On Oct. 12, 2008, Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, an ordinary U.S. worker employed in a plumbing business, suddenly became a global media sensation. On that fateful day, the Democratic presidential candidate, Barack Obama, visited Joe's hometown to canvass support. Looking for photo-ops, the U.S. senator did not expect a brief encounter that might have shifted the odds in the race for the presidency in the world's most powerful nation.
Leaders can learn much from the dream-like story of Joe the plumber, which powerfully exemplifies the upside potential and limits of exploiting the psychological bias of vividness (see illustration). A person succumbing to this mental distortion accords too much importance to a striking detail, which crowds out other facts he must consider to reach an optimal decision.
Upside potential of vividness
On the Sunday preceding the last presidential debate, Joe, a bald and muscular white man, asked the Democratic nominee whether he believes in the American Dream. The worker said he planned to buy a business but worried that under the Democrat's fiscal plan, he would have to pay more taxes. Joe mentioned that the company's revenues may exceed the upper bracket of US$250,000 that the Democrat had defined as threshold after which higher tax rates applied. In subsequent interviews, Joe portrayed himself as an underdog eager to corner a politician.
In the ensuing 90-minute presidential debate, the Republican contender, John McCain referred to Joe the plumber to illustrate the negative impact of Obama's policies, which he argued discourages investments in small businesses. In the debate, Joe was mentioned 26 times while the word "economy" surfaced only 16 times!
McCain was pleased to use Joe as a trump card. The senator cleverly exploited vividness bias, giving a distinctive human face to the abstract concept of the middle class. He capitalized on what I call "symbolic immediacy", bypassing elaborate cognitive processes in recipients. Besides, he leveraged picture superiority: People recall a visual impression, such as the embodiment of Mr. Clean challenging the African-American presidential hopeful, more easily than words. If the picture crystallizes what the propagandist wants to highlight and evokes the desired reaction, this memory effect can be useful, since easily recallable features weigh heavily in decision-making. The Republican presidential contender increased his persuasive power by referring to the American Dream, invoking the inspiring ideal of upward social mobility.
The footage of Joe challenging Obama became ubiquitous across all media. The worker was transformed into the focal point of the contentious debate about the state spreading wealth, triggering a flood of comments from the audience. Joe's plight resonated strongly, since people could easily identify with him and found his case plausible. The unlikely national figure represented the assiduous American who suffered from the financial crisis. He expressed himself in simple terms that everybody could understand, saying: "I just resent the government or Barack Obama's plan to take more away from me".
The plot fitted the template of a compelling story, consisting of situation, complication and resolution. Here is a man who works hard to improve his lot. His dreams, however, might be shattered by a Democrat implementing socialist policies. The implied solution: Vote for the other candidate, who rewards those who pursue the American Dream! The prediction that Democrats would tax industrious citizens matched previous stereotypes and thus appeared representative to many. Some people fell prey to the "martyr fallacy" of assuming that the underdog is always right and automatically agreed with Joe.
The "curse of vividness"
The worker's stellar rise to national prominence, which appears surreal, also illustrates what I call the "curse of vividness". He who succumbs to the fallacy of initiative tends to underestimate how proactive another person will be and thus is prone to overlook the potential boomerang effects of his actions.
Somebody who is elevated to a national symbol faces intense scrutiny. The investigative outcome can serve as ammunition for ad hominem attacks. People often intentionally commit the logical error of stating that an argument is wrong because of who advanced it and thus ignore the validity of its substance. The media quickly discovered that Joe had been fined for tax arrears and does not possess a state plumber's license. Although this information is irrelevant for assessing his argument, such red herrings sway many people.
More sophisticated rebuttals try to prove that an argument is wrong, either because it contains contradictory statements or evidence disconfirms it. Bean counters quickly calculated that after deduction of expenses, the net income of the business that Joe wanted to acquire would likely fall below Obama's proposed threshold. This would actually qualify the plumber for a tax cut under the Democrat's scheme.
Vividness may crowd out such complex and detailed scholarly refutations. But a leader must expect others to use what I call "meta-propaganda", scrutinizing his persuasive tools. If his techniques are exposed, he will appear artificial and manipulative. He then loses prestige and credibility in the same way as a magician whose tricks are revealed.
The use of massed repetition, frequent mentioning of a message to crowd out other things, can become easily obvious to observers. When saturation levels are reached, this technique may cause what I call "vividness fatigue". Spaced repetition, reiterating a message in intervals, can serve as complement to bursts of propaganda activity focusing on one point. A leader may also use spacing as substitute for massed repetition to avoid overshooting and decrease the chances that meta-propagandists catch him.
An image is most powerful without words; once logic overshadows physical aspects, it loses its immediacy and recall superiority. When both presidential candidates routinely made hay of Joe, demonstrating how he would benefit from their plans, his value as vivid poster boy plummeted. At the end, McCain could only crack jokes about the omnipresent Joe to detract the public from the politician's attempt to feed on bias.
A leader intend on using the power of psychology to his advantage must recognize the Janus face of vividness before exploiting it. Especially in a close contest, a mundane but strikingly distinctive symbol, magnified by the media and audience, may exert a disproportionally large impact, swaying people in his favor. But an opponent can easily piggyback on salient and representative features, turning their formidable force against those who evoked them!
"Prof. Kai on Strategic Leadership" Column Number 12. Kai-Alexander Schlevogt (D.Phil. Oxford) is a professor of strategy and leadership at the National University of Singapore Business School and author of The Art of Chinese Management (Oxford University Press). Email: schlevogt@schlevogt.com; website: www.schlevogt.com.
