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Coarse Thinking and Persuasion

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Author Info
Sendhil Mullainathan (Harvard University)
Joshua Schwartzstein (Harvard University)
Andrei Shleifer (Harvard University)

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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. (c) 2008 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology..

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Article provided by MIT Press in its journal Quarterly Journal of Economics.

Volume (Year): 123 (2008)
Issue (Month): 2 (05)
Pages: 577-619
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Handle: RePEc:tpr:qjecon:v:123:y:2008:i:2:p:577-619

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
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  6. Carhart, Mark M, 1997. " On Persistence in Mutual Fund Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 57-82, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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Full references

Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Edward L. Glaeser & Cass R. Sunstein, 2007. "Extremism and Social Learning," NBER Working Papers 13687, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Stergios Skaperdas & Samarth Vaidya, 2008. "Persuasion as a Contest," Economics Series 2008_07, Deakin University, Faculty of Business and Law, School of Accounting, Economics and Finance. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  3. Edward L. Glaeser & Gergely Ujhelyi, 2006. "Regulating Misinformation," NBER Working Papers 12784, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Philippe Jehiel & David Ettinger, 2007. "Towards a Theory of Deception," Levine's Bibliography 843644000000000126, UCLA Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  5. Nicola Gennaioli & Andrei Shleifer, 2009. "What Comes to Mind," NBER Working Papers 15084, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Sumit Agarwal & Brent W. Ambrose, 2008. "Does it pay to read your junk mail? evidence of the effect of advertising on home equity credit choices," Working Paper Series WP-08-09, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. [Downloadable!]
  7. Luigi Maregno & Corrado Pasquali, 2008. "A computational voting model," LEM Papers Series 2008/24, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy. [Downloadable!]
  8. Rafael Di Tella & Sebastian Galiani & Ernesto Schargrodsky, 2008. "Reality versus Propaganda in the Formation of Beliefs about Privatization," NBER Working Papers 14483, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Giorgio Fagiolo & Lucia Alessi & Matteo Barigozzi & Marco Capasso, 2007. "On the distributional properties of household consumption expenditures. The case of Italy," LEM Papers Series 2007/24, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy. [Downloadable!]
  10. Siddiqi, Hammad, 2009. "Does Coarse Thinking Matter for Option Pricing? Evidence from an Experiment," MPRA Paper 13515, University Library of Munich, Germany. [Downloadable!]
  11. Glaeser, Edward L. & Sunstein, Cass R., 2008. "Extremism and Social Learning," Working Paper Series rwp08-004, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government. [Downloadable!]
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