Page 153 - The Social Animal

Social Cognition 135

If you are similar to the students in Zukier’s study, you would be-
lieve that Tim is smarter than Tom. Zukier found that including irrel-
evant and nondiagnostic information (such as information on siblings,
family visits, and dating habits) that has nothing to do with the issue
at hand can dilute—that is, make less potent—the impact of relevant
information (that both Tim and Tom spend a lot of time studying).
The dilution effect has obvious practical value for persons inter-
ested in managing impressions, such as those in sales or politics. Ad-
vertisers know that including weak or irrelevant claims can reduce the
impact of a strong sales appeal. A disliked politician can reduce the
impact of his negative image by including irrelevant information—a
story about his or her childhood or a description of the family
house—in campaign advertisements. But why does the dilution effect
occur? After all, it makes little sense to pay attention to nondiagnos-
tic information in making a judgment. Why should information on
dating habits make someone appear less intelligent, or a story about
the birthplace of a politician lessen the impact of his or her negative
image? One answer is that irrelevant information about a person
makes that person seem more similar to others, and thus more aver-
age and like everyone else. An average person is less likely to have an
extremely high grade point average or to be terribly negative.

Judgmental Heuristics

One way that we make sense of the buzzing, blooming array of in-
formation that comes our way is through the use of judgmental
heuristics. A judgmental heuristic is a mental shortcut; it is a sim-
ple, often only approximate, rule or strategy for solving a problem. 31
Some examples include “If a man and a woman are walking down a
street, the man walks on the outside.” “If a particular food item is
found in a health food store, it must be good for you.” “If a person is
from a rural town in Arkansas, he or she must be intellectually back-
ward.” Heuristics require very little thought—just the selection of
the rule (which may not be the correct one to use) and a straightfor-
ward application to the issue at hand. It can be contrasted with more
systematic thinking in which we may look at a problem from a num-
ber of angles, assemble and evaluate as much relevant information as
possible, and work out in detail the implications of various solutions.