Over 50 years ago, C.P. Snow wrote an essay describing the two intellectual cultures, that I’ll call Humanistic and Scientific.  While each culture has important differences, the similarities are important:  the pursuit of knowledge, application of standards, a life of the mind.  They both would agree with Socrates’ observation that the unexamined life is not worth living.  But, how each culture wants to examine life is what divides them.

The humanistic approach values creative, aesthetic, and philosophic expressions and investigations of life, nature, and human nature.  Great examples in this culture range from Homer to Shakespeare to Tolstoy; Aristotle and Plato to Nietzsche and Marx; Michelangelo, DaVinci, Rembrandt, Monet, Picasso, Matisse; Bach, Mozart, Tchaikovsky.

The scientific approach also investigates life, nature, and human nature, but with its distinguishing approach.  That values empiricism, theory building and testing, disconfirmation.  Great examples of this culture include Galileo, Kepler, Copernicus, Newton, Faraday, Darwin, Pavlov, Einstein, and Skinner.

We can pursue the Two Cultures, Humanistic and Scientific, as a metaphor for understanding persuasion.  Knowing nothing else than just those two brief and incomplete lists provides any educated person with a strong sense of the hard difference between two groups that appear at first glance to be so similar as intellectuals.  They are at once the same and different.

The Humanistic approach to persuasion typically lends a focus upon the Source as the prime target in persuasion.  With Humanism, “man is the measure of all things,” which means it’s all about you as Source.  If the Source does it right, then the Receiver will irresistibly succumb.  The Humanist persuader seeks an internal light and inspiration, approaching persuasion as an Art that is put on the Canvas by the Artist.

The Scientific approach to persuasion typically makes a focus upon the Receiver as the prime target in persuasion.  With Scientism, “It’s about the Other Guy, Stupid,” which means it is about the Receiver.  If the Source understands the Receiver, then the Receiver will eventually succumb.  The Scientist persuader looks outside to the Other Guy’s light and inspiration as a TACT to be understood and changed.

My perspective with Healthy Influence is obviously in that Science camp although I just as clearly relish Humanism.  A persuader that can function with both Cultures probably enjoys a higher probability of success – persuasion is the fox and not the hedgehog to use Isaiah Berlin’s metaphor.  It is likely I prefer the Science Culture for persuasion because I both lack an artist’s temperament and I hate failure worse than taxes, death, and the New York Football Giants.

Past my personal weaknesses and preferences, I think a persuader who can punch with either hand is more dangerous, but nonetheless should favor the right of Science over the left of Humanism.

If you track the financial world, you know that Warren Buffett is the Albert Einstein, Marilyn Monroe, and Elvis Presley of investing.  The Oracle of Omaha is valued as someone who knows business while knowing how to live a good life.  So, when he famously declared that derivatives are Financial Weapons of Mass Destruction, everyone took notice.  Arguably, Buffett’s take on derivatives plays a role, however small, in the direction of financial reform.

Mr. Buffett doesn’t understand derivatives and views them as dangerous.  So, explain this:

The fate of Berkshire’s effort to influence the legislation remains uncertain. Senate officials said Sunday night that most of the details of the agreement haven’t yet been finalized.

The provision, sought by Berkshire and pushed by Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson in the Senate Agriculture Committee, would largely exempt existing derivatives contracts from the proposed rules. Previously, the legislation could have allowed regulators to require that companies such as Nebraska-based Berkshire put aside large sums to cover potential losses. The change thus would aid Berkshire, which has a $63 billion derivatives portfolio, according to Barclays Capital.

What?  Buffett has $63 billion stashed in derivatives?  And, he wants exemptions for his derivatives from any financial reform bill?

All Bad Persuasion Is Sincere.

A Peithos award to Mr. Buffett!

The WSJ reports the news.

People who eat more chocolate are more likely to be depressed than people who eat less chocolate, a new study has found.

The study found that “possibly depressed” individuals, who scored above 16, ate 8.4 servings of chocolate per month. People who weren’t depressed, scoring at or below 16, ate 5.4 servings of chocolate per month. Patients with scores higher than 22—or those most likely to be depressed—ate the most chocolate, with 11.8 servings a month.

How do you understand this?  Well, you see that clear upward progression of chocolate eating as folks report more depression (5.4 to 8.4 to 11.8 servings a month).  Something must be going on.

Or perhaps not.

As near as I can tell from the abstract of the study, the effect size on these statistics is less than a Small Windowpane effect, about 46/54.  Thus, even though more depressed people are eating twice as much chocolate compared to less depressed (11.8 versus 5.4), that is actually a Small difference.

Now, realize that this is one of those classic epi observational studies where you get a large convenience sample of people, ask them a lot of questions, then run the data through a lot of statistical analysis.  There was no random selection of people, nor were people randomly assigned to carefully controlled chocolate servings.  Thus, ideas about causality – which these study authors are really careful about – are very weak here.  This is just a one shot snap shot of a small group of participants (even though the study had over 1,000 people in it which sounds like a lot).

Realize, too, how chocolate consumption is measured here:  Estimate how many servings you eat in a month.  While this is a reasonable question and people know what you are talking about, there’s a lot of room for variation in answering that question for each person.  During the holidays I’m pretty sure I eat more chocolate than other months.  A serving is one ounce and I’m really not sure how many ounces I eat; usually I eat chocolate from those individually wrapped candies from a sack, so how many does it take for an ounce?  Is is possible that my current mood while I’m filling out the survey affect how I answer these questions?  All of these measurement questions demonstrate how differently you could answer just this one item on chocolate consumption.  Couldn’t all this variability in just answering the question account for the effect?

