Does advertising erode free will?

[Cramulus]

from http://mindhacks.com/2006/03/02/does-advertising-erode-free-will/   --- there are hyperlinks in the original article I haven't reproduced here.





Ah...now here's the nub of the argument: advertisements erode free will, they are manipulations designed to subvert conscious judgement (I paraphrase Clay Shirky at Edge.org). Shirky mentions one particular judgement bias, that of super-sizing, but the general form of bias should be familiar to anyone who has been reading Mind Hacks, and/or my recent posts about avertising (like this one). Quoting Shirky:

Consider the phenomenon of 'super-sizing', where a restaurant patron is offered the chance to increase the portion size of their meal for some small amount of money. This presents a curious problem for the concept of free will ,the patron has already made a calculation about the amount of money they are willing to pay in return for a particular amount of food. However, when the question is re-asked, not "Would you pay $5.79 for this total amount of food?" but "Would you pay an additional 30 cents for more french fries?"  patrons often say yes, despite having answered "No" moments before to an economically identical question. Super-sizing is expressly designed to subvert conscious judgment, and it works.


Shirky believes this is much more serious than just unfair advertising.

Our legal, political, and economic systems, the mechanisms that run modern society, all assume that people are uniformly capable of consciously modulating their behaviors...[These] days are now ending, and everyone from advertisers to political consultants increasingly understands, in voluminous biological detail, how to manipulate consciousness in ways that weaken our notion of free will.

In the coming decades, our concept of free will, based as it is on ignorance of its actual mechanisms, will be destroyed by what we learn about the actual workings of the brain


Previously I argued that creating changes in people's behaviour didn't necessarily mean that people were being coerced, or that their will was being taken away from them. The demonstration of influences on behaviour doesn't knock down any strong version of free will – the kind of free will which is entirely unaffected by anything else doesn't seem like a variety of free will worth wanting.

People faced a similar dilemma in the nineteenth century when statistics were first compiled of suicides. If we can predict from census records that the number of suicides in a parish in a year will be around seven, where does that leave the free will of those who 'choose' to kill themselves that year? Are you taking away the freedom of the seven people who now have to die to fulfill your prediction? (Philip Ball discusses the science and philosophy of this in his book, Critical Mass). Most people, now, would probably be happy to say that just calculating the statistic doesn't effect anything. But with the case of interventions – either marketing strategies or psychology experiments – which have the explicit purpose of changing behaviour, it isn't so clear that we can happily say that individual freedom isn't being unfairly manipulated. Cialdini's point about suicide contaigon makes me worry that there is no clear line between persuasion and coercion, between biasing people's judgements in small ways, over unimportant decisions, and fundamentally changing the way people make decisions about some of the most important things in life.

I'm happy to throw my hands up at this point and say I've no idea what the right way to resolve this is. Free will seems to dissolve as you draw away from it – as an individual I don't feel manipulated, but when i look at other people – especially groups of other people, it seems like I can see manipulation going on. Has anyone got any useful conceptual structures I can borrow to see me through this?

[LMNO]

I would posit that the majority of humans already behave on a less-than-fully-conscious level most of the time anyway, running off of previously established programs; so much so that a convincing argument could be made that they were not employing free will in the first place.


So, it's simply an argument over which pre-established program is considered more beneficial.

[Jasper]

Honestly?  I'm kind of glad.  

Wait wait wait let me qualify that.

I'm tired of human behavior being held to a standard of perfect rational agency.  We aren't perfect rational agents.  We do things that run counter to our interests ALL THE TIME, and the only way to avoid it even a little bit is by learning some god damned cognitive science and rational decision theory.  

Maybe if this scares enough people, there will be more cogsci and decision theory in schools.

That would be good.

:. I am glad.

[The Johnny]

Even tho' i would also say that "free will" isnt free at all as it is... yes, advertising does erode simple and unaware mind's capacity of choice.

Advertising targets certain hopes and aspirations that are common in a % of all of us, and i personally think that if one doesnt have the meta ability to see beyond the advertisement itself, but to see what its trying to sell, and what it evokes in us and why... if one cant figure that out, then we're prey... im sure most here can discern such things, but not everyone in the world is aware nor educated.

[The Johnny]

Also, as an interesting experiment, ask yourself this:

Does advertising promote free will?

[Precious Moments Zalgo]

Also, as an interesting experiment, ask yourself this:

Does advertising promote free will?

Good one.  I suppose it does when it makes me aware of choices I didn't know I had.

[Telarus]

I would posit that the majority of humans already behave on a less-than-fully-conscious level most of the time anyway, running off of previously established programs; so much so that a convincing argument could be made that they were not employing free will in the first place.


So, it's simply an argument over which pre-established program is considered more beneficial.

I'm with LMNO on this one. We can't assume that "free will" is a constantly running in the background and lets us always directly influence the decisions we make. Most of the time, we default back to our 'biases' and imprinted reflexes, and it takes real effort (and mental trickery) in order to short-circuit those bias-> desire-> acquisition-> bias-reinforcement //OR// bias-> disgust-> avoidance ->bias-reinforcement feedback loops.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

If one person says "No, thank you." to the Supersize question... would that suddenly prove Free Will? Or, would we look more deeply and say "Oh, this person was taught by his parents to be very thrifty and never accept an up-sell..." thus meaning it wasn't free will, but him following existing programming?

