Even if you are the least interested fan about the 2010 World Cup soccer tournament, you know that there were serious problems with the referees.  They made a lot of whopping bad calls that even the most casual of observers could spot.  What to do?

Nudge, baby.

1.  Add Referees.

2.  Add Technology.

3.  Increase Scoring.

4.  Redefine “Offside.”

5.  Rethink Penalties.

6.  Reduce Faking.

Really.

This is Nudging.  Those little things that make big differences.  Little things like adding more key personnel, changing primary rules, spending more money.  Subtle.  Nuanced.  Bright in a deep way.  Deep in a bright way.  Nudge.

And, not that there’s any bias in Nudge:

Consider the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau now being established. Above all, I’d urge the head of this agency to devise rules under the assumption that, someday, he or she will be succeeded by a nitwit.

Gee, the Obama appointee to this new Bureau (yet to be named and confirmed) won’t be a nitwit?

Nudge as Oracle!

I’ll probably lose my setting at the Cool Table for this, but I have access to the Nudge for Democrats in the November elections.  If you are a Republican or some other nitwit who isn’t voting for Democrats, stop reading this, otherwise Nudge Along!

1.  Add Democratic Voters.

2.  Delete Republican Voters.

3.  Hire Nudge Consultants.

All Bad Persuasion Is Sincere.

Persuaders Can Either Be Famous or Effective, But Not Both.

There’s a Difference between Persuasion, and Smoke and Mirrors; With Persuasion the Illusion Lingers.

Among the many attributes the story of Shirley Sherrod, it stands as a strong example of Biased Processing, that High WATT Central Route approach that uses existing beliefs, expectations, and schema to understand Arguments, rather than following Arguments to conclusions.

On July 20, 2010, a conservative political website posted an edited version of a speech Ms. Sherrod had given to a meeting of the NAACP.  This posting rather quickly came to the attention of the Secretary of the Agriculture, Tom Vilsack.  He only watched the edited version of the speech and did nothing to obtain a copy of the entire speech.  Based in part on that edited version, Vilsack asked for and received Ms. Sherrod’s resignation.  Later, when Vilsack watched the entire speech, he changed his mind about Ms. Sherrod’s remarks, apologized for his hasty decision, and offered her a new job with the government.

Regardless of your political position on this event, I want you to focus on how people like Secretary Vilsack were thinking.  I see it as a clear example of the ELM Bias Process.  There’s no doubt that Vilsack was a High WATT seeker and processor of information about this event.  He moved quickly over the course of a few hours to reach his decision once he saw the edited clip from the political website.  He clearly sought information from other people about this event and had indirect contact with Ms. Sherrod through her supervisory chain.  There’s no evidence at all that Vilsack was a Low WATT Peripheral Route processor ambling along looking for spangly Cues.

Yet, you can also clearly see that Vilsack did not look for all relevant Arguments (for example, he didn’t obtain a copy of the whole speech before he sought Sherrod’s resignation) and he used an existing set of beliefs (the credibility of his Cabinet agencies) to interpret the Arguments contained in the edited speech.

One of the great persuasion problems for any person is trying to understand when you are Objective and when you are Biased.  While Objective Central Route processing does not guarantee you will find the persuasion “truth,” it is usually the best chance you’ve got.  Rarely does Biased Central Route processing lead you to a clear eyed understanding.  But how can you tell the difference between Objective and Biased?

The strongest indication is how self-relevant the issue or event is to you.  If the event cuts to the core of your identity, your strongest beliefs and values, chances are you are Biased and you will make Arguments fit your existing beliefs rather than following the Arguments where they lead.

Another way to see this is with the Rule, All Bad Persuasion Is Sincere.  I suspect that Mr. Vilsack was entirely sincere in this event and did not think strategically about it.  He thought he was on a Truth Mission even though this is clearly a political event which means there’s a ton of ambiguity, disagreement, and conflict in the event – reasonable people will take different positions.  An inSincere Persuasion approach rather than a Sincere Truth approach might have served Mr. Vilsack better.

When an event hits your hot buttons and moves you to Sincerity, be careful.

“This Time Is Different” is one of those marketplace oddities – a best selling book loaded with highly technical and specialized information that is difficult for educated readers who are not trained in economics.  But, nonetheless, the book is a large success.  I guess there are a lot more PhD economists in the world than I realized! Or more people who think they are just as qualified, perhaps.

One trait I admired in reading the book was the authors’ honesty.  They take great pains to constantly state the impoverished state of affairs in economics data.  They frequently lament the difficulty in assembling even weak economic data sets tracking relatively short periods of time.  They carefully assemble what they loudly acknowledge are incomplete, biased, and shaky samples of macro economic figures, then do a yeoman’s job in organizing and explaining them.

