Hasn’t the political and cultural Left been operating according to this principle for decades now? Their ranks teem with woefully misguided — but loud and arrogant — spokesmen and women. Maybe this is why? …
The best way to win an argument? Shout louder than everyone else and people will simply assume you’re right
Researchers analysed more than a billion tweets from pundits during American sporting events
Found that being confident makes you more popular than being right
The pundits and amateurs studied made a similar number of correct predictions, yet those who were ‘louder’ and more confident were seen to be more trustworthy and popularBy VICTORIA WOOLLASTON
30 May 2013Being confident and loud is the best way to win an argument – even if you are wrong, a new study suggests.
Researchers from Washington State University drew this conclusion after studying the activity of Twitter users. The more opinionated they were, the more influential and trustworthy they were perceived to be.They analysed more than a billion tweets posted during various American sporting events, including the 2013 Super Bowl, to the test whether being accurate or being confident made Twitter users more popular.
Despite professional pundits and amateur fans making a similar amount of correct and incorrect predictions, the tweeters who ‘yelled’ louder were seen as more trustworthy and had more followers.
A study by the Georgia Institute of Tech found that Twitter users who posted positive, easy-to-read messages that contained news and other factual information, gained 30 times more followers than grumpy, self-centered tweeters.
Jadrien Wooten and Ben Smith compared the tweets of professional pundits – celebrities with verified Twitter accounts – with amateur tweeters that claimed to have some sports expertise in their bio.
The pair then developed a software program to sort through more than a billion tweets looking for predictions for major sporting events in the US, such as the 2013 Super Bowl in February.
The program pulled out tweets with team names, nicknames and expressions commonly associated with predictions, such as ‘beat’ and ‘win’.
Words like ‘vanquish,’ ‘destroy’ and ‘annihilate’ posted in Tweets were considered to be confident words.
The researchers used these confident words in place of being able to measure loudness online.The research found that the professionals were correct with their predictions 47 per cent of the time.
Whereas the amateurs made accurate predictions in 45 per cent of cases.However, the professionals were more confident, scoring a .480 confidence rating compared to the amateurs’ .313.
If a professional pundit accurately predicted every game of the baseball playoffs and series, the authors estimated his or her Twitter following would increase 3.4 percenterWhile an amateur would get 7.3 per cent more followers.
A confident professional would increase his or her following by nearly 17 per cent, whereas a ‘loud’ amateur would get 20 per cent more followers.
More than a billion tweets were analysed during US sporting events, including the 2013 Super Bowl, so researchers could test whether being confident, or being accurate, was the key to Twitter popularity and influence. The study found that the ‘louder’ people tweeted, the more followers they gained despite only being able to correctly predict the scores in less than half of cases
The authors claim that this shows people are more willing to trust ‘loud’ amateurs, despite their supposed lack of authority on the subject, than ‘loud’ professionals.
Wooten said: ‘In a perfect world, you want to be accurate and confident.
‘But if you had to pick, being confident will get you more followers, get you more demand.
Read the Rest at: The Best Way to Win an Argument …
