Category: Judgment

Silence in the Classroom is Not Perceived to be Golden

By Brad Bell


Imagine you are taking a psychology class and most of the students ask questions and participate in class discussions.  However, some students are very quiet and rarely ask questions or participate in class discussions.  Would you infer that they are quiet people and attribute their quietness to their personality, or would you attribute it to them being bored with the class?  If you attributed their behavior to their personality, what personality characteristics do you feel they would have?

  In a study I conducted (Bell, 1995), participants were randomly assigned to read a brief description of a hypothetical student who was described as either very quiet or very talkative in a particular psychology class. The description involved several other things about the student (e.g.,  has a 3.2 overall GPA and attends several parties each month).  The sex of the student was also varied in this study (by the name of the student).  After reading the brief description of the student, the participants evaluated the student on how talkative, shy, friendly, creative, sincere, intelligent, helpful, dynamic, and honest they perceived him or her to be.  The hypothetical student was perceived to be more talkative, friendly, creative, and dynamic when described as very talkative than when described as very quiet.  Moreover, the hypothetical student was also judged to be less shy when described as very talkative than when described as very quiet.  There were no statistically significant effects for the sex of the hypothetical student. 

 It is not clear whether these findings reflect negative beliefs about people who are quiet, positive beliefs about people who are talkative, or both.  However, other research findings suggest it might be more of a negative view of quiet people than a positive view of talkative people.  Daly, McCroskey, and Richmond (1976) had people evaluate a hypothetical person who varied in the percentage of time he or she was described as talking in a small group.  They had them answer questions pertaining to the hypothetical person that reflected a number of dimensions (e.g., sociability, competence, and composure).  The vocal activity varied from 0 to 95 percent.  On some dimensions, the effect clearly appears to be more of a negative perception of quiet people than a positive view of talkative people.  For example, the mean for the sociability measure was 9.6 for the 0 percent vocal level, 20.0 for the 50 percent vocal level, and 20.8 for the 95 percent vocal level.

In my study (Bell, 1995), the student was described as being very quiet or very talkative in only one particular class.  The participants did not know how the student behaved in other situations.  Yet participants made judgments about the student’s personality based on this one situation. The participants in the study may have dismissed plausible situational explanations for the student’s behavior.  The possible situational explanations would include being bored with the class and having personal problems that reduced their normal level of talkativeness.

The findings are important because expectations about students can affect the scoring of essays (e.g., Chase, 1979).  It’s possible that students who are very quiet in a class may be judged as less creative in their written work.  If they are judged to be less creative, they may receive lower grades for their papers.  Thus, it is important that teachers be aware of this possible bias.   Being aware of the possible bias may help to reduce it.

References

Bell, B. E. (1995).  Judgments of the attributes of a student who is talkative versus a student who is quiet in a class.  Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 10, 827-832.
Chase, C.I. (1979).  The impact of achievement expectations and handwriting quality on scoring essay tests. Journal of Educational Measurement,16, 39-42.
Daly, J. A., McCroskey, J.C., & Richmond, V. P. (1977).  Relationships between vocal activity and perception of communicators in small group interaction.  Western Journal of Speech Communication, 41, 175-187.

Can Irrelevant Quantity Information Influence Judgments of Productivity?

By Brad Bell

Imagine that you are working at your desk and you have a pile of papers and books on your desk.  You glance at this pile and think to yourself that you have been quite productive today.  Your judgment is based on the size of the pile on your desk.  While this approach to judging productivity could be a valid indicator of productivity in some situations, it may often not be.

In their first experiment, Josephs, Giesler, and Silvera (1994) had participant complete a task in which they had to put a slash mark through every letter c that they saw in paragraphs.  All participants were stopped after completing five paragraphs.  Participants put their completed work in an outbox.  In one condition, pages were attached to journals (journal condition).  In the other condition, the pages were not attached to journals (page condition).  On the average, participants in the journal condition rated their own productivity as higher than participants in the page condition. (1)  

Their first study demonstrated that an irrelevant quantity factor (pile size in an outbox) could influence judgments of their own productivity.  In their fifth experiment, Josephs et al. (1994) demonstrated that this irrelevant quantity factor (pile size in an outbox) influence judgments of their own productivity only when it was in full view when they made their productivity judgments.

There are important practical implications.  When judging our own productivity at work it may be best to make these judgments when an irrelevant quantity factor (e.g., pile size in an outbox) is not in our view.    Irrelevant information may influence the judgments of writers and publishers.  Writers may write books that are longer than they need to be.  They may add unnecessary words to make the books longer.  This could result in too much paper being used and readers being unhappy with the time and effort it makes to read something.  Moreover, publishers may reject worthy books because they do not contain enough words.

Notes

1.  See their article for other findings.

References

Josephs, R. A., Giesler, R. B., & Silvera, D. H.  (1994).  Judgment by Quantity. Jourmal of Experimental Psychology: General, 123, 21-32.

The Influence of Saying “Like” and “Uh” on Simulated Hiring Decisions

By Brad Bell

During an interview it may be wise to select one’s words carefully, and sound as professional as possible.  Using unnecessary and annoying words such as “like” and “uh” might affect how professional you are perceived to be.  Consequently, the use of these words might decrease the likelihood that you will be hired.

Russell, Perkins, and Grinnell (2008) had participants in their study listen to an audiotape of a person who simulated a person applying for a data entry job. They also received a written transcript.  In the control condition, the person did not use “uh” or “like.”  In the “like” condition, the person said “like” 15 times.  In the “uh” condition, the person said “uh” 15 times.  

