Persuasive Communication - How Audiences Decide. 2nd Edition

210 Understanding Intuitive Decision Making

Fortunately for the professional, the same aids to audience decision making—such as those

described in Chapter 4—that make it easy for the audience to process a professional’s doc-

uments and presentations also bias the audience, usually in the professional’s favor. When

audiences use information heuristically, they choose the alternative presented in the style or

format that:

• is easiest to perceive;^8


• is most attention getting;^9


• is easiest to comprehend;^10


• makes activating a schema easy;^11


• makes acquiring information easy;^12


• makes integrating information easy.^13

Such stylistic techniques do not bias all audience members equally. Expert audience members

are less likely than novices to rely on heuristics and thus are less susceptible to bias when perform-

ing realistic tasks in their domain of expertise.^14 For example, medical residents are less susceptible

to the sunk-cost bias, less likely to “throw good money after bad,” when making medical deci-

sions than when making nonmedical decisions.^15 Similarly, accountants are less susceptible to bias

when making accounting than nonaccounting decisions.^16 Experienced bank loan offi cers rely

on heuristics only rarely when making commercial loan decisions, less often than they themselves

believe.^17 Nonetheless, some experts appear to rely on heuristics routinely. For example, research

indicates that federal judges routinely use heuristics such as anchoring, framing, and representative-

ness in making their judicial decisions.^18

Whereas expertise tends to mitigate the audience’s use of heuristics and their susceptibility to

bias, being part of a group often accentuates heuristic use and susceptibility to bias.^19 For example,

groups tend to accentuate the bias of individual audience members to neglect base-rate infor-

mation.^20 Groups also display a more pronounced optimism bias^21 and show more unrealistic

overconfi dence than individual members of the group.^22

Groups amplify other biases as well. Groups are persuaded by sunk-cost arguments even when

only a minority of group members mentions them as a reason for their decision.^23 Positive/nega-

tive framing effects (e.g., arguing for a medical procedure in terms of lives saved versus lives lost) at

the group level tend to be stronger than those at the individual level.^24 For example, groups given

the “lives lost” version of the Asian disease problem^25 choose the riskier alternative even when a

majority of the members initially favor the less risky alternative.^26 Groups also amplify, rather than

weaken, reliance on the representativeness heuristic.^27 Thus, they amplify the tendency of individu-

als to use stereotypes when making evaluations.^28

Groups are just as susceptible as individuals to other biases. Groups are just as susceptible as

individuals to anchoring-related biases.^29 Groups are just as susceptible as individuals to the con-

fi rmation bias. For example, groups of managers prefer information that confi rms the majority’s

initial decision over information that contradicts it.^30 Groups are equally susceptible to the con-

junctive fallacy: Instead of calculating the correct response, they simply exchange information

concerning their individual judgments and endorse the judgment of a single, oftentimes incorrect,

group member.^31

Some biased information processing is unique to groups. Groups may be prone to take courses

of action about which all members secretly disagree.^32 A group bias termed pluralistic ignorance is

caused by group members’ tendency to underestimate the extent to which other group mem-

bers share their concerns.^33 For example, outside board members are often reluctant to express