NihilCredo comments on Open thread, October 2011 - Less Wrong

5 Post author: MarkusRamikin 02 October 2011 09:05AM

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Comment author: NihilCredo 05 October 2011 05:09:45PM 3 points [-]

Is there a term for the following fallacy (related to the false dilemma)?

  • While discussing the pros and cons of various items in the same category, people switch to 'competition mode thinking' - even if they hold no particular attachment towards any item, and nobody is in need of making a choice among the items - and they begin to care exclusively for the relative ranking of the items, rather than considering each one on its own merits. Afterwards, people will have a favourable opinion of the overall winner even if all items were shown to be very bad, and vice-versa they will have an unfavourable opinion of the overall loser even if all items were shown to be veryy good.
Comment author: fubarobfusco 09 October 2011 09:48:35PM *  1 point [-]

This isn't quite the same, but I wrote an essay for Wikipedia a few years ago (2005!) on why encyclopedia articles shouldn't contain pro-and-con lists. Even though I didn't know much about cognitive biases at the time, and was thinking about the specific domain of Wikipedia articles rather than argumentation or truth-seeking in general, it may be relevant.

One of the things that occurred to me at the time was that pro-and-con lists invite Wikipedia readers who already support one "side" to think of more items to add to "their side" of the list, and add them. In LW-speak, they inspire motivated cognition for people whose bottom line is already written.

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