Finally, realize that with all questions on the survey there are a lot of tests of statistical analysis you can run on this sample.  In other words, you are making a lot of bets under a lot of conditions and among all those bets, you report the chocolate finding.  It is entirely possible that if you drop some questions from the survey, the chocolate effect would disappear or if you replicated this on another sample of people, the chocolate effect would disappear.

Thus, it is technically true that depressed people eat more chocolate and that chocolate is linked to depression.  But, the quality of the evidence and reasoning for that technically true claim is pretty weak.

So, I’m eating my favorite chocolate today, but still always wearing my seat belt when I’m out driving.

As the persuasion philosopher, Dirty Harry, says:  You’ve got to know your limitations.

Sheena Iyengar offers a new book on the effects of choice.  Here’s a nice review of it.  Even if you haven’t heard of Professor Iyengar or read the original research, you can guess that it’s about choice and how people choose.  Most particularly, this line of work explores the effect that the number and type of options people face influences how they think, feel, or act.  Thus, it is not just the content of the things to be chosen from, but rather how many things are available, how they are arranged, and how they are presented that affects choice.

A persuasion take on this starts with the familiar WAC triple play:  A variable may function as a WATTage dimmer switch, an Argument, or a Cue.  It’s easy to construct illustrations of Choice as each element in the WAC.

Most obviously, Choice affects WATTage.  Particularly as the sheer number of options increase, people tend to get overwhelmed with all the information available and quickly default to that Low WATT Peripheral Route.  They then seek Cues among the options – gee, that’s a pretty red label! – and use that to guide the final choice.  Note that Number of Options is not the Cue; the Cue is another feature, the pretty red label.  Number of Options overwhelms cognitive capacity, trips Low WATT processing, and the search for easy Cues.

Now, reduce the number of options to three or four, and make each option similar and relatively familiar, like choosing from a display table of three new cracker treats a food company offers.  The amount of information to be considered here is relatively simple and the Number of Options makes for easy side-by-side comparison.  You can quickly pick up each box and scan the nutrition labels and compare.  You can easily taste test each cracker and compare.  Now, Number of Options has flipped the High WATT switch and folks go Central Route, looking for Arguments about each cracker – nutrition and taste.

So, Choice can move the WATTage dimmer switch in either direction, depending on, in this instance, the Number of Options.

Now, consider Choice as an Argument.  When is the Number of Options information that bears on the central merits of the issue?  Business and economics is a great area for this.  Imagine that you run a food business and you’re looking to expand the number of products you offer.  The business plan that produces more products more efficiently is more desirable.  Thinking about going to college and aren’t sure about a major?  Wouldn’t you like a school with lots of programs?  Want a job that has lots of opportunity for change, variation, and growth?  All of these instances demonstrate where the sheer Number of Options is actually an Argument that allows you to choose a more satisfying job or mate or school or whatever.

Finally, how is Choice a Cue?  A classic application of Choice as a Cue is the Comparative Ad.  Here’s are a couple of examples.  Start with an old ad for PCs.

Now, what’s for dinner.

Which car do you want?

And, the classic checklist.

Gee, I’ll take the one with the Most Choices, Sir!  You don’t have to think, to have that Long Conversation in your head.  Just note which one has More and which one has Less.  It’s easy!

Thus, to understand Choice, start with the WAC and realize how you can use the Same Thing, but achieve wildly different effects depending upon its function.  Iyengar details these many combinations and variations in her books for your edification.

And while most of the examples are from common life with a focus on shopping, realize that Choice applies throughout your life:  the major you select, the job you take and whether you stay or leave, whether you choose to marry and who you pick as a mate, the political party you join and how you decide to participate in politics.  There’s a lot of Choice in life.

But, always start with the WAC!

Coming soon to a legislature near you!

Dr. Richard Daines is the New York State Health Commissioner.  He supports laws to tax soda and other similar government regulations of lifestyle products and services that are Statistically Significant (but Practically Useless) Causes of Obesity.  Here’s how a reporter for the NYT describes him.

Dr. Daines fits the part of the sin-tax crusader. Standing 6-foot-1, he is as lanky and folksy-sounding as Jimmy Stewart, a Spanish-speaking former Mormon missionary in Bolivia who practiced medicine in the South Bronx for 20 years.

Over the past few weeks, he has been traveling the state lobbying anyone who would listen about the scourge of obesity and championing the proposed excise tax as a possible cure that has the added benefit of plugging a giant hole in the state budget.

I’ve been working with folks like Dr. Daines since 1992 and America has done nothing but get heavier.  They will never realize that they are part of the problem because they cannot separate their work from their self esteem.

But, there’s more.

“I raised my kids on Park Avenue,” he said. “You can walk at least from 60th Street to 96th Street on Park Avenue. You won’t see a single soda billboard, you won’t see a single fast-food outlet, and I don’t think you could buy a soda. Basically, a child raised in that corridor has a soda-free day after school.”

He’s the fighting Commissioner who fights for the Poor while living on Park Avenue!  And he sees no irony in this?  Talk about doing Well while doing Good.  Many of my health and safety colleagues are updates on the Doonesbury 1970s star, Reverend Scot Sloan, “the fighting young priest who can talk to the young.”  They cannot see past themselves for the lack of effect they’re having.

All Bad Persuasion Is Sincere.