Social Engineering Blogs

An Aggregator for Blogs About Social Engineering and Related Fields

Unpredictability: Hot Hands vs. Gambler’s Fallacies

We knew before starting this blog that few others are interested in making persuasive psychology practical.  It’s frustrating, but it forces us to research carefully and it ensures our ideas are new and potentially useful, not exhaustively re-hashed impractical nonsense or indecipherable jargon-laced dissertations.  The dearth of information about every-day, real-world, common-man influence strategies is a blessing and curse; we’re doing what few have done before, but few are there to help us do it.

Last week, though, we got help.

In our post Exploring Unpredictable Social Strategies, we made a bold claim: we said that the best way to control your subordinates is to reward them randomly when they do something you like, and that no other method would produce the same results.  We based our claim on solid evidence that random ratio reward schedules induce compliance by trapping reward-seekers in a common probabilistic error called the gambler’s fallacy.  After that, we introduced you to the hot hands fallacy, and advised you to be open with your subordinates about the process, lest they commit this error – the wrong error.  The advice was an even bigger leap than our previous claim because we didn’t have – and didn’t expect to find – a study comparing the relative effects of each kind of fallacy.  The concept was just too new.  So we were surprised last week when we found one with this subtitle: “The hot hand versus the gambler’s fallacy.”  Rarely does a search turn up results like that; we eagerly read it.

The study turned out to be better than we could have hoped.  Not only did it address the same question we were asking ourselves, it did so by experimenting with the same random process (coin-tossing) we’d been using as an example, and its findings suggest we were right: random ratio reward schedules work best if everyone knows that the process, not you, determines who wins and who loses.

The Study

Canadian researchers Christopher J. R. Roney and Lana M. Trick wanted to identify the cognitive mechanics behind the gambler’s and hot hands fallacies.  Because the fallacies predict different outcomes and assume different processes, each one should only occur in mutually exclusive situations.  When outcomes are genuinely random, everyone should be committing the gambler’s fallacy.  When outcomes are plausibly skills-based or are possibly rigged, everyone should be committing the hot hands fallacy.  But have you ever heard someone claim they’re “on a roll” after they win twice or three times in a row?  Of course you have.  Have you ever seen a gambler who’s unable to quit while he or she is ahead?  Hopefully not, but perhaps.  Do you know someone who picks their own “lucky” lottery numbers every week?  More than likely.  In all these examples, the person is committing the hot hands fallacy even though the game is random.  Why?

Roney and Trick hypothesized that the cognitive mechanics involved in each of these fallacies activate or deactivate whenever someone’s beliefs about a process’s outcomes change.  If a person believes he or she or some other human being is somehow skillfully controlling outcomes previously believed to be merely random, then the person should switch from using the gambler’s fallacy to using the hot hands fallacy.  For coin-tossing, it would look like this: changing a person’s focus from the random nature of the coin to the real or imagined skills of the coin-tosser should induce a switch in fallacies.

Testing this theory was incredibly simple.  The experiments involved 124 undergrads (the subjects) watching one of two women flip a coin. In the experimental conditions, one woman would flip seven times, and lie about what came up such that the results were always either HTHTTTT or THTHHHH (alternation followed by repetition).  The subjects would bet on the next outcome each time and record their confidence in the bet.  Before the eighth flip, though, the woman would say one of two lines: “Wow, I’m really throwing a lot of [heads or tails],” or, “Wow, this coin is really coming up with lot of [heads or tails].”  (In the control condition, these lines were not said.)  Then, the woman either kept flipping or handed the coin off to the second woman (who, ostensibly, was there to record the “results.”)  You can see that depending on which of the two phrases was said in between the seventh and eight flips that the researchers intended to re-focus the subject’s attention, changing it ever so slightly toward the woman’s “skill” (the first phrase), or even more intently on the coin (the second phrase).  The researchers also predicted that when the coin changed hands, the gambler’s fallacy would remain in effect regardless of which phrase preceded the eighth flip.

They were mostly right.  As expected, nearly all of the control subjects committed the gambler’s fallacy and predicted the streaks to end on the eighth flip. And, as expected, when the coin changed hands, the gambler’s fallacy was predominant in all cases.  But just a small majority of the subjects who’d heard the first phrase committed the hot hands fallacy and guessed that the repetition would continue.  Something similar happened to the subjects who’d heard the second phrase: about half of them committed the hot hands fallacy, probably because the wording of the second phrase led them to believe the coin itself was biased or “charmed.”

