conversation. The goal is rarely (almost never?) to find an optimal solution (if that's even possible). Also why would you assume outcomes would converge? That is not a given in most situations. You’ve never gotten tired of a conversation with someone that didn’t know when to stop? If so then you are exceptional in you're curiosity. I am a very curious person, but I have plenty of topics that are like nails on a chalk board to me. Plus, every conversation burns energy, and at some point, people will get tired or bored or both, so continuing indefinitely does not rationally lead to better outcomes. Continuing past that point will lead to worse and worse conclusions.
- solarmist 5y ago
  A good analogy is making pancakes or biscuit batter. You have to stop far earlier than I'm comfortable with, or the outcome is ruined. This is because there are tons of (nearly) invisible processes going on, and you need to trust the recipe that people have come up with for getting good results. And trying to understand every input and process could quickly become an entire career for any of these topics.

htrp 5y ago

There's a nobel prize awarded in 02 for the guys who figured out that people are irrational

ProjectArcturis 5y ago

Yes, of course it's irrational. People are not machinelike optimizers of information accuracy. If that's your mental model of people, you're going to have a bad time.

wombatmobile 5y ago
The explanation is perfectly rational. Once the buyer has been convinced, his worldview is dependent upon a number of assumptions he's made by extrapolating limited information. He makes a number of those assumptions on the basis of trusting the seller. If that trust wavers, the assumptions crumble and the worldview collapses. The buyer's trust in the seller is fragile because the buyer doesn't really know the seller. His image of the seller is based on an internal model that the seller has triggered by being similar on a few heuristic markers. The buyer jumps to the conclusion that the seller is that good guy he's been waiting for, on the strength of a few matching signals. But the more the seller says after that point to demonstrate defining characteristics of his knowledge, personality, or character, the more he risks varying from the buyer's internal model. Less is more, because by increasing the number of points of comparison, the more the seller risks spoiling the match.

jfengel 5y ago

Because nobody knows the optimal, true outcome. That outcome probably doesn't exist, and even if it does, it's impossible to know with the limited information available. Practically every significant real-world interaction involves judgment calls, heuristics, and personal feelings. They feed in to you taking your best guess based on your limited information. So adding more time to the process doesn't always make it better. You may learn, for example, that the person seems untrustworthy. "Selling past the close" implies that the person doesn't understand the situation, and is pursuing more contact for some reason other than your own best interest. The disconnect suggests that you may not understand what's going on, and it may be in your best interest to break off a deal that may not be what you think it is. Humans do practically everything on the basis of very incomplete information. They use timing and word choice, among many other things, to try to close that gap. This is a very important lesson. This isn't a case of humans failing to be logical. It's a case of incomplete information, and if you treat it as if it were a complete-information game, you're going to lose. That's illogical. If it were a job that we could send computers to, we would. We can't, because we can't define the job well enough for the computers to do it. And this is a lesson for all programmers as well: most of our job is not talking to the computers, but talking to the humans to figure out what they actually want. If they could have said it in complete and logical terms, they'd have written the programs themselves.

majormajor 5y ago

Is the optimal outcome really the same as the one that would result from the most complete presentation of the facts? If you're buying an appliance, and you already agreed, and then the salesperson gives you additional info, you might change your mind ("oh, I thought the failure rate was 0.1%, you said it's 1%") even if in reality this may be a perfectly good enough appliance for you and a good sale for the seller. Optimal would probably be getting the sale done - even if that depends on untrue assumptions in your head not being challenged. Not getting the sale done means your back at square one, depending on what else you want to be doing with your time, that's not good. When interacting with another party you have a mental model you build to try to figure out what they're thinking, but it's very incomplete. Adding information can change your mind, and even not necessarily in a "true" way - imagine you're on a date, it's going well, both parties want to hook up... and then they say something that makes you think maybe their political views are offensive to you. You might be making a wrong assumption based on what they said. Or they might just disagree with you that much. But you're probably not going to have as much fun tonight anymore! You may have a more "true" outcome but is that what you wanted?

FredPret 5y ago

In a universe without inherent meaning, define best, optimal, and true. We all choose paths forward with uncertainty both about what is desirable and about how each path might get us there. The perceived trustworthiness of the people pitching each path factors into that decision, precisely because of the uncertainty involved. Calling people "rational" or "irrational" doesn't make sense if there isn't an end goal to measure us against.

NikolaNovak 5y ago

The techie in me, paying attention to technology, thought exactly precisely that way for 20 years. But it is in itself an irrational thought, focusing on some ideal platonic "what should be" which is eminently not observable anywhere in the real world. NONE of us are hyper-rational creatures of pure logic. Myself too, holding that thought of "shouldn't we converge on strictly logical optimal resolution", were in fact influenced by emotion, timing, personalities, circumstance, and other carp going on in my life. As was everybody else. Now, though I'm not in sales, I'm in people management role, and I've learned quickly that timing and choice matters. It matters in sales, but it also matters in architecture, requirements gathering, solution design, project planning, everything. No matter how technical or sales your role, you eventually HAVE to deal with people, they need to agree/approve/confirm, and people ARE people. If you have a goal in mind, it is only rational for you to take into account the personalities involved and realities of the process, and be aware of timing and emotions and words. Note - This is what I say now; I'm still struggling to implement it fully myself - the decades of sciencey-techy are still strong in me :D

blacktriangle 5y ago

Because the timing IS information. Why was a piece of information stated up front, or last, or in the fine print, or released to the public on friday at 5pm, etc. We're not evaluating an arbitrary collection of facts, we're evaluating a flow (ie time varient) of information from a source of unknown trusthworthyness and as such we are looking for more information than just taking everything stated at face value.

solarmist 5y ago

This argument ignores the context of the conversation. The goal is rarely (almost never?) to find an optimal solution (if that's even possible). Also why would you assume outcomes would converge? That is not a given in most situations. You’ve never gotten tired of a conversation with someone that didn’t know when to stop? If so then you are exceptional in you're curiosity. I am a very curious person, but I have plenty of topics that are like nails on a chalk board to me. Plus, every conversation burns energy, and at some point, people will get tired or bored or both, so continuing indefinitely does not rationally lead to better outcomes. Continuing past that point will lead to worse and worse conclusions.

solarmist 5y ago
A good analogy is making pancakes or biscuit batter. You have to stop far earlier than I'm comfortable with, or the outcome is ruined. This is because there are tons of (nearly) invisible processes going on, and you need to trust the recipe that people have come up with for getting good results. And trying to understand every input and process could quickly become an entire career for any of these topics.