A pragmatic account of the weak evidence effect

• URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2112.03799v1
• Date: Tue, 7 Dec 2021 16:16:01 GMT
• Title: A pragmatic account of the weak evidence effect
• Abstract summary: We show that weak evidence should only backfire when speakers are expected to act under persuasive goals. We introduce a simple experimental paradigm called the Stick Contest to measure the extent to which the weak evidence effect depends on speaker expectations. Our findings suggest potential avenues for rational models of social reasoning to further illuminate decision-making phenomena.
• Score: 7.277760003553327
• License: http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/
• Abstract: Language is not only used to inform. We often seek to persuade by arguing in favor of a particular view. Persuasion raises a number of challenges for classical accounts of belief updating, as information cannot be taken at face value. How should listeners account for a speaker's "hidden agenda" when incorporating new information? Here, we extend recent probabilistic models of recursive social reasoning to allow for persuasive goals and show that our model provides a new pragmatic explanation for why weakly favorable arguments may backfire, a phenomenon known as the weak evidence effect. Critically, our model predicts a relationship between belief updating and speaker expectations: weak evidence should only backfire when speakers are expected to act under persuasive goals, implying the absence of stronger evidence. We introduce a simple experimental paradigm called the Stick Contest to measure the extent to which the weak evidence effect depends on speaker expectations, and show that a pragmatic listener model accounts for the empirical data better than alternative models. Our findings suggest potential avenues for rational models of social reasoning to further illuminate decision-making phenomena.

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