Voting Biases

Okay, we won’t question anyone else’s motives in voting for or against films in the Directors’ Cup but I think we should be aware that we’re capable of biases. Notice how I say we, as I include myself. Big whoop.

If you say that you’re immune to any kind of biases, you’re not human. I’m guilty myself.
So stop pinpointing and blabbing about this objectivity shit. You either keep quiet about what you think of others’ choices or go arguing on about it.

So I Wiki-ed biases, admit that you do that too, that can apply to this kind of competition.

Bandwagon effect – the tendency to do (or believe) things because many other people do (or believe) the same.
Bias blind spot – the tendency not to compensate for one’s own cognitive biases
Distinction bias – the tendency to view two options as more dissimilar when evaluating them simultaneously than when evaluating them separately
Experimenter’s or Expectation bias – the tendency for experimenters to believe, certify, and publish data that agree with their expectations for the outcome of an experiment, and to disbelieve, discard, or downgrade the corresponding weightings for data that appear to conflict with those expectations
Extraordinarity bias – the tendency to value an object more than others in the same category as a result of an extraordinarity of that object that does not, in itself, change the value
Reactance – the urge to do the opposite of what someone wants you to do out of a need to resist a perceived attempt to constrain your freedom of choice
Selective perception – the tendency for expectations to affect perception
Recency effect – the tendency to weigh recent events more than earlier events
Projection bias– the tendency to unconsciously assume that others (or one’s future selves) share one’s current emotional states, thoughts and values.
Self-fulfilling prophecy (also called “behavioral confirmation effect”) – the tendency to engage in behaviors that elicit results which will (consciously or not) confirm existing attitudes.
System justification – the tendency to defend and bolster the status quo. Existing social, economic, and political arrangements tend to be preferred, and alternatives disparaged sometimes even at the expense of individual and collective self-interest.

yay! graphs! how can we design an experiment to tease at least one of these out?

To the list, I’d add something called confirmation bias, which is when you expect someone to act a certain way and they do, it affirms your preconceived bias of that person’s behavioral pattern. It leads to stereotyping.

I freely admit to all of the above.

I like Byron, I’d give him a 42, but you can’t dance to it.

Be warned: I’m also prone to the Len Bias.

Does that mean you’re prone to cocaine overdoses, Matt?

Sad that that’s the single thing people remember.

Don’t think we’d be human without biases. No matter how objective we try to be, we simply aren’t capable of clear-cut views. If we believe that we are, we may simply be fooling ourselves.

It’s not the single thing I remember but it is the obvious connection here.

Bias blind spot – the tendency not to compensate for one’s own cognitive biases

so you have an identity, personal taste? shocking

Recency effect – the tendency to weigh recent events more than earlier events

corrects itself over time, naturally

Projection bias– the tendency to unconsciously assume that others (or one’s future selves) share one’s current emotional states, thoughts and values.

projection is a fascinating defense mechanism to study, but I don’t see how it would apply to biases and films. Especially since I usually watch movies alone, and have no one else to project towards. In theatres, maybe.

Self-fulfilling prophecy (also called “behavioral confirmation effect”) – the tendency to engage in behaviors that elicit results which will (consciously or not) confirm existing attitudes.

studies have shown that physical behaviours (smiling, frowning, etc) lead to emotional states that we associate with each.

I would just like to note that a lot of these biases are analogous to the placebo effect. Whether a film is the right ‘medicine’ or not, if our brain is sufficiently tricked, there will be NO discernable difference in our personal experience/opinion. If that happens through bias, so be it….art’s significance lies in the personal realm only, I would argue. People are basically all nutcases anyway when you get right down to it. Why should I care what some other psychotics think? The whole construct of group, team, social opinion is flawed. You’re born alone and you die alone, at the end of the day its you dragging a sled across the ice, surviving like your ancestors. If a piece of art can lift your spirits, maybe you’ll last a bit longer.