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The Privacy Paradox
Dekortage writes
"The NYTimes has a piece up about the paradox of privacy: 'Normally sane people have inconsistent and contradictory impulses and opinions when it comes to their safeguarding their own private information.' More specifically, it's all how you ask: if you don't talk about privacy, people won't worry about it. In one survey, 'When the issue of confidentiality was raised, participants clammed up. For example, 25 percent of the students who were given a strong assurance of confidentiality admitted to having copied someone else's homework. Among those given no assurance of confidentiality, more than half admitted to it.'"
There's no paradox at all. If you ask a girl out on a date she might say yes. Promising that you are not going to cut her up into little pieces and eat her raw over the next 2 weeks does not improve your chances. People are rightly suspicious when they hear someone state explicitly that they are not planning on doing something evil. Economists are always coming out with nonsense like this.
http://rareformnewmedia.com/
... so the correlationisnotcausation tag is misleading. I assume they ran an experiment and randomly assigned half the students to the "mention confidentiality" treatment, half to the control. So there's no way (except an extraordinary fluke) for anything but the treatment to explain the big difference in honesty.
It's proof that people are more cautious when someone makes an effort to appear harmless. There's a gamut of normal behavior, and telling people that you're not going to stab them in the back with the information you're requesting isn't in that gamut. This study says nothing about privacy.
Is anyone terribly surprised? How we answer questions depends on how the question is asked. Specifically, we try to read social cues as to how the information will be received. Ask someone a personal question in a context that makes them think their answer will garner praise, and they'll answer much more readily than in a situation where it's implied the answer will lead people to condemn them.
I remember in college a bunch of people were taking purity tests, and one girl took the test and scored on the relatively pure end of the spectrum, and seemed proud of that. When everyone was much more impressed with people who scored incredibly impure, she took the test again and managed to get a much different score.
We live in a world today where pretty much anything that a government or a private entity tells you is more or less the opposite of reality.
People are accustomed to seeing legislation such as the "Defense of Marriage Act", which attacks and limits people's right to marry... the "Patriot Act", which exploits patriotism toward ends which no patriot could support... etc. How many Congressional bills DON'T have a name that is 180-degrees opposite from the bill's contents?
People are accustomed to private sector speech meaning its exact opposite as well. You never see a food company describe its product as "gourmet" unless it isn't. "Employee Rights" policies are generally about limiting employee rights. More relevant here, anyone who has even glanced at a "Privacy Policy" from their bank or other business institution knows that it really deals with how little privacy you have, and the hoops they make you jump through even to protect that.
Where's the "paradox" here? We have grown accustomed to any language about our "rights" actually being a bait-and-switch. So, yes... when we hear assurances that our privacy is safeguarded, we assume that you wouldn't even have brought it up unless it wasn't.
(NOTE: I'm actually a student myself and I'm inclined to believe the latter).
I am a teacher and I am certain of the latter...
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
This is why using the word NOT is counter-productive. When communicating anything you should use the positive form of what ever declaration you are trying to say. Especially with children and young adults. It's also important when thinking to yourself.
Instead of saying "Don't run" you need to say "Stop. Please walk slowly" Since what they hear in the first case may be "Blah't RUN!"
or
instead of "Don't play around with knives"
say: "Playing with knives is dangerous and you will get in trouble"
cause all they'll hear is a suggestion to "Play around with knives"
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
Incorrect. GP is making a good point and staying very much on topic doing so:
He uses the term incorrectly, but since most people would understand what he means, normally they would let it pass without notice. However, since he points out that he is not interested in responders mentioning the incorrectness, responders will instantly point it out. This relates to TFA (I'm not sure he realized it himself).
Don't be crazy anymore!