> Guadagno & Cialdini research (2002) showed that men seem more responsive to email because it bypasses their competitive tendencies. Women, however, may respond better in face-to-face encounters because they are more ‘relationship-minded’
Yawn. Maybe we just don't want to deal with salespeople but instead judge the product on our own without being harassed. How is that supposed to be competitive?
Oh, I forgot, the self-fulfilling world of pop psychology, brought to you by eternal twin slogans "It's true if you think it's true" and "You can convert any social belief into a universal truth by citing agenda-driven studies". The greatest Jedi mind trick is convincing people that your Jedi mind trick actually works.
Maybe we just don't want to deal with salespeople but instead judge the product on our own without being harassed. How is that supposed to be competitive?
If that is true then why do women respond better in face-to-face encounters?
Same as you. It costs $11 to read that thing and I assure you, nobody has read it (except maybe now that I said it out of spite). It looky like every other pop-psy study out there, many of which have been discredited over the years - at least the ones that people actually bothered with. It's unscientific trash designed to support broad generalizations and preconceptions. The entire field is known for making stuff up in a manner that is consistent with the cultural background and expectations of the study's authors.
The crux of the matter is that these studies are supposed to show how certain behaviors are biologically hardwired into humans, when in fact the vast spectrum of human behavior and perception is frighteningly flexible and subject to the change of cultural and personal values over time. Many people, including pop-psy researchers, have a vested interest in showing that our behavior is preprogrammed by nature. In fact, the prescription of what's natural has been used as a justification for laws and rules for many hundred years now, so it's kind of a tradition.
Any study of human behavior, especially if gender roles are concerned, needs to cite specifically the cultural context and timeframe the observations were made in. Advertising people know this. That's why they use different strategies in different countries, and it's also the main reason why advertising premises change over time.
I have no opinion about this guy one way or the other.
Even brilliant people can make mistakes, and even brilliant scientists can be victims of their own preconceptions. I'm not trying to trash his life's work, I'm having serious doubts about the premises and results of this study specifically.
As I said many times in this thread: I called the study's conclusions into question, not the author.
> The only fallacies are coming from your posts, not from the article in question... :\
After fighting you guys for the last our without one single person agreeing with me, I'm inclined to say you're right. I should probably stop posting now. It wasn't my intention to upset anyone. I'm sorry.
Don't be sorry. You haven't hurt anyone's feelings (and if you have, they were too fragile to survive long on HN). It's fine to defend your arguments and later realise you're wrong. That doesn't make you a lesser person - on the contrary, you're someone who now knows one more thing. That's good. If HN can do that more often, that's good.
While the authority may not necessarily be wrong, the appeal itself is vulnerable to being issued for fallacious reasons, namely if it is made to prevent critical reasoning about the original hypothesis. The idea that authorities are infallible is a trap. Nothing should be beyond scrutiny.
Maybe we just don't want to deal with salespeople but instead judge the product on our own without being harassed.
It astonishes me that you're able to describe interactions with salespeople as being "harassed" yet can't understand how it could be construed as competitive.
(Not that the study you're dismissing has anything to do with salespeople... You'd be better off attacking the tenuous and speculative suggestion that author has made based on a reading that study rather than attempting to nuke the proverbial site from orbit with such a monumentally tired argument as "I don't believe it so it can't possibly be true".)
> It astonishes me that you're able to describe interactions with salespeople as being "harassed" yet can't understand how it could be construed as competitive.
You make it sound like I'm drooling into a cup. So the competitiveness hypothesis resonates with you personally? Don't just imply that I'm stupid, explain to me what the competition actually is, and why I am automatically triggered into participating just because I have a penis.
> You'd be better off attacking the tenuous and speculative suggestion that author has made based on a reading that study rather than attempting to nuke the proverbial site from orbit with such a monumentally tired argument as "I don't believe it so it can't possibly be true"
I'm straining to see how this rhetoric can come from someone who is - in their own words - "just here for the polite and friendly atmosphere". However, I think I am attacking a piece of tenuous and speculative suggestion the author has made. I get that you disagree, I just don't get your specific objection.
