5 ms·
I think it's going to far to call the study seriously flawed: The core claim presented "we find that superfluous apologies increase trust in the apologizer" is
by bcoates 13y ago
I think it's going to far to call the study seriously flawed: The core claim presented "we find that superfluous apologies increase trust in the apologizer" is being properly controlled (superfluous apology, acknowledgment, or neutral greeting followed by a trust test).
Suggesting that the mechanism for that result is caused by ice-breaking effects, or by delaying the time between the introduction and the request, or by conforming to some unknown social norm are follow up experiments you'd want to perform... but there's always a follow up question, it doesn't make the initial discovery flawed.
- yannk 13y agoThe last paragraph states: "How trustworthy are these results? The accumulated findings from several experiments help build a convincing case, but unfortunately the field study - which had the potential to provide the most persuasive evidence - is seriously flawed. The actor apologised for the rain then asked to borrow a phone, or in the comparison condition he just asked to borrow the phone. There was no proper control condition. This means we don't know if the impact of the apology was specific to making an apology or merely an effect of uttering any kind of ice-breaker."
- Falling3 13y agoThat's just not sufficient. I didn't even make it to the last paragraph and many readers won't make it past the headline. Up until that paragraph, the author seems to be building us up towards accepting the results. Why bother writing an article on such a flawed study?
- ledge 13y agoFor the sake of linkbait, surely. Blog author even calls this study "the most compelling evidence", only to correctly recognize that it's total shit in the final paragraph. I'm all for writing an article on a bad study (sort of like a bad album review), but the opinion of the author should be clear from the outset.
- bcoates 13y agoRight, but "any kind of icebreaker" is a superset of "superfluous apology". It's a hypothetical extension of the result, not a flaw in the study. Saying there was no proper control condition is flat wrong. There is a control in the study that would falsify the hypothesis that they were testing.
- tempestn 13y agoNo, there isn't. The hypothesis they were testing was whether a superfluous apology would increase the likelihood of strangers behaving in the desired manner. All they proved is that making a lead-in comment had this effect. We have no way of knowing whether it was because the lead-in comment was an apology, or if a broader range of comments would have had the same effect.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- freshhawk 13y agoWhich is pretty much the same thing as writing "By the way this study is junk. Why did we write this entire bullshit article anyway? Because link bait. And we could care less about actually informing our readers"