The Power of Ridiculous Reasons
dilbert.com
dilbert.com
A non-human analogy given by Cialdini (see http://www.bainvestor.com/Influence.html) is the mother turkey who simply responds to the cheep-cheep of its young to determine what nearby moving objects needs to be taken care of. The turkey, of course, can be tricked (by human researchers, usually) into responding the same way to an inappropriate animate object by spoofing the sound.
BUT - and this is where Scott Adams's analogy goes awry - in humans, this automatic response to "because X" generally only applies to inconsequential situations.
The marked contrast between the situations he compares (restaurant conundrums and territorial conflicts) is what gives away the flaw in his argument. If the outcome of a bad decision is just a cold bowl of soup, you can risk making a thoughtless choice. If the risk is continued territorial angst and loss of life, a decision is likely to demand a little more scrutiny.
He's either making a poor attempt at humor (which is very possible, since he probably feels compelled to try to write something at least mildly funny every day), or he's not aware that he's coming across as very disingenuous.
http://www.amazon.com/Influence-Psychology-Persuasion-Busine...
I've read it and even bought a second copy to lend out. It's that good.
The only reason that I can think of is that it detracts from the strength of the recommendation because of monetary concerns but since this is not the original person recommending it that should not matter.
Am I completely off on this one?
"Generalizations, Truth, and Rationality" http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=592468 http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1396
that bears a striking thematic relationship to Scott Adams posting on "ridiculous reasons".
When an experimenter gave a "ridiculous" (aka "placebo") reason for butting in line at the Xerox machine, "because I need to make copies", the person already at the machine would often let the experimenter in front to copy a "few pages", but would often refuse a request for "many pages".
So giving a ridiculous reason can smooth out socially awkward situations, whether butting in line or paying for dinner, ... but when Scott Adams tries to generalize this very minor behaviour to solve problems on a world scale, such as nations being occupied by invaders, ... he is being truly ridiculous. What he may have intended as humour, just comes off as being naive and deeply offensive to people around the world who have been brutally oppressed for decades.
... and there is experimentaly data to show that his "ridiculous reasons work" hypothesis clearly falls apart as soon as the request becomes non-trivial.
or in the second example, if he were to say the exact same thing but to a table full of his teenage son's friends at a birthday party vs saying it to a table full of professional acquaintances at a high profile event.
i think the responses would probably be diferent.
The person paying builds up "you'll owe me later" points; the rest of the table saves money, at least in the short term.
The people who've already been served get to eat immediately, which they probably want to do anyway; the others who haven't received their food yet can stop feeling guilty for stopping the others from eating.
Overall, a whole lot of uncomfortableness is avoided by agreeing to the ridiculous reason.
Compare that to the the territorial conflict example, in which one of the two parties wins nothing, and instead, loses something very important to them.
Thank goodness we never really honored such pointless rules in my family. Unfortunately when we receive guests it's sometimes the case that we'll have to choose (or should I say guess) between doing as usual and risk appearing rude or doing the waiting just in case.
Consider the following:
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I suppose the theory is that the person at position 8 shouldn't start eating out of deference to the person at position 9, but in that case the person at 8 effectively doesn't have food (they have it but can't eat, which is equivalent to not having food). So, if 8 should defer because of 9, shouldn't 7 defer because of 8?
If not 50 years, than how many years is the proper number? If the people fighting the conflict were not even born when it started, what exactly are they clinging to?
I assume that you would say 200 years is too long for something like this to go on. Pick a number, however ridiculously huge, that you would be comfortable with. Make it 200 years, I don't care. At that point, we can begin a logical discussion of your number. Perhaps after that occurred, I could get you down to 100 years, and you would feel vindicated. Yes?
He's picking 50 years. Don't like it? Would you agree to a compromise between 50 and 100? 75 years is rapidly approaching.
Accepting a free dinner is easy to do. Accepting a lifetime of domination from an oppressor is "not the same thing".
I wonder if Scott Adams would be so willing to accept a ridiculous justification if he was the one being tormented every day of his life.
What guys? Normally, say 5 people, the bill comes and it's $50, everyone chucks in a $20 and says they don't want change...