ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at how the way information is framed influences our thinking. According to the ‘elaboration likelihood model’, it is possible to persuade people to make decisions based on a ‘peripheral route’ on the assumption that they will avoid the ‘central processing route’. Hence, we may mistake pragmatic implications for assertions. Much of the time, it would appear that we are not always capable of stating why we make the choices we do. We can also be influenced by superficial features such as rhetorical or poetical devices – the ‘rhyme as reason’ effect. Judgements of a politician’s competence can rely on superficial features such as what someone looks like rather than an analysis of policies or history. Furthermore, there is evidence that we tend to confabulate when we try to justify or explain our actions or choices. The illusory superiority effect refers to a bias whereby a majority of people feel that are better than our peers, and the Dunning-Kruger effect refers to a mistaken view of our own competence. The fact that we are sometimes poor at explaining our behaviour is known as the ‘illusion of explanatory depth’. We make up explanations as we go along.
