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Summary: First impressions are weighted heavily when we form opinions of people. Once those opinions are formed it takes a lot of evidence to the contrary to ca

by TrevorJ 17y ago

Summary: First impressions are weighted heavily when we form opinions of people. Once those opinions are formed it takes a lot of evidence to the contrary to cause us to re-evaluate our opinion of that person.

gruseom 17y ago
It's more general than that. If we form an opinion about X based on feature A, that opinion "leaps" to features B, C, and so on, even if they're unrelated. For example, I've noticed that once people think of a piece of software as fast, they're more likely to regard it as high-quality in other ways that have nothing to do with performance. Edit: another example is the well-known result that better looking people are rated as smarter, nicer, more competent, etc. IIRC, they're even less likely to get sent to prison and receive lighter sentences if they do.
- HistoryInAction 17y ago
  Dan Areily in "Predictably Irrational" calls this the 'anchor effect.' That an opinion of something is transmitted when linked to something similar. Starbucks broke an anchor effect by making their stores about ambiance. As a result, customers were willing to spend double the usual price on the same coffee--or of slightly higher quality--because the anchor was broken from Dunkin' Donuts' coffee. It was a different experience and therefore, a different price scale was acceptable to customers.
  - hegemonicon 17y ago
    I haven't read it, but the anchor effect seems a more specific instance of anchoring bias. Essentially when forming a an opinion/solving a problem, we do it by taking an initial value and then modifying it up or down as we see fit. This initial value is whatever we happen to notice first. So unless we get things exactly right in that first estimation, we get things wrong because we fail to revise our beliefs properly. The best example of this bias is when people are asked to estimate the value of 1 x 2 x 3 x 4 x 5 x 6 x 7 x 8 x 9, the number they come up with is around ten times lower than when asked to estimate 9 x 8 x 7 x 6 x 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1
stcredzero 17y ago
So this could also be called a "Dark Cloud" effect.

by TrevorJ 17y ago

gruseom 17y ago

It's more general than that. If we form an opinion about X based on feature A, that opinion "leaps" to features B, C, and so on, even if they're unrelated. For example, I've noticed that once people think of a piece of software as fast, they're more likely to regard it as high-quality in other ways that have nothing to do with performance. Edit: another example is the well-known result that better looking people are rated as smarter, nicer, more competent, etc. IIRC, they're even less likely to get sent to prison and receive lighter sentences if they do.

HistoryInAction 17y ago
Dan Areily in "Predictably Irrational" calls this the 'anchor effect.' That an opinion of something is transmitted when linked to something similar. Starbucks broke an anchor effect by making their stores about ambiance. As a result, customers were willing to spend double the usual price on the same coffee--or of slightly higher quality--because the anchor was broken from Dunkin' Donuts' coffee. It was a different experience and therefore, a different price scale was acceptable to customers.
- hegemonicon 17y ago
  I haven't read it, but the anchor effect seems a more specific instance of anchoring bias. Essentially when forming a an opinion/solving a problem, we do it by taking an initial value and then modifying it up or down as we see fit. This initial value is whatever we happen to notice first. So unless we get things exactly right in that first estimation, we get things wrong because we fail to revise our beliefs properly. The best example of this bias is when people are asked to estimate the value of 1 x 2 x 3 x 4 x 5 x 6 x 7 x 8 x 9, the number they come up with is around ten times lower than when asked to estimate 9 x 8 x 7 x 6 x 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1

stcredzero 17y ago

So this could also be called a "Dark Cloud" effect.