communication studies Communication studies or communication science is an academic discipline that deals with processes of human communication and behavior, patterns of communication in interpersonal relationships, social interactions and communication in differen ...

science communication Science communication is the practice of informing, educating, raising awareness of science-related topics, and increasing the sense of wonder about scientific discoveries and arguments. Science communicators and audiences are ambiguously def ...

psycholinguistics Psycholinguistics or psychology of language is the study of the interrelation between linguistic factors and psychological aspects. The discipline is mainly concerned with the mechanisms by which language is processed and represented in the mind ...

and choice theory, anecdotal value refers to the primarily social and political value of an anecdote or

anecdotal evidence Anecdotal evidence is evidence based only on personal observation, collected in a casual or non-systematic manner. The term is sometimes used in a legal context to describe certain kinds of testimony which are uncorroborated by objective, independ ...

in promoting understanding of a social, cultural, or economic phenomenon. While anecdotal evidence is typically unscientific, in the last several decades the ''evaluation'' of anecdotes has received sustained academic scrutiny from economists and scholars such as Felix Salmon,

S. G. Checkland Sydney George Checkland FRSE (9 October 1916 – 22 March 1986) was a British-Canadian economic historian. Life Born in Ottawa, Ontario, Checkland worked at the Bank of Nova Scotia, then the Ottawa Sanitary Laundry Company, while he gained assoc ...

(on David Ricardo), Steven Novella, R. Charleton,

Hollis Robbins Hollis Robbins (born 1963) is an American academic and essayist; Robbins currently serves as Dean of Humanities at University of Utah. Her scholarship focuses on African-American literature. Education and early career Robbins was born and raised ...

, Kwamena Kwansah-Aidoo, and others. These academics seek to quantify the value of the use of anecdotes, e.g. in promoting public awareness of a disease. More recently, economists studying choice models have begun assessing anecdotal value in the context of framing;

Daniel Kahneman Daniel Kahneman (; he, דניאל כהנמן; born March 5, 1934) is an Israeli-American psychologist and economist notable for his work on the psychology of judgment and decision-making, as well as behavioral economics, for which he was award ...

and

Amos Tversky Amos Nathan Tversky ( he, עמוס טברסקי; March 16, 1937 – June 2, 1996) was an Israeli cognitive and mathematical psychologist and a key figure in the discovery of systematic human cognitive bias and handling of risk. Much of his ...

suggest that choice models may be contingent on stories or anecdotes that frame or influence choice. As an example, consider the quote, widely misattributed to Joseph Stalin and later recognized to be from Kurt Tucholsky: The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic.

Notes

References

* ''Choices, values and frames'', Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky (Eds.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 840 pp.,
Telling Stories: The Epistemological Value of Anecdotes in Ghanaian communication research

The Role of Anecdotes in Science-Based Medicine
{{DEFAULTSORT:Anecdotal Value Behavioral finance Evidence law

See also

Notes

References