1. Articles
Lessons from judgment and decision-making. Petia Petrova, Norbert Schwarz, and
Hyunjin Song
By describing the undesirable behaviour as a common behaviour, such messages can actually
increase its frequency, rather than reduce it. To decrease the frequency of undesirable actions, some
messages ask recipients to imagine potential negative outcomes. Yet, Cialdini’s research reveals that
because the negative outcomes are often abstract, such messages can make these outcomes seem
less likely to occur, in contrast to what the message intended. “It now appears that not only is the
content of thoughts generated prior to a judgment or performance important, but the ease of
generating those thoughts and images also may be a critical determinant of later judgments and
behaviour”.
Fluency and social consensus: it sounds familiar, it must be popular
One of the most basic forces that influence our behaviour are the actions and opinions of others.
Unfortunately, we are poor at tracking how often we have heard or seen something. Instead, we rely
on whether it seems familiar – if it does, we’ve probably heard or seen it before.
How come people to identify norms in the first place? Incorporating a fluency perspective reveals a
powerful insight: to infer a norm, people draw on the experience of familiarity, but are insensitive to
where this fluency experience comes from. Hence, their perceptions may often be faulty and driven
by fluency variables that are unrelated to the actual frequency of the relevant opinion or behaviour.
Fluency and truth: it sounds familiar, it’s probably true
Variables that facilitate fluent processing (repetition, rhyme) create the impression that a statement
is true. This fluency-familiarity-truth link suggests that frequent repetition and design qualities can
increase the influence of a message beyond its effect on attention and retention. At the same time,
the phenomenon presents a problem when we attempt to counter misleading information.
Various types of messages try to correct for misleading information by repeating the false
information and then refuting it with counter arguments. Weeks later, the false information can be
the only piece that is remembered and, as a result, the corrective information is not remembered
and people are still misinformed. True information needs to be made as fluent and familiar as
possible. The true, counter arguments need to be linked to the false information in order to be
remembered (mnemonic links).
Fluency and risk: it’s hard to pronounce, it must be dangerous
Familiar options feel safer than unfamiliar ones. People perceive technologies, investments, food and
leisure activities as less risky the more familiar they are with them. Given that fluently processed
stimuli seem more familiar, they should also be perceived as less threatening and risky. In one study,
perceived novelty mediated the influence of ease of pronunciation on perceived risk. It turned out,
that perceived familiarity, by itself, influences perceptions of risk.
The effects of disfluency are not limited to the perception of negative risks, but can also be observed
in the perception of risks that people consider desirable. For instance, people may want to take risky
amusement park rides to enjoy the feeling of excitement and adventure. In one study, participants
perceived rides with difficult-to-pronounce names as more exciting and adventurous than rides with
easy-to-pronounce names. In the case of rides, risk is desirable. Moreover, the rides with difficult-to-
pronounce names were also seen to make them sick more likely. The ease with which the names
,could be pronounced influenced their perceived familiarity. This perceived familiarity, in turn,
influenced how risky the stimuli seemed, no matter if the risk was desirable or undesirable.
Similar observations have been made in a real-world domain with high stakes: people’s investments
in the stock market. In the initial weeks after a company goes public, stocks with easy-to-pronounce
ticker symbols outperformed stocks with difficult-to-pronounce ticker symbols.
Fluency and future expectations: if it’s hard to imagine, it won’t happen
We tend to grossly mispredict the future. Many factors contribute to these mispredictions, and our
experience of fluency is one of them. For instance, we feel less vulnerable to a disease when we find
it difficult to recall relevant risk factors or to imagine the disease’s symptoms. The experience of
fluency in creating mental images also affects how we estimate the likelihood of undertaking specific
actions. The more difficult it is to imagine the behaviour, the less likely we think we are to engage in
it. Thus, in some cases, attempts to engage audience imagination may not only be ineffective, but can
backfire and produce the opposite of the intended effect.
Simply asking people about the likelihood that they will engage in a behaviour can make them
actually engage in the behaviour. One reason for the effectiveness of this approach is that, once
presented with a hypothetical question about engaging in an activity, people spontaneously try to
imagine this activity. Subsequently, they base their perceptions of its likelihood on the ease with
which they can imagine it. When it is difficult to imagine the action in question, hypothetical
questions will reduce its likelihood.