Now, what has this got to do with persuasion?

If You Can’t Count It, You Can’t Change It.

The authors of “This Time Is Different” clearly demonstrate that the reason economics is not quite as helpful as folks expect it to be is that we still Can’t Count It.  Despite the reams, piles, stacks, and heaps of economic data, data sets composed of long periods (hundreds of years) of well defined and consistently measured indicators across many nations simply do not exist.  In other words, we lack coherent big picture data sets.  Most often the authors are essentially creating proxy (my word) data sets for analysis – weakness they fully declare.

We face a similar problem with most other observational research areas like climate change, epidemiology, and various streams of evolution-based science as in psychology.  While there are seemingly huge data sets, they are not long term, comprehensive, randomly drawn and certainly not universal.  I’d argue that these cases exemplify my Rule, If You Can’t Count It, You Can’t Change It.  Bad counting doesn’t count and the authors of “This Time Is Different” are extremely careful about the bad counting and constantly warning about it.

You can tell my biases here.  Science is a helluva tool when you’ve got great methods and great data, but when you are reduced to convenience samples of proxy data drawn sporadically over time and place, the science is just not that good.  We need to keep looking and working for better science, for sure.  But, we need to be extremely careful about substituting bad science for good judgment in public policy and private choice.

You’ll know that economics has arrived when the next edition of “This Time Is Different” has a page with a model of variables (something like a structural equation model, if you’re familiar with that lingo), then a simple regression that shows model fit parameters with very large amounts of explained variance.  There won’t be so many tables and figures and charts, because the model will work so well, everything else is obvious.  If you peruse “This Time Is Different,” you will note a lot of numbers and charts, but no statistical analysis that shows models, estimates for parameters, and explained variance.

That’s Counting It.

P.S. Nice “Mad Men” touch with the book cover.  Does it help sales?

P.P.S. Why no reference to David Hackett Fischer’s “The Great Wave” historical analysis of inflation?

All Bad Poetry Is Sincere according to Oscar Wilde (as artfully compressed by Harold Bloom) and, thief that I am, All Bad Persuasion Is Sincere.  In the release of Mark Twain’s unabridged Autobiography, we see evidence of the operation of both Rules.

Twain dictated his autobiography during the last four years of his life, then arranged it as a book.  He, however, left explicit directives for the publication of his life story.

“From the first, second, third and fourth editions all sound and sane expressions of opinion must be left out,” Twain instructed them in 1906.  “There may be a market for that kind of wares a century from now.  There is no hurry.  Wait and see.”

At the risk of stupendous simplification, when Twain says to cut “. . . expressions of opinion . . .” he is saying to cut the Sincerity.  Both as poetry and persuasion, Twain understands that sincere expression is bad art and worse rhetoric.  And, as described in the NYT review, one should admire Twain’s restraint in sharing his sincere opinions.

He notes of his youth that “In my schoolboy days, I had no aversion to slavery.  I was not aware there was anything wrong about it.”  He hates the military and views soldiers in the then contemporary wars in Cuba and the Philippines as “uniformed assassins.”  He despises the Rockefellers and robber barons for their low tax bills.  The Times reviewer also observes that, “He complains about his lawyer, his publisher, the inventor of a failed typesetting machine who he feels fleeced him, and is especially hard on a countess who owns the villa in which he lived with his family in Florence, Italy, in 1904.”  And, critics?

“I believe that the trade of critic, in literature, music, and the drama, is the most degraded of all trades, and that it has no real value,” Twain writes. “However, let it go,” he adds. “It is the will of God that we must have critics, and missionaries, and Congressmen, and humorists, and we must bear the burden.”

Considered in brief, Twain’s opinions are categorically just like mine and yours – all our own and best left out of the marketplace if you aim at poetry or persuasion.

Hello Prudie,

Jamie T. from Philadelphia recently inquired about proper footwear in public. You observed, “The idea of entering a place of food service without shoes (or a shirt) seems vaguely Appalachian to Prudie.”

I have visited many places of food service across America in my 45 years, and since I moved to Appalachia in 1985, I have continued the practice. Oddly enough, I have never observed anyone entering an Appalachian eatery barefoot.

Since your Appalachian epithet would seem authoritative (I cannot imagine Prudie substituting a different ethnic group in her admonition), would you please document the claim? Prudie, your behavior here is incorrect, impolite, and unjust.

–Steve Booth-Butterfield,Morgantown, W.Va.

Dear Steve,

Prudie is contrite and apologizes profusely for the slur. As penance, she promises to retire the hillbilly stereotype from this day forward.

–Prudie, repentantly