The most revealing data, however, are the confidence scores of the bets placed by the subjects.  Overall, those who committed the hot hands fallacy in the first experimental condition were much more confident in their bets on the outcome of the eighth flip than those who stuck with the gambler’s fallacy.  The highest confidence in bets on reversals, of course, occurred in the control condition.

So, what does this mean for our reward system?  Well, if you keep your method secret from those you want to control, you might lose about half of your rewardees to the hot hands fallacy; once you hit a streak, half of them will expect it to continue, and those who don’t won’t hesitate to change their minds if it does continue.  In other words, they’ll stop trying.  Keep it transparent, though, and they will stay busy doing what you want them to.

Damage Control

Let’s say you’re the supervisor of a group of employees (assembly-line workers, for instance.)  You want your workers to be more efficient because your superiors are worried about their bottom-line.  You remember from business school that incentives are a good way to achieve this goal, but your workers are already well-paid and enjoy several generous benefit packages, so you’re at a loss for how to incentivize them more.  That night, after work, you read on Practical Persuasion that a random-ratio reward system based on a coin-toss is the best way to induce compliance.  The next morning, you call your team together and tell them that each day of the month, whoever is 95 percent productive or better could get $100 cash.  You don’t tell them that the result is determined randomly because you’re afraid they won’t play along.

For two weeks, your employees operate at break-neck speed. Efficiency is consistently in the 80s and 90s, even on Fridays.  A third of your employees are 90 percent productive or higher.  As you expected, about half of those get bonuses.  The money you saved the company on labor and utilities more than makes up for the extra cash.  The bosses sing your praises.

The next two weeks, though, are different.  Productivity flat-lines, and then drops back to previous levels.  You remind your workers that the productivity game is still on, but they don’t seem to care.  Only half of the original productivity all-stars from before make the cut this time.  The bosses suddenly can’t remember your name.

After two more weeks of low productivity, HR organizes a company-wide teamwork seminar that wastes even more time and money. You also have to meet for two hours with the 21-year-old economics major who the bosses hired on as a “business strategies consultant” (he gets paid twice as much as you do, by the way).  You’re pissed. You go home, get drunk, and resolve to expose those two bastards at Practical Persuasion for the frauds they really are.

We hope this doesn’t really happen to anyone.  If it does, don’t hit “send” on that angry email just yet.  We now know that when people aren’t aware that a game is random, they assume it’s rigged after seeing several successively repeating outcomes. Also, a bit more than half of them will be almost certain that it is so.  To get them back, try this: explain how your system works…and then secretly scrap it.  Purposefully alternate your responses for a while.  Many people often mistake these alternations for randomness, so intentionally switching back-and-forth like this should get most of the skeptics back on board.  Be sure to submit to the coin (or whatever random process you’re using) once you’re secure.

Sources

Roney, C. J. R., & Trick, L. M. (2009). Sympathetic magic and perceptions of randomness: The hot hand versus the gambler’s fallacy. Thinking and Reasoning, 15(2), 197 – 210.

Three New Rules

The Rules of Persuasion is an integral feature of Practical Persuasion that helps us make our work useful and accessible to everyone.  To be honest, most of what we do here is for ourselves; we scour databases and resources of all kinds looking for scientific evidence of what works and what doesn’t, and we compile what we find into this blog to keep it organized.  But researching, analyzing, and organizing do not, by themselves, fix the problems we set out to solve.  We want to show you how to use persuasive techniques to be more influential and we want to show you how best to use them.  Condensing our research into simple rules helps us do that.

Today, we are presenting three new rules that expand upon those we already have.

Strategies

When we need to solve a problem, we start by forming a strategy.  We then check that strategy against three criteria:

Does this appreciably increase our odds of success?
How could it backfire or hurt us later?
Does it make good use of our strengths?

Do these questions sound familiar?  They should; they’re Rules 1 through  If a strategy doesn’t pass, it’s scrapped or altered until it does pass (or until we must act, for better or worse).  The first three rules assume that you already know how to form an effective strategy.  The next three rules are intended to break down that process into logical steps.

4. When developing a strategy, make your goals as clear and unambiguous as possible.  Use quantifications and milestones, and abide by them no matter what.

Vague advice is useless, even if the principles underlying the advice are sound.  We’ve been saying this since Day 1. Practically useless advice constantly floods the Internet, as well as other forms of media.  We intend to improve on this advice.  Much of it could be greatly improved with just a little clarification.