Fluency and expected effort: if it’s hard to read, it’s hard to do
The experience of fluency can dramatically change one’s perceptions of the amount of effort it would
take to complete the task. Even minor irrelevant features can easily bias effort estimates. Quite
clearly, people misread the difficulty of reading the exercise instructions as indicative of the difficulty
involved in doing the exercise. This means that if we want people to adopt a new behaviour, it is
important that our recommendation is not only conceptually clear and easy to follow, but also
perceptually easy to process. Of course, disfluency may be advantageous when the goal is to create a
perception of effort.
Moreover, by creating an experience of fluency while presenting a request, the perceived amount of
effort involved in complying without changing the actual request can be reduced.
Fluency and commitment: when giving people choice backfires
We want to be consistent with our previous choices. From a fluency perspective, however, the
experience of difficulty in making a choice can have substantial negative effects. Even when choices
are limited to just two options, they frequently involve difficult trade-offs. This can have unintended
consequences. It can create decision paralysis and choice deferral, lower satisfaction with the
decision process, cause people to switch to a different option later, and reduce motivation and
commitment to implement the choice.
Inclination to defer choice can occur even when the experience of difficulty arises merely from the
print font in which the choice alternatives are described.
Fluency and liking: we like what’s easy on the mind
One of the best known fluency effects is the mere exposure effect: the more often we see an object,
the more we like it. From a fluency perspective, repeated exposure is just one of many variables that
facilitate fluent processing. If so, any other variable that makes processing easy should also increase
liking, which is true. The same principle is also central to the observation that we prefer prototypical
, faces over more unusual ones – prototypical faces are easier to process and they elicit a more
positive affective response. Scientists and poets believe that beauty and truth go hand in hand –
intuitive judgments of beauty and truth are based on the same input; the experience of fluent
processing.
Fluency and processing style: do I need to think twice?
Fluency experiences can not only directly influence our judgments, but they can also influence how
we think. One way in which fluency shapes how we think is by influencing the level of abstractness
with which we construe information. When a questionnaire is printed in a difficult-to-read font,
people describe certain things more abstractly than when it is printed in an easy-to-read font. People
also give more abstract definitions of words that are difficult to pronounce and more concrete
definitions of words that are easy to pronounce.
Another way in which fluency shapes thought is by influencing how carefully we consider the
information at hand. We consider the information given more carefully when it is printed in a
difficult-to-read font.
Lessons from judgment and decision-making. Petia Petrova, Norbert Schwarz, and
Hyunjin Song
By describing the undesirable behaviour as a common behaviour, such messages can actually
increase its frequency, rather than reduce it. To decrease the frequency of undesirable actions, some
messages ask recipients to imagine potential negative outcomes. Yet, Cialdini’s research reveals that
because the negative outcomes are often abstract, such messages can make these outcomes seem
less likely to occur, in contrast to what the message intended. “It now appears that not only is the
content of thoughts generated prior to a judgment or performance important, but the ease of
generating those thoughts and images also may be a critical determinant of later judgments and
behaviour”.
Fluency and social consensus: it sounds familiar, it must be popular
One of the most basic forces that influence our behaviour are the actions and opinions of others.
Unfortunately, we are poor at tracking how often we have heard or seen something. Instead, we rely
on whether it seems familiar – if it does, we’ve probably heard or seen it before.
How come people to identify norms in the first place? Incorporating a fluency perspective reveals a
powerful insight: to infer a norm, people draw on the experience of familiarity, but are insensitive to
where this fluency experience comes from. Hence, their perceptions may often be faulty and driven
by fluency variables that are unrelated to the actual frequency of the relevant opinion or behaviour.
Fluency and truth: it sounds familiar, it’s probably true
Variables that facilitate fluent processing (repetition, rhyme) create the impression that a statement
is true. This fluency-familiarity-truth link suggests that frequent repetition and design qualities can
increase the influence of a message beyond its effect on attention and retention. At the same time,
the phenomenon presents a problem when we attempt to counter misleading information.
Various types of messages try to correct for misleading information by repeating the false
information and then refuting it with counter arguments. Weeks later, the false information can be
the only piece that is remembered and, as a result, the corrective information is not remembered
and people are still misinformed. True information needs to be made as fluent and familiar as
possible. The true, counter arguments need to be linked to the false information in order to be
remembered (mnemonic links).
Fluency and risk: it’s hard to pronounce, it must be dangerous
Familiar options feel safer than unfamiliar ones. People perceive technologies, investments, food and
leisure activities as less risky the more familiar they are with them. Given that fluently processed
stimuli seem more familiar, they should also be perceived as less threatening and risky. In one study,
perceived novelty mediated the influence of ease of pronunciation on perceived risk. It turned out,
that perceived familiarity, by itself, influences perceptions of risk.