I hope not, because that would be an extremely facile explanation. I don't think anybody, when asked to describe the feeling of being harassed, would describe it with anything resembling "I feel like I'm in a competition with another male for autonomy, freedom and time to make up my mind."
You've got it completely scrambled: Nobody is being asked to describe the feeling of being harassed. That was the word Udo chose to describe the feeling of dealing with a salesperson.
I simply found it odd (very odd) that someone who uses a word that denotes aggression or attack to describe that situation would simultaneously find it totally alien to think of it as competitive.
Though those are valid definitions, I don't think "harass" necessarily has that violent connotation in most people's minds. It is commonly used as a slightly more intense form of "pester." I've actually heard people laugh at the term being used to refer to violence, because they think of it as a synonym for "annoy," and the idea of being "annoyed by gunfire" is humorously mild.
I think you did that fine on your own, to be honest. The attitude expressed in your posts reeks of pride in ignorance. It's like you genuinely don't care what the truth might be, but don't want anybody to believe this could be anything close to it. You blast the study you didn't read as "unscientific trash" and yet rail against preconceptions while vividly illuminating your own. I did not think you were stupid, but I won't deny I think this thread a singular parade of foolishness.
Don't just imply that I'm stupid
I'm was not implying that you're stupid. Perhaps I should have said "don't" instead of "can't" understand. There may be many reasons why you don't see those interactions you call harassment as competitive that don't involve you being stupid. For instance: your definition of "competition" may have a much narrower scope than the one meant. You may also be conflating competition with antagonism or hostility, which doesn't necessarily follow.
explain to me what the competition actually is
The salesman has an incentive to get you buy, and when you buy, to spend more, because then he gets paid more. This is at cross purposes with your desire to spend less while still getting only what you want and nothing you don't want.
In a sense is a competition over your money, but as the salesman does not attempt to physically pry the money from your hands, it can better be though of as a competition over your will.
(All of this is more evident in situations where directly haggling over price is permitted. If you wanted an avenue with which to consider cultural factors, the variable global popularity of haggling vs. fixed prices would be one. But the basically competitive nature of bargaining in general seems, with the sole exception of you, to be uncontroversial.)
and why I am automatically triggered into participating just because I have a penis.
That's a straw man under construction. Nobody said anything about being "automatically triggered" or about having a penis causing you do anything. You're injecting your own preconceptions about what the cited study claims, just as you injected the scenario of dealing with salespeople.
I think I am attacking a piece of tenuous and speculative suggestion the author has made.
What you think and what you've written appear to be at odds. You attacked an entire field of study[1] and singled out the authors[2] of the particular study on the basis of the blogger's interpretation[3] of that study, which you didn't read[4], while providing no evidence at all beyond personally disagreeing with the implication that human behavior might have something to do with the human body.
The reason I call this a "monumentally tired argument" is that it's been lashed out like a giant reactionary noodle against every bit of evidence ever recorded that human behavior is anything more complicated than the things humans are consciously aware of then they behave.
[1]:"The entire field is known for making stuff up in a manner that is consistent with the cultural background and expectations of the study's authors."
[2]: (I can't actually quote this because you edited your post to remove the part where you claimed the entire blog post was about selling Cialdini's book.)
[3]: "...showed that men seem more responsive to email because it bypasses their competitive tendencies." (Which the study doesn't actually conclude.)
[4]: "It costs $11 to read that thing and I assure you, nobody has read it (except maybe now that I said it out of spite). It looky like every other pop-psy study out there, many of which have been discredited over the years..."
Yawn. Maybe we just don't want to deal with salespeople but instead judge the product on our own without being harassed. How is that supposed to be competitive?
Oh, I forgot, the self-fulfilling world of pop psychology, brought to you by eternal twin slogans "It's true if you think it's true" and "You can convert any social belief into a universal truth by citing agenda-driven studies". The greatest Jedi mind trick is convincing people that your Jedi mind trick actually works.