Coarse Thinking and Persuasion

Andrei Shleifer, Sendhil Mullainathan and Joshua Schwartzstein ()

Scholarly Articles from Harvard University Department of Economics

Abstract: We present a model of uninformative persuasion in which individuals “think coarsely†: they group situations into categories and apply the same model of inference to all situations within a category. Coarse thinking exhibits two features that persuaders take advantage of: (i) transference, whereby individuals transfer the informational content of a given message from situations in a category where it is useful to those where it is not, and (ii) framing, whereby objectively useless information influences individuals' choice of category. The model sheds light on uninformative advertising and product branding, as well as on some otherwise anomalous evidence on mutual fund advertising.

Date: 2008
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (180)

Published in Quarterly Journal of Economics

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Journal Article: Coarse Thinking and Persuasion (2008)
Working Paper: Coarse Thinking and Persuasion (2006)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hrv:faseco:11022284

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