A massive experiment on choice blindness in political decisions : confidence, confabulation, and unconscious detection of self-deception

We implemented a Choice Blindness Paradigm containing political statements in Argentina to reveal the existence of categorical ranges of introspective reports, identified by confidence and agreement levels, separating easy from very hard to manipulate decisions. CBP was implemented in both live and web-based forms. Importantly, and contrary to what was observed in Sweden, we did not observe changes in voting intentions. Also, confidence levels in the manipulated replies where significantly lower than in non-manipulated cases even in undetected manipulations. We name this phenomenon unconscious detection of selfdeception. Results also show that females are more difficult to manipulate than men.Fil: Rieznik, Andrés. Universidad Torcuato Di Tella, Escuela de Negocios, Laboratorio de Neurociencia, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), Buenos Aires, Argentina. El Gato y La Caja, Buenos Aires, Argentina.Fil: Moscovich, Lorena. Universidad de San Andrés, Buenos Aires, ArgentinaFil: Frieiro, Alan. Universidad de Vigo, Vigo, EspañaFil: Figini, Julieta. Universidad de San Andrés, Buenos Aires, ArgentinaFil: Catalano, Rodrigo. El Gato y La Caja, Buenos Aires, ArgentinaFil: Garrido, Juan Manuel. El Gato y La Caja, Buenos Aires, ArgentinaFil: Álvarez Heduan, Facundo. El Gato y La Caja, Buenos Aires, ArgentinaFil: Sigman, Mariano. CONICET, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Universidad Torcuato Di Tella, Escuela de Negocios, Laboratorio de Neurociencia, Buenos Aires, ArgentinaFil: González, Pablo A. El Gato y La Caja, Buenos Aires, Argentin

Reaching Consensus in Polarized Moral Debates

The group polarization phenomenon is a widespread human bias with no apparent geographical or cultural boundaries [1]. Although the conditions that breed extremism have been extensively studied [2–5], comparably little research has examined how to depolarize attitudes in people who already embrace extreme beliefs. Previous studies have shown that deliberating groups may shift toward more moderate opinions [6], but why deliberation is sometimes effective although other times it fails at eliciting consensus remains largely unknown. To investigate this, we performed a large-scale behavioral experiment with live crowds from two countries. Participants (N = 3,288 in study 1 and N = 582 in study 2) were presented with a set of moral scenarios and asked to judge the acceptability of a controversial action. Then they organized in groups of three and discussed their opinions to see whether they agreed on common values of acceptability. We found that groups succeeding at reaching consensus frequently had extreme participants with low confidence and a participant with a moderate view but high confidence. Quantitative analyses showed that these “confident grays” exerted the greatest weight on group judgements and suggest that consensus was driven by a mediation process [7, 8]. Overall, these findings shed light on the elements that allow human groups to resolve moral disagreement.Fil: Navajas Ahumada, Joaquin Mariano. Universidad Torcuato Di Tella; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Álvarez Heduan, Facundo. No especifíca;Fil: Garrido, Juan Manuel. No especifíca;Fil: Gonzalez, Pablo A.. No especifíca;Fil: Garbulsky, Gerry. No especifíca;Fil: Ariely, Dan. No especifíca;Fil: Sigman, Mariano. Universidad Torcuato Di Tella; Argentina. Universidad Nebrija; España. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentin

Detection rates for each statement for incumbent and opposition voters.

<p>The questions for which we found a significant difference between incumbent and opposition voters (p<0.01 according to a chi-squared test) are 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11 and 12. See the translated version of these questions in supplementary material <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0171108#pone.0171108.s001" target="_blank">S1 File</a>.</p

parameters of the multiple linear regression for detection rates (from 0 to 1), including only the regressors shown to have significant predictive power.

<p>Estimate intercept (.58) is the detection rate for 0 confidence, 0 agreement level, females and opposition voters.</p

(left) detection rates as a function of the confidence level in M replies.

<p>Detection rates change by 80% according the confidence level, using intervals of 10 (R^2 = 0.9). Error bars indicate confidence intervals. (rigth) Detection rates change by more than 40% according to the agreement level. Error bars, indicating confidence intervals, are smaller than the data points size.</p

(left) Correction rates for the four questions separated by voting intentions.

<p>In the control group, none of the questions were M. In the treatment group, questions two and four were manipulated. (right) Correction rates to the four questions separated by gender.</p

(left) Age distribution and (right) geographical location of the participants.

<p>(left) Age distribution and (right) geographical location of the participants.</p

Data collected in Experiment 2.

<p>Data collected in Experiment 2.</p