Epiphany comments on New study on choice blindness in moral positions - Less Wrong

73 Post author: nerfhammer 20 September 2012 06:14PM

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Comment author: RobinZ 20 September 2012 06:02:43PM 4 points [-]

There was a high level of inter-rater agreement between the three raters for the NM reports (r = .70) as well as for the M reports (r = .77), indicating that there are systematic patterns in the verbal reports that corresponds to certain positions on the rating scale for both NM and M trials. Even more interestingly, there was a high correlation between the raters estimate and the original rating of the participants for NM (r = .59) as well as for M reports (r = .71), which indicates that the verbal reports in the M trials do in fact track the participants rated level of agreement with the opposite of the initial moral principle or issue [emphasis added] (for an illustration of this process and example reports, see figure S1, Supporting Online Material). In addition, this relationship highlights the logic of the attitude reversal, in that more modest positions result in verbal reports expressing arguments appropriate for the same region on the mirror side of the scale. And while extreme reversals more often are detected, the remaining non-detected trials also create stronger and more dramatic confabulations for the opposite position.

Am I misreading this, or does it say that the verbal statements of people supporting an inverted opinion fit that opinion better than those describing their genuine opinion?

Comment author: Epiphany 21 September 2012 08:21:24AM 6 points [-]

Consider this: If you're supporting your own genuine opinion, you might have your own carefully chosen perspective that is slightly different from the question's wording. You only select the answer because it's the closest one of the options, not because it's exactly your answer. So, you may be inclined, then, to say things that are related but don't fit the question exactly. If you're confabulating to support a random opinion, though, what do you have to go by but the wording? The opinion is directing your thoughts then, leading your thoughts to fit the opinion. You aren't trying to cram pre-existing thoughts into an opinion box to make it fit your view.

Or looking at it another way:

When expressing your point of view, the important thing is to express what you feel, regardless of whether it fits the exact question.

When supporting "your" point because you don't want to look like an idiot in front of a researcher, the objective is to support it as precisely as possible, not to express anything.

As for whether your interpretation of that selection is correct: it's past my bed time and I'm getting drowsy, so someone else should answer that part instead.

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