We Salute The Wingmen
April 02, 2007 The WaPo
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/01/AR2007040100973.html>
has a fascinating article melding psychology and politics. The theme is
that front runners can benefit by favorable comparisons with a third
place entrant:
Front-runners are usually focused on racing each other. They
often do not realize that when people cannot decide between two leading
candidates -- and it doesn't matter whether we are talking about
politicians or consumer appliances -- our decision can be subtly swayed
by whoever is in third place.
Psychologists call this the decoy effect, we are told:
Joel Huber, a Duke University marketing professor, showed how
the decoy effect works with restaurants. Huber asked people whether they
would prefer to eat at a five-star restaurant that was far away or at a
three-star restaurant nearby. As with many choices in life, each
restaurant had different advantages. If the better restaurant was also
nearby, there would be no dilemma. But the question forced people to
compare apples and oranges -- trade off quality against convenience --
which ensured no automatic answer.
The human brain, however, always seeks simple answers. Enter the
third candidate. Huber told some people there was also a choice of a
four-star restaurant that was farther away than the five-star option.
People now gravitated toward the five-star choice, since it was better
and closer than the third candidate. (The three-star restaurant was
closer, but not as good as the new candidate.)
Another group was given a different third candidate, a two-star
restaurant halfway between the first two. Many people now chose the
three-star restaurant, because it beat the new option on convenience and
quality. (The five-star restaurant outdid this third candidate on only
one measure, quality.)
The author goes on to explain how either Hillary or Obama could
emphasize certain characteristics (experience, charisma) where they
compare favorably with John Edwards - folks who like Edwards for his
experience should love front-runner Hillary; charisma-seekers may settle
on Obama in preference to Edwards.
The author includes this tidbit on Ralph Nader:
"Many people lavished hate on Ralph Nader for presumably taking
votes away from the Democratic front-runner in the 2000 presidential
election," said Scott Highhouse, who has studied the decoy effect at
Bowling Green State University. "Research on the decoy effect suggests
that Nader's presence, rather than taking votes away, probably increased
the share of votes for the candidate he most resembled."
Deep.
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