Explanations of comparative facts: A shift in focus

Silvio Aldrovandi, James A. Hampton, Daniel Heussen, Petko Kusev

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

Abstract

A comparative fact can be presented in two ways. ‘Among white evangelical Christians, Obama had 40% fewer votes than McCain.’ or ‘Among white evangelical Christians, McCain had 40% more votes than Obama.’ Focusing on why Obama had fewer votes than McCain may result in a different explanation from focusing on why McCain had more votes than Obama, although it is the same fact. Thus what determines whether we focus in our explanation on Obama or McCain? In two studies, we show that people generally focused more on the first part of the comparative fact. However, when the comparative fact is presented in a negative frame (‘less … than’) there was a shift in focus from the first to the second part of the fact. For neutral items this moderating effect did not occur. The Principle of Lexical Marking (Clark, 1969) and Loss Aversion (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979) are discussed as possible accounts for this shift in focus.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society
Number of pages6
Volume31
Publication statusPublished - 2009
Externally publishedYes

Publication series

NameProceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society
Volume31
ISSN (Electronic)1069-7977

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Aldrovandi, S., Hampton, J. A., Heussen, D., & Kusev, P. (2009). Explanations of comparative facts: A shift in focus. In Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (Vol. 31). (Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society; Vol. 31).
Aldrovandi, Silvio ; Hampton, James A. ; Heussen, Daniel ; Kusev, Petko. / Explanations of comparative facts : A shift in focus. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society. Vol. 31 2009. (Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society).
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title = "Explanations of comparative facts: A shift in focus",
abstract = "A comparative fact can be presented in two ways. ‘Among white evangelical Christians, Obama had 40{\%} fewer votes than McCain.’ or ‘Among white evangelical Christians, McCain had 40{\%} more votes than Obama.’ Focusing on why Obama had fewer votes than McCain may result in a different explanation from focusing on why McCain had more votes than Obama, although it is the same fact. Thus what determines whether we focus in our explanation on Obama or McCain? In two studies, we show that people generally focused more on the first part of the comparative fact. However, when the comparative fact is presented in a negative frame (‘less … than’) there was a shift in focus from the first to the second part of the fact. For neutral items this moderating effect did not occur. The Principle of Lexical Marking (Clark, 1969) and Loss Aversion (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979) are discussed as possible accounts for this shift in focus.",
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Aldrovandi, S, Hampton, JA, Heussen, D & Kusev, P 2009, Explanations of comparative facts: A shift in focus. in Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society. vol. 31, Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, vol. 31.

Explanations of comparative facts : A shift in focus. / Aldrovandi, Silvio; Hampton, James A.; Heussen, Daniel ; Kusev, Petko.

Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society. Vol. 31 2009. (Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society; Vol. 31).

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

TY - GEN

T1 - Explanations of comparative facts

T2 - A shift in focus

AU - Aldrovandi, Silvio

AU - Hampton, James A.

AU - Heussen, Daniel

AU - Kusev, Petko

PY - 2009

Y1 - 2009

N2 - A comparative fact can be presented in two ways. ‘Among white evangelical Christians, Obama had 40% fewer votes than McCain.’ or ‘Among white evangelical Christians, McCain had 40% more votes than Obama.’ Focusing on why Obama had fewer votes than McCain may result in a different explanation from focusing on why McCain had more votes than Obama, although it is the same fact. Thus what determines whether we focus in our explanation on Obama or McCain? In two studies, we show that people generally focused more on the first part of the comparative fact. However, when the comparative fact is presented in a negative frame (‘less … than’) there was a shift in focus from the first to the second part of the fact. For neutral items this moderating effect did not occur. The Principle of Lexical Marking (Clark, 1969) and Loss Aversion (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979) are discussed as possible accounts for this shift in focus.

AB - A comparative fact can be presented in two ways. ‘Among white evangelical Christians, Obama had 40% fewer votes than McCain.’ or ‘Among white evangelical Christians, McCain had 40% more votes than Obama.’ Focusing on why Obama had fewer votes than McCain may result in a different explanation from focusing on why McCain had more votes than Obama, although it is the same fact. Thus what determines whether we focus in our explanation on Obama or McCain? In two studies, we show that people generally focused more on the first part of the comparative fact. However, when the comparative fact is presented in a negative frame (‘less … than’) there was a shift in focus from the first to the second part of the fact. For neutral items this moderating effect did not occur. The Principle of Lexical Marking (Clark, 1969) and Loss Aversion (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979) are discussed as possible accounts for this shift in focus.

KW - Explanation

KW - Reasoning

KW - Mental Representation

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VL - 31

T3 - Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

BT - Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

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Aldrovandi S, Hampton JA, Heussen D, Kusev P. Explanations of comparative facts: A shift in focus. In Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society. Vol. 31. 2009. (Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society).

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