Eyes Wide Open: How to Make Smart Decisions in a Confusing World. Noreena Hertz

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СКАЧАТЬ to miss. Bush’s evocation of 9/11. His linking of that terrible day with Saddam Hussein. His use of the word ‘imagine’ – a word much beloved by advertisers, because it’s proven to get consumers to suspend their disbelief. His juxtaposition of ‘horror’, ‘vial’, ‘chemical’, ‘shadowy’, ‘terrorist’ and ‘viruses’, all within a few seconds of each other. Once you’ve added to the mix ‘Hitler’ and ‘Communism’ and thrown in multiple references to ‘them and ‘us’, as Bush went on to do, it’s no wonder it seemed that Huntington’s Clash of Civilisations was playing out in our living rooms.

      The first poll published after the speech, conducted by the Washington Post and ABC News, showed the impact of Bush’s rhetorical choices. The administration received the highest support yet for a war with Iraq: 66 per cent of respondents supported military action, up from 57 per cent just two weeks before.

      Bush’s speech was short on facts. It was extremely limited in the evidence it provided to justify a nation going to war. Yet many among its audience were swayed by the story-telling and the frightening trigger-words. Many Americans came to a decision on this issue not on the basis of substantive information, but because of the emotive language used. It’s an age-old technique, used by leaders for centuries. And it works – for there we go once more, falling for the power of the well-chosen word, whether at the supermarket or in the voting booth.

      … and Verbal Snowballs

      Having had a few examples to contemplate, you may be feeling more on your guard now against a highly embellished avalanche of words. But be aware that it doesn’t necessarily take an avalanche to sway us. A verbal snowball can be just as powerful.

      In a study, people asked to give a quality score to two dishes, one labelled ‘Succulent Italian Seafood Filet’, the other plain old ‘Seafood Filet’, rated the ‘Succulent’ dish higher, even when, as was the case here, they were both the same dishes. Similarly, ‘Tender Grilled Chicken’ was evaluated as tastier and more filling than the same dish when it was simply called ‘Grilled Chicken’.3 It’s amazing how a small number of simple but carefully chosen words can transform what your tastebuds actually seem to experience. It’s worth remembering this next time you’re standing in the queue at a fast-food restaurant.

      You might also want to take heed of the findings of a recent study that looked at the way the wording of a CV affects how a job application is perceived. It turns out that an applicant whose CV is presented in the third person, with bullet points like ‘Communicated with clients globally’ or ‘Managed a large department’, tends to be considered more reliable, less boastful, more suitable for teamwork and a stronger candidate overall than an applicant whose CV is formulated in the first person, with bullet points such as ‘I communicated with clients globally’ or ‘I managed a large department.’ Even though the content in both cases is the same.4

      Or look at what happened when, in a recent experiment at Stanford University, two groups were each asked to come up with recommendations for how to combat crime in Addison, a fictitious crime-ridden city in the United States.

      Both groups were given exactly the same text:

      Five years ago Addison was in good shape with no obvious vulnerabilities. Unfortunately, in the past five years the city’s defence systems have weakened, and the city has succumbed to crime. Today there are more than 55,000 criminal incidents a year – up by more than 10,000 per year. There is a worry that if the city does not regain its strength soon, even more serious problems may start to develop.

      However, the two groups were given a slightly different opening sentence to the report. The first began, ‘Crime is a beast ravaging the city of Addison.’ The second, ‘Crime is a virus ravaging the city of Addison.’

      One word different in a passage of seventy-nine words. Yet it turned out to have a huge impact.

      Participants who had been told that crime was a ‘beast’ were significantly more likely to propose ‘catch and cage’ strategies – the hiring of additional police officers, the building of more jails; whereas the group who were given the word ‘virus’ leaned disproportionately towards ‘heal and cure’ methods of deterrence, such as crime-prevention strategies, and educational and social reforms.

      This was regardless of whether they were Democrat or Republican, conservative or liberal-minded, young or old, male or female.

      Moreover, the vast majority of the subjects were totally unaware that it was the metaphorical frames of ‘virus’ and ‘beast’ that had driven their decisions. When asked to identify which parts of the report had been most influential in their decision-making process, only 3 per cent of them correctly identified the metaphor as the driver.5

      It really is incredible how vulnerable we are to subtleties of language when forming our opinions and making decisions. How unaware we can be of its pervasive powers. But we are. Time and again.

      A whole host of other seemingly minor semantic tweaks have been shown to have significant impacts on our decision-making too.

      The Trouble with Wayne

      When 238 university psychologists were asked to rate the CVs of two fictitious applicants for an academic tenure-track job, from a Dr ‘Karen’ Miller and a Dr ‘Brian’ Miller, the results were pretty disappointing for anyone who cares about gender equality.6

      Although the two CVs were identical apart from the first name, the male Dr Miller was perceived to have better research, teaching and service experience than the female Dr Miller. While three-quarters of the psychologists would have recommended hiring Dr Brian, less than half would have hired Dr Karen. And it wasn’t just male professors who thought this: female professors were just as guilty.

      It may be easy simply to put this down to gender bias, but other studies have also found that the way something is named affects how it is perceived. During the dotcom bubble, for example, many firms changed their names to take advantage of the euphoria surrounding ‘hot dotcom’ stocks.7 These included some that had nothing to do with the internet. For example, North American Natural Inc., which was in the business of producing educational literature, changed its name to Pinkmonkey.com, and saw its share price increase from $1 to $17. In another startling example of the influence a name can have, RLD Enterprises, a potato-crisp manufacturer, changed its name to go-rachels.com and experienced a huge jump in the value of its shares, even though at the time of the name change go-rachels did not even have a website.

      Just by changing their names, these companies experienced large increases in their stock prices without any underlying business change. Time-poor investors were heavily influenced by the tremendous optimism about everything associated with the internet at the time, and used companies’ names as a short cut on the basis of which to make important financial decisions.8

      Shakespeare was wrong. A rose by any other name, it seems, does not smell as sweet. In fact, this is literally true: researchers in Montreal found that subjects enjoyed smells more when they had more pleasant names. ‘A rose by the name of “rotting flower” would not smell as sweet as if it were introduced as “fresh rose”,’ the study concluded.9

      Remember all this when you’re leafing through СКАЧАТЬ