So just extrapolating on this example - would the best results in any negotiations be achieved when both parties speak a language that is foreign to both of them? In that case both are taking more rational decisions, ignoring the emotional "burden" than their native language puts on them.
Mandela was right: the Foreign Language Effect
21–30 of 79 posts
Re: Mandela was right: the Foreign Language Effect
#22It's the same thing with foreign units of measurement (in, ft, F, stones, etc.). Although I know there is a one-to-one mapping between meters and feet, I only grok a measurement given in meters. There's probably some conditioning behind this: every day you are reminded that a pack of salami is 200g, while a pack of flour is 1kg, and so on ... so that for each measurement you just access your library of memories that…
My own mapping is between meters and yards, and slightly overstates the metric distance. Since it comes from distances of races--200 m, 400 m, etc., is is only so usable for smaller measures.
Re: Mandela was right: the Foreign Language Effect
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you are misunderstanding. Medicine A will always save 200,000 people, with 400,000 dying. Medicine B will save all 600,000 people 33.3% of the time, but everyone will die 66% of the time. The expected number of deaths (the 'expected value' in game theory) is the same for both cases (200,000). Medicine A is easy to calculate (200,000 * 1.00 = 200,000). For Medicine B, the calculation is 600,000 * 0.33 + 0 * 0.…
I understand that the wording and the numbers chosen by the experimenters are intended to create two equivelent sitations, but the fact is, they do not. The sentence: "If you choose Medicine A, 400,000 people will die." Tells you that 400k people will die if you choose medicine A. It says nothing about what will happen to the remaining 200k. I believe it is illogical to assume that the sentence implies the remaining…
I understand your point in terms of formal logic (that saying 400k people will die does not necessitate that the other 200k can't also die). However, the initial sentence that starts the experiment is "Recently, a dangerous new disease has been going around. Without medicine, 600,000 people will die from it. In order to save these people, two types of medicine are being made."
When you follow that by saying "If you choose Medicine A, 400,000 people will die", it is not illogical to assume that they don't mean "oh yeah, the other 200k will also die, too" This isn't a Mitch Hedberg joke.
In these scenarios, we are expected to make many basic assumptions that aren't included in the scenario. We are safe to assume that there isn't an unmentioned side effect of Medicine B that will leave everyone paralyzed, or that Medicine A won't turn the survivors into zombies.
Re: Mandela was right: the Foreign Language Effect
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you are misunderstanding. Medicine A will always save 200,000 people, with 400,000 dying. Medicine B will save all 600,000 people 33.3% of the time, but everyone will die 66% of the time. The expected number of deaths (the 'expected value' in game theory) is the same for both cases (200,000). Medicine A is easy to calculate (200,000 * 1.00 = 200,000). For Medicine B, the calculation is 600,000 * 0.33 + 0 * 0.…
I understand that the wording and the numbers chosen by the experimenters are intended to create two equivelent sitations, but the fact is, they do not. The sentence: "If you choose Medicine A, 400,000 people will die." Tells you that 400k people will die if you choose medicine A. It says nothing about what will happen to the remaining 200k. I believe it is illogical to assume that the sentence implies the remaining…
Ok, I finally see my mistake. It was skipping over the line "without medicine, 600k people will die from [the disease]" which allows us to account for the remaining 200k.
Re: Mandela was right: the Foreign Language Effect
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
As I understand it, there is not enough information to determine the expected number of deaths. In the first situation, the expected number of deaths of choosing medicine A must be greater than or equal to 400k and in the second situation (again choosing medicine A) the expected number of deaths must be less than or equal to 400k. My interpretation was that in the first situation, there is a possibility that everyone…
I think you are misunderstanding. Medicine A will always save 200,000 people, with 400,000 dying. Medicine B will save all 600,000 people 33.3% of the time, but everyone will die 66% of the time. The expected number of deaths (the 'expected value' in game theory) is the same for both cases (200,000). Medicine A is easy to calculate (200,000 * 1.00 = 200,000). For Medicine B, the calculation is 600,000 * 0.33 + 0 * 0.…
The word "all" as a modifier to 600k is not in the text;
see for eg:
And here is the problem framed in terms of gains:
If you choose Medicine A, 200,000 people will be saved. If you choose Medicine B, there is a 33.3% chance that 600,000 people will be saved and a 66.6% chance that no one will be saved.
