The best way to win an argument

After analyzing more than a billion tweets posted during major sporting events, the researchers found that the "louder" and more confident statements debater, the more chances he has to win the debate. In other words, speak with confidence, even if you know you are wrong.



The study was conducted by employees of the University of Washington Dzhadrienom Wooten and Ben Smith, who compared tweets sports experts and ordinary fans: for this they have developed a special program for the treatment of a billion 140-character messages associated with the final match on the American football-2013. It was found that most experts used in their tweets such words as "winning" and "victory," and fans - "subdue" and "destroy", and the experts' predictions come true in 47% of cases, and the fans - 45%. However, the "noisy" fans trust rating is much higher: for example, if a football expert "guessed" the score in the game, his reputation grew only 3, 4%, but if the same thing did ordinary fans, his approval rating rose by 7, 3%. Thus, people are more inclined to believe in a loud, sometimes populist statements than considered opinion of knowledgeable people, and all because the latter is too restrained in words. Smith and Wooten explained by the fact that from a purely psychological point of view, people hate uncertainty, so it is not a priori like the person who says, "I think ..." or "I'm sure 90% of ...", and vice versa - the individuals, gives us hope, automatically cause sympathy.

via factroom.ru