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The Science Behind Fanboyism
crookedvulture writes "We've all encountered fanboys. They lurk on messageboards and in comment threads, ready to trumpet the benefits of their product or brand of choice with Cheeto-stained fingertips. And it's not their fault. This analysis of the scientific research on the subject reveals that our brains unconsciously develop an affinity for products we choose over similarly attractive alternatives. Duh, right? But what's really interesting is that this affinity exists not just among adults, but also children, monkeys, and even amnesic subjects with no memory of their original choices. We're all hard-wired to be fanboys, it seems. Some of us just do a better job of overcoming our subconscious tendencies."
When clearly Doritos are the superior snack food.
Orwell was an optimist.
Is there any research into what turns affinity for a product into to the need to be a dick about it?
I think it's much more than merely developing an affinity for products we choose over alternatives. The mark of a fanboy isn't that they like something better, it's that they've literally coalesced into miniature tribes where their preferred product (Apple being the obvious example) becomes the culture and any alternative culture (say, Windows PCs or Linux) are intruders or the enemy. But that's not really a surprise. Humans love tribes. We've loved them when we were tree-dwelling primates.
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"This analysis of the scientific research on the subject reveals that our brains unconsciously develop an affinity for products we choose over similarly attractive alternatives. "
Elliot Aronson described this in his 1972 textbook Social Animal. (Resolving cognitive dissonance and stuff ...)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliot_Aronson
I mean really, this whole article is just an excuse for the trolls to come out and say how good their fanboyism is versus all the other fanboys.
I've never seen such an obvious pitch for vi, Windows, and Ubuntu
Our adherence to products we love causes us to favor our choices over others? Makes perfect sense to me, we all want reasons to love our decisions. Now if only we didn't give so much of a damn about how our decisions compare against those of others, then there would be 100% fewer "fanboyism" fights. And less fighting is good, unless I am a madman and no longer have any idea what I'm talking about. We like being right, but it's not always necessary to show it. Maybe if everyone decided once each day to realize situations, not take flamebait and keep their opinions to themselves, we'd all be friendlier. Go ahead and get angry at me for showing some optimism, but deep down inside y'all know it's true.
The more you know, the more you have to say and the more you should listen.
Great observation. I believe we reduce the political field to two parties because we all want to win... So we rally behind those who have the largest chance of winning.
Even if someone follows a third party, they most likely will vote "with the winner" instead of their own party which stands little to no chance of winning.
At least fanboys are expressing a positive sentiment--haters are losers. Live and let live--somebody smart said that once.
explaining how or why someone thinks or acts a certain way does not remove them from accountability or responsibility
"well see, he is a drug addict, so when he mowed down the family with his car, this is why it is not his fault"
this is obviously tangential, but i want to make sure people understand: there is nothing wrong with explaining why people behave a certain way or say a certain thing. but explaining why they do something doesn't mean they are removed from responsibility or accountability for their actions
i see this kind of thinking about responsibility like in the summary all the time, and it bothers me, as various neurobiological investigations EXPLAIN someone's behavior but it doesn't EXCUSE someone's behavior
some people think explaining=excusing. no: without personal accountability in this world, all sense of morality is destroyed. if it comes out of your mouth or your hands, YOU are responsible for it. no explanation nullfies that. please understand that
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I'm I the only one who is concerned by the validity of their experiment. The last experiment lets me very dubious.
Imagine you have 3 smileys. They have similar ratings, but for sure there is one you prefer, one you rate 2nd and one you rate 3rd. Now, let's just see the result we would have for each scenario.
Rating of cards 1/2/3 ; 3rd card chosen after initial choice ; 3rd card chosen without initial choice (so just between card 2 and card 3)
1/2/3 ; False (1 chosen on first pass) ; False
1/3/2 ; True (1 chosen on first pass) ; True
2/1/3 ; False (1 chosen on first pass) ; False
2/3/1 ; True (2 chosen on first pass) ; True
3/1/2 ; True (1 chosen on first pass) ; False
3/2/1 ; True (2 chosen on first pass) ; True
Which makes in the first experiment 50% chances of choosing the third card and 66% when we made a previous "preselection". This is approximately the figures children had. Monkeys had lower 3rd card preference, maybe because they prefer to take cards in order.
About the rest of the article, I'm just as dubious. If you choose a product, for sure you rate it better. It's called the cause of you choosing it, not a consequence ...
Cool Ranch is for panzy momma's boys. Fiery Habanero is the Dorito for men.
I recommend we replace the Communion eucharist with Cool Ranch Doritos.
Check out my world simulator thingy.
The amazing thing about bias is our ability to see it in everyone but ourselves. I think it was best summarized by Homer Simpson with "Everyone is stupid except me."
But I'm sure your preference for exclusively making comments enclosed in teletype text tags is perfectly rational.
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
Actually I would say Android has the more agressive vocal fanboys. Mention Apple in here and they swarm with claims of Patent Troll, Natzi, Alter of Steve, Homo, Idiot, Turtleneck, fanboi, 'shiny',queerbate, etc. Apple fans tend to defend their products but they don't generally start attacking others choices. They typically say things like "don't like it, then don't buy it". Android fans tend to strike out against others who disagree with such attacks, and often get personal.