Which medicine do you choose?
Although the number of certain deaths is the same in both versions of the problem, people take the safer option
The lack of scale prevents an analysis of proportionality.
For example:
600k out of 500,000,000? or 600k out of 1,000,000 or 1,000,000,000?
Given the downsides are equal, the omission begs the qeustion about the rate of success. The rate of success is not a trivial source of people's bias, because empirically "non-success" is often accompanied by adverse effects (a/k/a side effects) as well as additional cost. The result is a leading question. In other words, the language is manipulative.
But do we really need this study to tell us this? C'mon, that is stupid. And has nothing to do with Mandela.
Re: Mandela was right: the Foreign Language Effect
#26Mandela was a terrorist. What's next, 'Hitler was right'?
Another example where it might be useful to disable commenting from new accounts for 24 hours.
The trouble with that -- besides the obvious downside of letting abusive users dictate the terms of service for everyone else -- is that we'd lose the ability to hear from people involved with new products or emergent events that are being discussed for the first time. Those stories are supposed to be the key drivers of HN. Some of the more interesting comments are from brand-new accounts.
Re: Mandela was right: the Foreign Language Effect
#27The example they used basically paints taking more risk as 'cooler, more rational option' which seems a bit odd to me. Humans are well known not to have a linear utility function for a lot of things (loss aversion) because doing so can be useful and can be argued as rational - especially when applied to money for instance, people will trade off higher average returns for lower risk which probably makes sense for survival. It's like saying a greater amount of change, or a greater amount of risk, is strictly better, whereas in any given situation it may be better or may be worse.
Re: Mandela was right: the Foreign Language Effect
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you are misunderstanding. Medicine A will always save 200,000 people, with 400,000 dying. Medicine B will save all 600,000 people 33.3% of the time, but everyone will die 66% of the time. The expected number of deaths (the 'expected value' in game theory) is the same for both cases (200,000). Medicine A is easy to calculate (200,000 * 1.00 = 200,000). For Medicine B, the calculation is 600,000 * 0.33 + 0 * 0.…
I understand that the wording and the numbers chosen by the experimenters are intended to create two equivelent sitations, but the fact is, they do not. The sentence: "If you choose Medicine A, 400,000 people will die." Tells you that 400k people will die if you choose medicine A. It says nothing about what will happen to the remaining 200k. I believe it is illogical to assume that the sentence implies the remaining…
Assuming vampires and zombies are not involved, life and death are binary states. No one who is living has died, and no one who has died remains living. If 400k people die [from the hypothetical disease], then 200k people will survive [to eventually die from some other cause].
I'm sure this form of problem analysis gives psychological experimenters fits.
Re: Mandela was right: the Foreign Language Effect
#29As someone who has been living as an immigrant for past two and a half years, I can only agree to this. Getting emotional distance from a problem comes easy for me, if I'm thinking about it in English (its not my native language).
On the other hand, getting into relationships can be quite difficult. Its not so easy to get emotionally involved with someone that doesn't speak your language. Not sure if the language is the problem though, or maybe just cultural differences.
Re: Mandela was right: the Foreign Language Effect
#30So just extrapolating on this example - would the best results in any negotiations be achieved when both parties speak a language that is foreign to both of them? In that case both are taking more rational decisions, ignoring the emotional "burden" than their native language puts on them.
As a non-native English speaking person who uses English daily basis, losing emotional burden seems one (possibly) positive side effect of a second language, whereas there probably are many negative ones for the decision making. In my experience, reduced working memory seems one important negative outcome of second language, which significantly affects problem solving. More chance of misunderstanding sometimes precludes good decision making. These negative aspects would be able to offset the benefit discussed here.