I think the idea that advertising subverts free will is a bit reaching. It utilizes Free Will, it forces the customer to either consider carefully, OR to make a snap decision. Neither are subverting the free will of the individual... though it may be exploiting the greedy or gluttonous programming of the individual. To consider asking the question "Would you like to SuperSize it?" to be some kind of unfair advertising is absurd to me.  If Americans are, at this point, so greedy, gluttonous, or stupid that they are unable to say 'no', then it has precious little to do with Free Will and a hell of a lot to do with our society. Everyone is manipulated, everyone manipulates. Is PosterGASM not manipulation? Pranks? Of course they are. The aim may be more altrusitic than the french fry pushers, but its still manipulation.

"HEY YOU, THINK FOR YOURSELF!"
"HEY YOU, STOP FOLLOWING THE HERD"
"HEY YOU, BUY MORE FRIES"

Manipulation doesn't negate Free Will, its part of the equation. People have the capability to say "No, I do not want more greasy starch and sugar water for 39 cents more." Hell, people have the capability to say "Holy Fuck, there is a STOVE IN MY HOUSE!!! OH MY GOD WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT, THERE IS ALSO A FRIDGE!!!" But they choose not to. They choose to go get food from a weird un-aging clown that hangs out far too often with little kids, a criminal, small animate mops and a large purple blob thing. They choose to do that because they choose to spend more time doing X rather than cooking.

Everything is a choice. Free Will doesn't mean that you make those choices in a vacuum, it means that you have the ability to make the choice whether you use that ability or not. Interactive Processes... causes and effects... we never decide in a vacuum, we never make a decision completely unfettered by outside influences. However, that doesn't mean we have no Free Will... it means we live in a dynamic universe that has billions and billions of interactive processes which provide the reality where we make our decisions. Will those processes affect our decisions? Of course! And the more we study how processes interact, we end up with smart people that understand HOW to get the processes to interact in a way that favors them.

But hell, that's what religion, government and gambling have been doing since the beginning of civilization.

[Telarus]

People have the capability to say "No, I do not want more greasy starch and sugar water for 39 cents more." Hell, people have the capability to say "Holy Fuck, there is a STOVE IN MY HOUSE!!! OH MY GOD WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT, THERE IS ALSO A FRIDGE!!!" But they choose not to.

This is the part I disagree with. Saying "he chose to" when referring to a guy who sits down and considers getting a vasectomy for a month and then decides to go through with it, and saying "he chose to" when some other guy makes a snap decision to Super-Size his combo meal, and then equivocating one with the other (by invoking "well, they both had 'free will', so they both must have used it to make that choice"), seems like further muddling the model, not clarifying it.

We, as human, make snap decisions and then retroactively rationalize it to ourselves (see prev marketing posts from Cram, this is an accepted 'fact' in marketing). We also (very, very, very rarely) try to look at a situation from an abstract/objective point-of-view, and balance all of the factors before making a decision.


Here's what I think....

Most people don't have the Willpower to use their Free Will.

[Jasper]

I think "Free Will" should be eschewed in favor of "making good choices".  It is less likely to start a long, meaningless  debate.

[Cramulus]

maybe it's like this


an individual is an agent for numerous competing memetic structures

a whole ecosystem of ideas

big fish gobbling up little fish

some of them are internal, some of them are external


when they ask you if you want a large for 40 cents more it's releasing a little eel into the decision pool


so protect yo neck

[The Johnny]

I think "Free Will" should be eschewed in favor of "making good choices".  It is less likely to start a long, meaningless  debate.

THIS PLEASE

[The Johnny]

maybe it's like this


an individual is an agent for numerous competing memetic structures

a whole ecosystem of ideas

big fish gobbling up little fish

some of them are internal, some of them are external


when they ask you if you want a large for 40 cents more it's releasing a little eel into the decision pool


so protect yo neck

In a different language, id say its competing impulses, and its usually the more primitive ones that are appealed to with advertising...

Say, 40 cents for more food isnt much, so its easy to get hooked to it... the question is... am i even hungry for more, or am i just gonna cram it (sic) down after i realize i didnt want that much?

And the 40 cent works, because in the American society "more is better"(no matter what it is, or what its for) as a fucking madness mantra...

Or tell me dude do you not want MOAR chicks? Or you some sort of fag? Buy AXE deodorant.

Or you (throphy wife) lady dont you wish you were young forever so that guys slobber over you for as long as possible and so you can feel fulfilled with all the attention? Or do you want to die alone and wrinkly? Buy AVON aloe vera creme.

ad nauseum

but its not just the gut primitive instincts what it appeals to, its about hopes and aspirations too - and thats why advertisement only works to cheat people out of their money and not any useful cause, its pure manipulation. (this could be argued for all visual media, but not as an absolute)

[geekdad]

THIS PLEASE

seconding

Some of us don't believe in "free will".

[Don Coyote]

seconding

Some of us don't believe in "free will".

And we accept your choice to freely not believe in it.