Does the Dilution Effect Have a Conversational Basis?

Markus Kemmelmeier

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Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics Social and Intergroup Psychology Psychology of Social Influence

Abstract

The dilution effect refers to the finding that judgments are often unduly influenced by nondiagnostic information, producing regressive judgment. The hypothesis of a conversational basis of the dilution effect, advanced in a recent study by Igou and Bless, holds that the effect reflects the operation of the conversational norm of relevance. A critique and reanalysis of their data yields only weak, if any, support for this conversational explanation. Furthermore, an experiment ( n = 224) does not yield any supportive evidence, and a meta-analysis of available studies likewise supports the conclusion that the dilution effect occurs independently of the operation of conversational norms. However, consistent with a social-perceptual explanation, the experiment shows that the dilution effect occurs only for individuals high in personal need for structure. Although conversational norms do not provide the basis for the dilution effect, how they are involved in eliminating this reasoning error is discussed.

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2013Experimental Design: Procedures for the Behavioral Sciences 1990A Continuum of Impression Formation, from Category-Based to Individuating Processes: Influences of Information and Motivation on Attention and Interpretation 1994Individual differences in need for cognitive closure.1977Syntax and Semantics:" Vol. 3, "Speech Acts 1993Personal need for structure: Individual differences in the desire for simple structure.1981The dilution effect: Nondiagnostic information weakens the implications of diagnostic information 2014Cognition and Communication: Judgmental Biases, Research Methods, and the Logic of Conversation 1995The social context of reasoning: Conversational inference and rational judgment.

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2010Social Psychology and Language: Words, Utterances, and Conversations 2019A dilution effect without dilution: When missing evidence, not non-diagnostic evidence, is judged inaccurately 2023Promoting Systematic Reasoning: The Effects of Interactive Decision Support Systems on Judgment Biases in Professional Decision-Making

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