Thin Slicing and the Difference Difference Makes

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Thin Slicing and the Difference Difference Makes
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Thin Slicing

• John Gottmans Love Lab and SPAFF (for specific
  affect)
• By analyzing over 3,000 couples over 3 decades,
  Gottman has devised models that provide 95
  predictability over couples marriage prospects.
• Like the Getty museum and the Iowa gamblers,
  Gottman has learned that an enormous amount of
  valuable data on couples can be gathered quickly
  and from limited exposure (amidst all the
  noise).
• - marital DNA is akin to Morse code a
  relationship between two people has a fist as
  wella distinctive signature that arises
  naturally and automatically predicting divorce,
  then, like tracking Morse Code operators, is
  essentially pattern recognition

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Thin Slicing

• Gottmans thin slicing marriage analysis
• - positive sentiment override vs. negative
  sentiment override
• - once couples start going down the negative
  sentiment override, 94 will continue going down
  it. They start on a bad course and cant correct
  it.
• The 4 Horsemen defensiveness, stonewalling,
  criticism, CONTEMPT
• The Secrets of the Bedroom (in previous eras, it
  was the checkbook)
• two options to really get to know someone
• (1) meet twice a week for a year (lunch, dinner,
  movie, etc.) OR
• (2) drop by the persons house/dorm room for an
  hour without warning

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Thin Slicing Samuel Goslings Big 5 Inventory

• Welcome to the Gosling lab Page
• (We study offices and what they say about their
  occupants...but this isn't my office...mine was
  deemed too dull for the photograph!) pp. 34-37
• 80 students filled out a brief Big Five
  personality inventory (p. 35) and then had close
  friends of the 80 students fill out the same
  questionnaire
• - strong correlation between the inventory and
  the questionnaires (not surprising), but what was
  surprising?

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Thin Slicing Samuel Goslings Big 5 Inventory

• Dorm room observers werent nearly as good as
  friends in measuring and, thus, predicting an
  individuals extraversion (or introversion).
• They were also less good than an individuals
  friends in measuring and predicting how
  agreeable the person was.
• BUT, and this is what is so interesting (and
  perhaps disturbing), on the remaining 3
  personality dimensionsconscientiousness,
  emotional stability, and openness to new
  experiencesthe strangers with clipboards who
  simply analyzed individuals rooms outperformed
  the individuals friends in terms of correlating
  with the individuals responses to questions
  about their personality (e.g., bookshelves,
  medicine cabinets, CD racks).
• Why is this important? All policy-making (college
  admissions, welfare qualifications, corporate
  Americas extensive use of and dependence on
  personality tests for hiring and advancement,
  etc.) relies very, very heavily on the
  PREDICTABILITY of instruments.
• Coming at individuals sideways is often a lot
  more effective in terms of successfully
  analyzing them and predicting their behavior,
  which (again) is the primary objective of public
  policy encouraging some types of behavior and
  discouraging others.

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Thin Slicing Samuel Goslings Big 5 Inventory
Got any skeletons in your closet? Well, how about
on your bedroom floor? On every episode of Room
Raiders, one lucky contestant will search the
boudoirs of three prospective "mates." What they
discover will determine who they pick as their
date for the evening. No drawer will be left
unopened as each victim - or potential date - is
mercilessly scrutinized without advanced warning.
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Thin Slicing, Doctors, and Malpractice Suits

• Ironically, a doctors likelihood for being sued
  has much, much less to do with competence than
  what?
• Studies of physicians conversations with
  patients showed a clear pattern or relationship
  between length and type of conversation and how
  often (if at all) the physicians had been sued in
  their careers.
• New state-level policies aimed at reducing
  otherwise skyrocketing malpractice insurance
  prices for doctors apologizing. The risks are
  extraordinary, yet research shows that nothing is
  more effective in reducing liability than an
  authentically offered apology.
• Extreme Honesty policy at Lexington Kentucky VA
  hospital the hospitals average cost of
  error-related payouts including settlements and
  jury verdicts was only 15,662, which put the
  hospital in the bottom quarter of 35 local
  hospitals.
• Apology is psychologically expected when a wrong
  has been done.

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The Wisdom of Crowds The Difference Difference
Makes (DIVERSITY)

• In our politically-correct world, diversity has
  become such a sloppy buzzword that its easy to
  miss its actual importance
• The angle from the sun indicates direction. The
  duration of the waggle part
• of the dance signifies the distance.
  Approximately 1 second of dance 1 km distance.

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The Wisdom of Crowds The Difference Difference
Makes (DIVERSITY)

• Diverse innovation is absolutely key to continued
  economic growth . . .
• In each of these eras, the early days of a
  business or area of industry are characterized by
  a profusion of alternatives, many of them
  dramatically different from each other in design
  and technology.
• At the end of the era, a few players are left
  standing and in control of most of the market.

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The Wisdom of Crowds The Difference Difference
Makes (DIVERSITY)

• Scott Pages research on problem-solving
• groups of experts/smart people regularly
  under-perform more random, eclectic groups that
  still have some experts/smart people but also
  some naïve individuals and non-experts
• Why? Several reasons, not the least of which
  his that experts dont normally hedge as much
  as they should or rate (calibrate) the likelihood
  of their predictions (except for weathermen and
  bridge players). Experts usually have the same
  info.
• Experts rarely know how often they are wrong
• 1984-1999 90 of mutual-fund managers
  under-performed the Wilshire 5000 Index
  (catalyst for index investing
• Yet pooling the advice and predictions of
  different experts tends to identify error and
  cancel it out much more often than single,
  individual expert decision-making.
• A risk groupthink

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Irving Janis Groupthink

• Shows the risks of group decision-making when
  group is homogenous (not diverse) and
  contribution to the deliberation is not on an
  individual basis.
• Bay of Pigs fiasco
• Solomon Aschs social pressure perception
• experiment (e.g., elevators)

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Other Examples of Groupthink

• - professors
• - reconstruction of Iraq (not the invasion/war,
  which was a success)
• - 1980 Iran hostage rescue
• - dot-com bubble (pets.com, boo.com, webvan.com)
• - real estate bubble today?