Re:Can a Font Make Us Believe Something Is True?
by thwarted on Sunday May 24, 2015 @10:02PM
(#9598300)
Yeah, what's with these assumptive statements?
Now, Morris is the first to admit that this wasn’t exactly a true scientific experiment, but you know what? That’s okay! Because the findings are still fascinating.
Experiment validity and the interestingness of the results are orthogonal. Considering the topic, I'd hypothesize that the less valid the experiment is, the more the experimenter is motivated to make the results look interesting.
Re:Can a Font Make Us Believe Something Is True?
by saulrh on Monday May 25, 2015 @01:46AM
(#9598818)
It's not surprising, but it is disturbing. Because this result holds independent of the content being communicated. A good presentation doesn't just affect your evaluation of opinions, ethical arguments, or he-said-she-said judgements. It affects your evaluation of proofs, engineering decisions, and concrete physical evidence. Decisions that are formal enough, in the mathematical sense of the word, that we should be relegating them to computers if at all possible. That's disturbing.
Re:Can a Font Make Us Believe Something Is True?
by agumonkey on Sunday May 24, 2015 @08:21PM
(#9598101)
Typeface, clothes, voice tone, social status... the list goes on.
Re:Can a Font Make Us Believe Something Is True?
by JasperBall on Sunday May 24, 2015 @08:15PM
(#9598086)
That's exactly what the article says further down.
It's really not disturbing.
It's obvious that the way something is presented can affect your judgement about things like the motives (or credibility or even identity) of the person saying it, and it's obvious that this will in turn affect whether you believe what you're being told. Things like tone of voice, choice of words, and typeface all have an effect.
Why does it surprise people that the manner in which you communicate can affect how likely people are to believe what you're saying?