The effects of disfluency are not limited to the perception of negative risks, but can also be observed
in the perception of risks that people consider desirable. For instance, people may want to take risky
amusement park rides to enjoy the feeling of excitement and adventure. In one study, participants
perceived rides with difficult-to-pronounce names as more exciting and adventurous than rides with
easy-to-pronounce names. In the case of rides, risk is desirable. Moreover, the rides with difficult-to-
pronounce names were also seen to make them sick more likely. The ease with which the names
,could be pronounced influenced their perceived familiarity. This perceived familiarity, in turn,
influenced how risky the stimuli seemed, no matter if the risk was desirable or undesirable.
Similar observations have been made in a real-world domain with high stakes: people’s investments
in the stock market. In the initial weeks after a company goes public, stocks with easy-to-pronounce
ticker symbols outperformed stocks with difficult-to-pronounce ticker symbols.
Fluency and future expectations: if it’s hard to imagine, it won’t happen
We tend to grossly mispredict the future. Many factors contribute to these mispredictions, and our
experience of fluency is one of them. For instance, we feel less vulnerable to a disease when we find
it difficult to recall relevant risk factors or to imagine the disease’s symptoms. The experience of
fluency in creating mental images also affects how we estimate the likelihood of undertaking specific
actions. The more difficult it is to imagine the behaviour, the less likely we think we are to engage in
it. Thus, in some cases, attempts to engage audience imagination may not only be ineffective, but can
backfire and produce the opposite of the intended effect.
Simply asking people about the likelihood that they will engage in a behaviour can make them
actually engage in the behaviour. One reason for the effectiveness of this approach is that, once
presented with a hypothetical question about engaging in an activity, people spontaneously try to
imagine this activity. Subsequently, they base their perceptions of its likelihood on the ease with
which they can imagine it. When it is difficult to imagine the action in question, hypothetical
questions will reduce its likelihood.
Fluency and expected effort: if it’s hard to read, it’s hard to do
The experience of fluency can dramatically change one’s perceptions of the amount of effort it would
take to complete the task. Even minor irrelevant features can easily bias effort estimates. Quite
clearly, people misread the difficulty of reading the exercise instructions as indicative of the difficulty
involved in doing the exercise. This means that if we want people to adopt a new behaviour, it is
important that our recommendation is not only conceptually clear and easy to follow, but also
perceptually easy to process. Of course, disfluency may be advantageous when the goal is to create a
perception of effort.
Moreover, by creating an experience of fluency while presenting a request, the perceived amount of
effort involved in complying without changing the actual request can be reduced.
Fluency and commitment: when giving people choice backfires
We want to be consistent with our previous choices. From a fluency perspective, however, the
experience of difficulty in making a choice can have substantial negative effects. Even when choices
are limited to just two options, they frequently involve difficult trade-offs. This can have unintended
consequences. It can create decision paralysis and choice deferral, lower satisfaction with the
decision process, cause people to switch to a different option later, and reduce motivation and
commitment to implement the choice.
Inclination to defer choice can occur even when the experience of difficulty arises merely from the
print font in which the choice alternatives are described.
Fluency and liking: we like what’s easy on the mind
One of the best known fluency effects is the mere exposure effect: the more often we see an object,
the more we like it. From a fluency perspective, repeated exposure is just one of many variables that
facilitate fluent processing. If so, any other variable that makes processing easy should also increase
liking, which is true. The same principle is also central to the observation that we prefer prototypical
, faces over more unusual ones – prototypical faces are easier to process and they elicit a more
positive affective response. Scientists and poets believe that beauty and truth go hand in hand –
intuitive judgments of beauty and truth are based on the same input; the experience of fluent
processing.
Fluency and processing style: do I need to think twice?
Fluency experiences can not only directly influence our judgments, but they can also influence how
we think. One way in which fluency shapes how we think is by influencing the level of abstractness
with which we construe information. When a questionnaire is printed in a difficult-to-read font,
people describe certain things more abstractly than when it is printed in an easy-to-read font. People
also give more abstract definitions of words that are difficult to pronounce and more concrete
definitions of words that are easy to pronounce.
Another way in which fluency shapes thought is by influencing how carefully we consider the
information at hand. We consider the information given more carefully when it is printed in a
difficult-to-read font.