 On the average, the person was rated higher in the control condition than in the “like” condition with respect to perceived professionalism and likelihood of being hired. Moreover, on the average, the person was rated higher in the control condition than in the “uh” condition with respect to perceived professionalism and likelihood of being hired. (1)

It should be kept in mind that this study did not involve actual hiring decisions.  Thus, it is not clear whether the findings would generalize to actual hiring decisions. Nonetheless, it may be a good idea for job applicants to avoid using “like” and “uh” during interviews.

Notes

1.  See their article for other findings.

References

Russell, B., Perkins, J., & Grinnell, H.  (2008).  Interviewees’ overuse of the word “like” and hesitations:  Effects in simulated hiring decisions. Psychological Reports, 102, 111-118.

The Availability Heuristic

By Brad Bell

The availability heuristic is an important concept in psychology.  What is the availability heuristic?   Tversky and Kahneman (1973) proposed that people may use an availability heuristic to judge frequency and the probability of events.  Using the availability heuristic, people would judge the probability of events by the ease in which instances could be brought to mind.  Thus, using the availability heuristic, people would judge an event to be more likely to occur if they could think of more examples of that event.  

Below are some examples of availability heuristic:

First Availability Heuristic Example:

After seeing many news stories of home foreclosures people may judge that the likelihood of this event is greater.  This may be true because it is easier to think of examples of this event.

Second Availability Heuristic Example:

People who read more case studies of successful businesses may judge the probability of running a successful business to be greater.

References

Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D.  (1973).   Availability:  A heuristic for judging frequency and probability. Cognitive Psychology, 5, 207-232.

Are People Influenced by Trivial Details?

By Brad Bell

Imagine that you are juror in a criminal trial in which the defendant is accused of stealing a duffle bag from a gym.  One eyewitness is positive that the defendant took the bag, and the other eyewitness is positive that someone else took the bag.  The eyewitness for the prosecution was much more detailed in her testimony.  She described minor details, such as the can of Pepsi the culprit was drinking before taking the duffle bag.  Would you be influenced by the trivial details in the eyewitness testimony?

In their second experiment, Bell and Loftus (1989) had college students read a brief summary of a criminal court case with conflicting testimony.  The prosecution eyewitness stated that defendant was the person who committed the crime, and the defense eyewitness stated that the defendant was not the culprit.  The defense eyewitness testimony varied in degree of detail.   In a low detail version, the defense eyewitness described the store items that the culprit dropped as just “a few store items.”  In the high detail version, the defense eyewitness described the store items as “a box of Milk Duds and a can of Diet Pepsi.”  The prosecution eyewitness described the store items as just “a few store items.”  However, there were two versions for the prosecution eyewitness testimony,  In one version the prosecution eyewitness is not asked whether she can remember the store items mentioned by the defense eyewitness.  In the other version, she is asked if she can remember the store items, and she states that she cannot remember them.  When the prosecution eyewitness was not asked about the store items, there was no statistically significant effect of the trivial details on judgments of the defendant’s guilt.  In contrast, when mock jurors learned that the prosecution eyewitness could not remember the store items, there was a substantial effect of defense eyewitness detail on judgments of the defendant’s guilt.  When the prosecution eyewitness stated that she could not remember the store items, 6% rendered a guilty verdict in the high detail condition, and 47% rendered a guilty verdict in the low detail condition!  The persuasive impact of trivial details was referred to as trivial persuasion by Bell and Loftus.

The findings from the second experiment conducted by Bell and Loftus (1989) suggest that the impact of trivial details on judgment of guilt is due to inferences about memory.  The detail in the defense eyewitness testimony only influenced judgments of guilt when it was clear that the prosecution eyewitness could not remember the trivial details.  In this situation, the mock jurors may have been more likely to believe that the defense eyewitness had a better memory for the culprit’s face than the prosecution eyewitness. Moreover, the defense eyewitness was judged to have a better memory for the culprit’s face in the high detail condition than in the low detail condition.

Even details that are unrelated to the crime may be persuasive.  In their first experiment, Bell and Loftus (1989) found that unrelated details in the prosecution eyewitness testimony influences judgments of a defendant’s guilt.  The details pertained to the store items that a customer dropped prior to the crime.  It should be pointed out that some studies have not found trivial details to
be persuasive.  Some findings for the influence of details were not statistically significant.  For example, Bell and Jones (1994) found that the effects of minor details on judgments of honesty were not statistically significant in four studies.

Trivial persuasion may reflect a faulty belief about eyewitness testimony. Reporting trivial details may not indicate that a person has a good memory for a culprit’s face.  For example, Wells and Leippe (1981) found that people who made an accurate identification of a culprit were less accurate in their memory for peripheral details.


Although trivial details may influence judgments in some situations, more research is needed to gain a better understanding of the influence of trivial details.  It’s possible that trivial details may be persuasive in other contexts besides the courtroom.

References

Bell, B. E., & Loftus, E. F. (1989).  Trivial persuasion in the courtroom:
The power of (a few) minor details.  Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, 56, 669-679.
Bell, B. E., & Jones, J. B. (1994).  Providing minor details and the
perception of honesty:  Questioning the generality of trivial
persuasion.  Psychology: A Journal of Human Behavior, 31, 26-29.
Wells, G. L., & Leippe, M. R.  (1981).  How do triers of fact infer
the accuracy of eyewitness identifications?  Using memory for
peripheral detail can be misleading.  Journal of Applied Psychology,
66, 682-687.