For example, in the second chapter of his landmark book Influence: Science and Practice, social psychologist and business consultant Robert Cialdini explains the concept of reciprocity.  Reciprocity is the ingrained psychological need to discharge an obligation, even if the obligation is to return a small, unsolicited favor from a complete stranger.  One variation of reciprocal persuasion Cialdini examines is the classic “door-in-the-face” (DITF) technique.  By making an extreme request first, backing off once refused, and then making a smaller request later, salespeople turn reluctant strangers into long-time clients.  But there’s a catch: the initial request can’t be too extreme.  How extreme is too extreme?  He doesn’t say.  Clarifying what “too extreme” is would be as easy as comparing the values of the first and second requests to establish a clear, quantifiable threshold.

While tactical clarity is important, clarifying your “end-game” is equally vital, especially if you’re planning long-term.  Over-reach is just as bad for your chances of future success when you’re winning as it is when you’re losing.  Every guy who’s tried to close a pick-up knows that going past the night’s goal with too little planning or too much alcohol is a recipe for disaster.  Every customer looking to haggle down the price of a car should know what his or her total spending limit is before stepping on the showroom.  Every pitchman and scam artist knows when to stop trying to persuade an obviously incorrigible skeptic and switch to a new mark.  Unfortunately, knowing when to stop is usually the last thing a person plans for, if they plan for it at all.  But if you’re smart, you’ll have an end-game.  If you’re strategy is good, you’ll have a clear end-game.

How do you take something vague and make it clear?  Quantify it.  In the DITF example, take Cialdini’s advice (“don’t make your initial request too extreme”) and quantify it (“don’t make an initial request that’s worth more than x percent of your planned second request.”) Even if there’s no evidence whatsoever that the quantity you choose is the proper amount, do it anyway.  If it’s not, you can adjust it later; if you don’t quantify it, though, you won’t know what to do.  If you can’t quantify something, set up a milestone.  In the pick-up end-game scenario we mentioned above, a good milestone is time (“at 2:00am, I’m asking for a number and getting out;” “If I don’t get an IOI in 2 hours, I’m outta here.”)  But no matter how you do it, never let anything convince you or force you to abandon your plan, cross your quantified threshold, or pass your pre-set milestone.

5. To be sound, tactics do not need to be revolutionary, nor do strategies need to be complex.  Keep it simple and aim for maximum efficiency (aka, “The Watergate Rule”).

Tactics don’t need to be original.  Simply making small improvements on a tried-and-true method will suffice.  Complex as the world is, rarely will you ever be called upon to deal with a wholly unique problem for which no solution exists.  As such, you don’t need to be a dazzling innovator or a creative genius to execute effective tactics.  However, not attempting to improve an existing tactic is usually as bad an idea as trying to concoct a completely new one.  Why?  Because most of the tactics others tell you to use are either inefficient or generic.  They work, sure, but their usefulness to you is probably very limited.  Fix them with customizations that make them more efficient and more germane to your specific situation.  But always start with them; don’t ignore them.  In our experience, novelty usually indicates risk.  Stick with what you know and improve upon it, little by little.

Basic tactics should be condsidered the platform upon which your complete strategies are built.  We pointed out that psychopaths utilize a number of tactics to enlarge their pool of possible successes.  A psychopath trying to pick up women in a bar or club, for example, will approach as many women as possible until one decides to give up her number or go home with him.  It’s a very basic tactic, and statistically, it always works, even though it’s inefficient and blandly generic.  But while our entire Dark Triad project is intended to discover how to make tactics like this better, in the end, frequent approaching will always be the foundation of any future strategy we propose.  Our Dark Triad project is essentially an effort to make frequent approaching more efficient.

Sticking with proven tactics also has a beneficial side-effect: it forces you to keep your overall strategy simple.

Now, simplicity is not usually a problem we see in other sources’ persuasion advice.  Most of the time, in fact, these sources could stand a little more (or a lot more) nuance.  But overly complex strategizing is a very common problem among amateurs and laypeople like ourselves.  They’re usually smarter, more rational, and more astute than the average person.  They hold Machiavellian characters in high regard.  And, as a result of their personal proclivities, they also sometimes think they can “mastermind” any situation and become “the-man-behind-the-curtain.”  They usually can’t.  Their strategies are overly-complex and unwieldy.  Too many of them enjoy strategizing more than acting.  And of course, their tactics are usually too creative and too risky to test out.  When they do put their plans in place, though, things break down quickly.

