#14: Certainty with Zakary Tormala

Dr. Zakary Tormala is a professor of behavioral science and marketing at Stanford University’s business school. He studies how people can become certain of an opinion and what that means for their willingness to share their views. We talk about what certainty is, how it affects people's choices and resistance to change, and how the research about certainty can inform best practices in persuasion.

Some of the things that come up in this episode:

• Robert Burton's article, "The Certainty Epidemic" (also see his book, On Being Certain)
• The difference between "clarity" and "correctness" (Petrocelli, Tormala, & Rucker, 2007)
• The relationship between certainty and advocacy (Cheatham & Tormala, 2015; 2017)
• How successfully resisting persuasion can boost certainty (Tormala & Petty, 2002)
• How apparent social consensus increases certainty (Clarkson, Tormala, Rucker, & Dugan, 2013)
• Why uncertainty can get people to pay attention (Karmarkar & Tormala, 2010)
• For an overview of some of the ideas in this episode, check out Dr. Tormala's brief article in Current Opinion in Psychology: "The role of certainty (and uncertainty) in attitudes and persuasion" or his article in Harvard Business Review: "How certainty transforms persuasion."

For a transcript of this show, visit the episode's webpage: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/certainty-with-zakary-tormala

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

For a transcript of this episode, visit this episode's page at: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episodes/

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.