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Coarse Thinking and Persuasion

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Author Info
Sendhil Mullainathan
Joshua Schwartzstein
Andrei Shleifer

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Abstract

We present a model of coarse thinking, in which individuals group situations into categories, and transfer the informational content of a given message from situations in a category where it is useful to those where it is not. The model explains how uninformative messages can be persuasive, particularly in low involvement situations, and how objectively informative messages can be dropped by the persuader without the audience assuming the worst. The model sheds light on product branding, the structure of product attributes, and several puzzling aspects of mutual fund advertising.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 12720.

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Date of creation: Dec 2006
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12720

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
G23 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Pension Funds; Other Private Financial Institutions
L15 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Information and Product Quality
M31 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting - - Marketing and Advertising - - - Marketing
M37 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting - - Marketing and Advertising - - - Advertising

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References listed on IDEAS
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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. 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:
  2. Edward L. Glaeser & Gergely Ujhelyi, 2006. "Regulating Misinformation," NBER Working Papers 12784, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. 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)
  4. Edward L. Glaeser & Cass R. Sunstein, 2007. "Extremism and Social Learning," NBER Working Papers 13687, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Philippe Jehiel & David Ettinger, 2007. "Towards a Theory of Deception," Levine's Bibliography 843644000000000126, UCLA Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  6. Nicola Gennaioli & Andrei Shleifer, 2009. "What Comes to Mind," NBER Working Papers 15084, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. 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!]
  8. 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!]
  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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