Another example: G. Gordon Liddy, the legendary and infamous campaign strategist, was renown during the Cold War for ingenious plans to subvert domestic political opponents.  When he joined then-President Richard Nixon’s campaign team in the early 1970s, he brought with him his love of intrigue, which Nixon, himself a fan of cloak-and-dagger style strategies, eagerly encouraged.  Liddy’s plans were expensive, elaborate, and shady.  One of them involved spy-planes, unregistered yachts, high-end call girls, state-of-the-art recording equipment, hired goons, kidnapping, blackmail, and burglary.  Nothing like the plan had ever been attempted before in American politics.  In the end, though, all it came to was a bungled B&E at the Watergate Hotel.  The rest is history.

The Watergate scandal is a classic example of a strategy that’s too elaborate for its own good.  And while most of you will probably never be involved in anything this complicated, it serves as reminder to always follow precedent and to always keep your strategies simple.  That’s why Rule 5 is also known as The Watergate Rule.

6. Options are invaluable.  Have an exit strategy in place, and avoid all-or-nothing situations.

Time is valuable.  Energy is valuable.  Money is valuable.  And you you will spend large volumes of each one throughout your lifetime trying to sway others; it’s unavoidable.  Get the most out of your investments by creating or seizing alternative options whenever and wherever possible.  This could be as basic as bar-hopping; it could be as elaborate as seeding a location with a crowd of your own friends via mass text before walking in with your date while simultaneously engineering a spur-of-the-moment houseparty across town.  The more options you have, the more power you wield, and even if you don’t achieve your primary goal, you’ll never feel like you wasted your resources.

But always remember that options are not substitutes for escape routes.  Your strategies will break down, either because of your mistakes or because of unforeseen circumstances.  It’s not a matter of if, but rather of when, and it’s imperative that you have a way out before you go in.  Failure often results in embarrassment, and embarrassment, if not dealt with, leads to long-term social damage.  Minimize that damage by preparing believable excuses and alibis.  Line up a fall guy (or girl).  If you’re out somewhere, have a getaway car on standby.  And needless to say, never get drunk while on campaign.  These are very basic safety procedures everyone should take; not enough people do.

Dark Triad Recap #2

We’ve covered a lot of new ground since we created our Dark Triad Summary page last month.  As our research continues to progress, we’ll update this page periodically to help you stay up to speed.  As always, feel free to contact us with questions, or drop a comment on a past or future Dark Triad post if you have any tips or insights you’d like to share.

Here’s the latest version of the Dark Triad Summary page:

What Is The Dark Triad?

The Dark Triad is a term used by social psychologists that refers to three inter-related personalities: sub-clinical narcissism, sub-clinical psychopathy, and Machiavellianism.  The connections between these traits were first documented in 2002 by psychologist Delroy L. Paulhus.

How Are The Dark Triad Personalities Measured?

The most common tool for measuring sub-clinical narcissism is the Narcissistic Personality Inventory, or NPI.  It usually contains 40 items, although the Corry version uses only 23.  Psychologists still debate the validity of this tool.  The most common tool for measuring sub-clinical psychopathy is the Psychopathic Personality Inventory Revised, or PPI-R.

In 2010, personality researcher and Dark Triad specialist Peter K. Jonason published a consolidated tool for measuring Dark Triad traits called The Dirty Dozen.  The tool contains 12 of the most reliable and representative items pulled from the NPI, PPI-R, and MACH-IV (Machiavellianism) tools.

Narcissism

1.  I tend to want others to admire me.

2.  I tend to want others to pay attention to me.

3.  I tend to expect special favors from others.

4.  I tend to seek prestige or status.

Psychopathy

5.  I tend to lack remorse.

6.  I tend to be callous or insensitive.

7.  I tend to not be too concerned with morality or the morality of my actions.

8.  I tend to be cynical.

Machiavellianism

9.  I have used deceit or lied to get my way.

10.  I tend to manipulate others to get my way.

11.  I have used flattery to get my way.

12.  I tend to exploit others towards my own end.

How Does The Dark Triad Relate To The Big Five Personality Traits?

The Big Five personality traits are Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, and Openness:

Extraversion: This trait includes characteristics such as excitability, sociability, talkativeness, assertiveness and high amounts of emotional expressiveness.
Agreeableness: This personality dimension includes attributes such as trust, altruism, kindness, affection, and other pro-social behaviors.
Conscientiousness: Common features of this dimension include high levels of thoughtfulness, with good impulse control and goal-directed behaviors.
Neuroticism: Individuals high in this trait tend to experience emotional instability, anxiety, moodiness, irritability, and sadness.
Openness: This trait features characteristics such as imagination and insight, and those high in this trait also tend to have a broad range of interests.