Granted this is just a sample from one thread, but I think it's fairly representative of what I see here. I typically find Android fanboy's to be far more juvenile and verbally abusive. This is just searching this thread for the word 'Apple':
PLEASE APPLE!! If you would just let me have an iPhone 5 NOW instead of me having to wait ALL the way until fall, I PROMISE to hold it right!! I'll do ANYTHING! Please!?!? I really don't want to cryogenically freeze myself again :(
There should be a law that if food is going to be marketed as Habanero, it should at least be hotter than eating a raw jalapeno.
No, it marks you a fan.
And that's what makes clear you are not a fanboy. A fanboy would claim that you are always better off with his preferred choice.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Honestly, I think that calling someone a "fanboy" is just an ad hominem attack that people use when someone else's favorite thing is different from your favorite thing. The fact is, people come to like things, and they enjoy talking about them. Some people won't shut up about football. It's their thing. They enjoy it. They may seem unwilling to admit that basketball is an equally valid sport, from an objective point of view, because to them, football is the best thing. EVERYONE has this kid of narrow perspective on SOMETHING. However, while they may be narrow about it, calling them a fanboy is nothing but a way to completely dismiss every argument they make, even those that may be perfectly valid and useful. Maybe they are wrong that basketball sucks, but they may be equally correct that football is awesome.
Let's try an example. Richard Dawkins is an atheism fanboy. In fact, he's a great scientist and educator. I understand evolutionary biology very well, but this guy could run rings around me when it comes to depth of knowledge and the ability to explain it clearly to others. On the other hand, he's got a bug up his ass about the evils of religion. Many of his complaints are perfectly legitimate, of course, because various religions have been the cause of massive atrocities. Moreover, our scientific understanding has brought us to the point that the vast majority of things that humans once attributed to gods are in fact the result of completely natural processes that follow consistent physical laws. With regard to the vast majorty of the world, it is completely unnecessary and even perhaps inappropriate to evoke "God" as part of the explanation. That being said, an absence of evidence does not imply evidence of absence. For all we know, "God" could be inhabitants of a meta universe wherein our universe is a computer simulation, and they have made occasional tweaks to keep the simulation running right. So, Dawkins has taken his lack of evidence for God and taken a leap of faith that there definitly isn't one, and rather than just being a proponent of atheism, he is vehement about it, attempting to persuade people of the "truth" of his belief. He should stick to being a fantastic scientist and picking at specific problems that religions cause (in any case, religions are human constructs), and stop being so forceful about something he can't really prove. He can prove evolution. He can't prove atheism. Evolution is good science. Atheism is a belief, taken on faith, even if it is in fact highly plausible, with the alternatives having very little support. (I am inclined to think that agnosticism is the only belief without faith, because it doesn't assert anything specific, but I could be wrong about that.)
The point I'm making here is that Dawkins has some errors in his reasoning that might make some people dismiss him. If you're religious and he attacks your religion, then you're not going to want to listen to him talk about evolution. But in fact, he's one of the BEST people to listen to if you want to understand evolution.
I was thinking of going on with some other example about Mac fanboys, but I'm running out of time. For me, I'm just getting old and I prefer the fact that a Mac doesn't make me babysit basic things like connecting to wifi or backing up files. But my idiology places usability concerns first, with issues of "free software" coming second. The point is that many Mac fanboys have religious fervor. Nothing can touch the awesomeness of a Mac. But I'm sure you can anticipate what I'm going to say next: Even if their knowledge of Windows and Linux is completely wrong, they know tons about Macs and you might learn something from that.
It's an attempt to head off the inevitable attempts to discredit the article. Pretty much every science article on Slashdot suffers from one or more lame attacks on its credibility/importance. (I don't know if there's a set of slashdot anti-fanboys, or if it's just simply that there's always someone with poor logic skills who disagrees with any given article.)
The most popular attacks are:
Correlation does not equal causation: Used whenever statistics are involved, even if the researchers who did the study make no claims of causation.
Useless: They simply can't think of any good use for whatever is being discussed, so they just make fun of it.
Too early: The idea is years or possibly decades away from production. Will often be accompanied by comments like "we see a story like this every few months/years and it's always 5-10 years away from production, it's never going to happen." There will often be at least one reference to "where's my flying car?"
Too late: Either of the form "this is old news, there was an article talking about this subject weeks/months/years ago, what's up with the editors at Slashdot?" or "Everyone knew that already! Why are they wasting time researching that?" Will often be accompanied by "Scientists discover that water is wet, news at 11."
Obviously this case falls into the last category. Everyone already "knows" fanboys are irrational about their preferences, so the poster is acknowledging that before the trolls can harp on about it and trying to move us on to the part about trying to figure out _why_ that is.
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People in general have an affinity to belong to groups ... Tribes, religions, sports teams, Coke or Pepsi, vi or emacs, KY or Astroglide ...
People invest their self worth into these things, and they feel threatened when challenged. Sometimes, they feel motivated to tell everybody else how they should also sign up for this exclusive club .. because it further validates their self image.
I think the reverse is also true, some people have invested just as much into disliking something ... oh, for example, the almost irrational hatred of Apple you see here on Slashdot (which, if I remember correctly, is about what it was for Microsoft about 8-10 years ago).
That the 'other guy is a doodie head' is part of the us/them image you build up. He simply has to be a doodie head, because he disagrees with you on a topic on which You Are Right(tm).
I suspect from an evolutionary perspective, this is probably indicative of a broader range of how people have affinities for group membership as a whole.
Or, I'm talking completely out of my ass ... it could go either way really. :-P
Lost at C:>. Found at C.