Don't Be Typecast

Michal Kosinski

Stanford Business School professor Michal Kosinski demonstrates how it was possible that the techniques used by Cambridge Analytica influenced Facebook users in the 2016 election.

In an older study the researchers figured out a user's personality traits (for example, introversion or extroversion) based on his Facebook likes:

Kosinski and his Cambridge colleague, David Stillwell, were able to correlate “likes” with other basic personality traits: openness, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and neuroticism. Armed with only 10 “likes,” they could evaluate a person’s traits more accurately than that person’s coworkers. With 70 “likes,” they could do better than a person’s close friends.

Armed with personality information, [bold added]

Kosinski and his colleagues — including Stillwell, Sandra Matz of Columbia Business School, and Gideon Nave of Wharton School of Business — confirm[ed]the next logical step: Ads are indeed more persuasive when they are tailored to those psychological traits....

In promoting a line of cosmetics, for example, they ran dueling ads aimed at introverts and extroverts. All told, the ads reached 3 million people.

The ad for extroverts featured a woman dancing and the slogan “Dance like no one’s watching (but they totally are).” By contrast, the ad for introverts featured a woman contemplating herself in a mirror and a quiet slogan: “Beauty doesn’t have to shout.”

Sure enough, people were 50% more likely to buy the cosmetics if they saw the ad aimed at their particular type.

While these studies show how the melding of big data, artificial intelligence, and social networking can influence mass behavior, now that the public has become aware of it, IMHO, they'll be less susceptible to manipulation.

For example, when I watch the Hallmark Channel the ads for Medicare supplemental insurance and long-term care insurance come as no surprise because Hallmark and its viewers know the demographic of its audience. When it comes to Facebook and other sites, we did not know the extent to which they were targeting messages to us based upon our web behavior.

This is all the more reason to get out of our silos and look at news and opinions that we don't agree with.

Whatever your opinions or tribe, don't be typecast, and don't be manipulated.