All three personalities are associated with disagreeableness (low agreeableness).  Narcissism and psychopathy both share an association with high extraversion.  Research suggests that narcissists can be neurotic; psychopaths generally are not.

How Are Dark Triad Traits Exhibited?

Personalities exhibit themselves through various factors.  Our simplified narcissism factor model has two factors, borrowing from the Corry Two-Factor Model:

Status-Seeking (Trying to assume power or control over others through leadership or expertise)

Overconfidence (Believing others are more interested in oneself than in other things)

 Our simplified psychopathy factor model has three factors, borrowing from the PPI-R Three-Factor Model:

Recklessness (Disregarding consequences of one’s actions to oneself or to others; lack of planning/goal-setting)
Nonchalance (Disdaining potential danger/embarrassment; inability to feel stress)
Coldheartedness (Lacking remorse when one’s actions negatively affect others)

 The Big Question – What, if anything, enables Dark Triad males to sleep with more women, more often, with less romantic commitment? 

There are at least three possibilities:

1. Dark Triad males may employ unique social strategies that effectively enlarge their pool of potential successes.

One online survey showed Dark Triad males have lower mate-selection standards for traits like creativity, kindness, and liveliness, and characteristics like physical attractiveness and social status.  If that is true, then these men are simply lowering their standards and increasing their options, not attracting more women.  However, another study’s findings suggest that narcissists do not lower their standards when choosing which women to target.  Although the men in this study were paid to approach women, they weren’t incentivized to approach women indiscriminately.  In other words, more approaches did not increase their individual payouts.  They were motivated purely by personal preference.  In our opinion, the second study’s findings are stronger.
In Positive Psychopathy, we examined 7 different psychopathic traits featured in Kevin Dutton’s book, The Wisdom of Psychopaths.  Four traits – focus, mental toughness, fearlessness, mindfulness, and action – are traits that strategically help psychopaths in social situations, including dating and seduction:

Focus – The ability to mute distractions in extremely hectic environments.  Focus is obviously a useful trait in any situation.  By quickly seeing, processing, and remembering tiny details most people miss, psychopaths with this traits excel where others fall behind.
Mental Toughness – The ability to remain unfazed in high pressure situations.  A psychopath with a high level of mental toughness does not respond negatively to criticism or rejection; he simply continues on until he succeeds.  Only a psychopath absorbs stress this easily.  For the rest of us, high rates of failure are inefficient and emotionally taxing.
Fearlessness – The ability to approach high-risk situations without apprehension or inhibited faculties.  It allows the psychopath to try things that other people don’t attempt.  These endeavors have fewer competitors, and succeeding at them is easier for the psychopath as a result.
Mindfulness – An intense, Zen-like state of attention for a current task.  Very similar to focus, mindfulness enables the psychopath to ignore not only present distractions, but also future worries and consequences.
Action – The companion trait to fearlessness.  Action allows psychopaths to constructively channel their natural disdain for risk and embarrassment; they proceed with a task that’s likely to fail even if they know it probably will.  Because psychopaths attempt high-risk endeavors more often than most people, they can claim more individual successes.  From a distance, it seems as if they succeed at them more often than they actually do.

2. Dark Triad males may possess personality traits that are intrinsically attractive.

In Zeroing in on Narcissism, the researchers isolated boldness as a mediator of narcissistic attractiveness.  They did not, however, test what common narcissistic behaviors best demonstrate boldness (besides simply walking up to girls and blatantly asking for contact information.)  We plan on using Vangelisti’s list of narcissistic conversational tactics to help us determine what some of these behaviors could be.
Charm, one of Kevin Dutton’s seven positive psychopathic traits, is the exception to the other six; the rest are strategically useful because they statistically increase success rates for psychopaths in social situations. Charm, however, is intrinsically attractive; it almost always succeeds.  Whether or not it can be learned or mimicked is an open question.

3. Dark Triad males may appear more physically attractive than the average male.

“Zeroing in on Narcissism” also isolated physical attractiveness as a mediator of narcissistic attractiveness. Cleanliness and neatness of dress were two characteristics common to narcissists in the Back Zero-Acquaintance study, but the researchers didn’t control for physical attractiveness.  Given the results of these two studies, it seems that narcissists put more effort into their physical fitness and aesthetic appearance than the average person.  This isn’t surprising, but it is important.
Decades of research suggests that attractive people are afforded more benefits than unattractive people.  If the Dark Triad males is in fact better-looking than the average male, his successes in and out of the dating world could simply be the result of a kind of stereotyping called behavioral confirmation.