Let’s assume I’m evil. What I want to do is INDUCE COMPLIANCE. I want people to do what I want.
Well that might be hard to do. But what if I could get people to comply with a request? That may be simple and effective. Dr. Susan Weinschenk wrote a whole book on how to get people to do stuff, but in this case I just want people to comply to a request I make.
There’s a paper (of course there is), that’s an oldie but a goodie. It’s entitled “Reciprocal concessions procedure for inducing compliance: The door-in-the-face technique” written by Cialdini, et. al. in 1975.
Through a series of experiments the researchers tried to induce people to take a specific action. What was the best way to do that?
In the first experiment they asked people if they would work as a voluntary non-paid counselor at the jail, or if they’d volunteer at the zoo. Their goal was to get people to volunteer at the zoo.
Working at the jail was the “extreme request”. If you just walk up to someone and say “heyyy come on down to the local jail and work for free”, you’re going to get a lot of no’s. But hanging out at the zoo? That was the small request.
They had three conditions. The first was called the rejection-moderation condition. After hearing the experimenter make the first extreme request (jail), which was almost always rejected, the experimenter would then say “oh, no worries, there’s this other program” and make the smaller request (zoo).
The second control was the exposure control, so the experimenter first described the extreme request (jail) and the small request (zoo), and then requested they do either one.
The third was a small request only control, in which, straight forwardly enough, they’d only ask about the zoo.
Results? First, no subject agreed to do the jail volunteer. However, compliance with the smaller request varied dramatically.
As you can see, they DOUBLED their compliance numbers simply by requesting the jail first.
They essentially tricked the participants into being more likely to comply with their request to visit the zoo by using the tactic of rejection-moderation. I quote from the paper:
“Starting with an extreme initial request which is sure to be rejected and then moving to a smaller request significantly increases the probability of a target person’s agreement to the second request.”
Sounds like a simple framing effect right? The jail feels like a large request, so the zoo feels small. But it’s much more than just framing. The authors of the paper argue that it is only when the second favor can be considered to be a concession that compliance is increased.
Next the researchers ran Experiment 2 to test for framing. This time the participant was approached by two experimenters. Sneakily a third then came up talking about an upcoming exam (the research was done on a college campus).
Again, there were three conditions. The first was the rejection-moderation condition. In this condition participants heard the first experimenter ask for the extreme favor, and then ask for the second smaller one; the same as in Experiment 1.
The second condition was the two-requester control. This was the same as the first condition (rejection-moderation) but this time upon refusal of the extreme request, the first experimenter thanked the participant and walked away. The sneaky third experimenter that had come up later then would make the smaller request.
If it really was framing, if just being exposed to the more extreme request framed the participants in a way that made the zoo feel better, than this should work as well as the first condition.
The third was the smaller request-only control; the same as in Experiment 1.
Results?
Fascinatingly, when the request was asked by a different person there was very poor compliance rates. In order for the “magic” to work, thesmaller request must be made by the same person who made the larger (rejected) request.
Again, I quote from the paper:
“Only when the extreme and smaller favors were asked by the same requester was compliance enhanced.”
It wasn’t framing. Exposing the participants to the two different requests had no effect, or even backfired. It is much more about feeling bad about turning someone down, and wanting to give them a concession.
On to the last experiment, Experiment 3. The researchers were looking to disprove that it’s simply persistence that is the cause of the persuasion. In theory, maybe the reason people are breaking down is just the constant asking.
Experiment 3 was set up the same as Experiment 1. The participants were put in three conditions. The first was rejection-moderation, again. After hearing and rejecting an extreme request, the participant then heard the same person make a smaller request. This worked well in Experiment 1.
The second control was an equivalent request. The participant heard a requester initially request for them to be a chaperone (small request), then request to do the zoo (small request).
If the higher compliance rates were due to pure persistence, aka wearing people down by bugging them, then a high percentage of people would agree to the second small zoo request after being asked to chaperone.
The last condition was the smaller request only control that was the same as before (only asking if people would go to the zoo).
Results?
Asking for a smaller favor first, and then coming in again had no effect over the control. It made no difference. It was NOT simple persistence.
It was the rejection followed by concession that made people feel indebted to someone. Rejection then concession is the magic secret. If you want to get people to comply to your request, you need to have people reject you and feel bad. You can exploit their guilty feelings to ask a smaller favor that they are more likely to accept out of guilt.
That’s why the researchers call it the reciprocal concession model. Both parties make a concession in reciprocity to each other.
So again. If you’re evil and you want people to COMPLY WITH YOUR REQUEST, follow these steps.
Step one. Make a big request. Step two, when the big request is turned down, make the small request you actually want people to take. Importantly, the person who is asking must be the same. I quote from the paper:
“Only when the proposal of the second favor can be considered a concession on the part of the requester is compliance increased.”
That’s how you drive behavior and compliance. You use norms and feelings of “owing” something to another person. Ironically compliance is driven best through empathy and compassion.
Of course, things get interesting when your compliance request is to harm others, or not prevent harm to others. When people think of compliance I think it is inevitable to think towards dystopian futures and the Nazis and standing up for what you believe in. That compassion can drive compliance behavior is interesting. But remember it’s not compassion towards a third party that gets results. It has to be compassion towards whomever is making the request.
Try the steps! See if you get better results and let me know.
A quick caveat about this study. It was done a while ago, probably with only white college students. It is possible that results may vary between societies. Otherwise I bet it works! Now give me $10000 of work. No? How about $1? You owe me. Paypal guthrie@theteamw.com 😊 thanks.
Cialdini, R. B., & Et al. (1975). Reciprocal concessions procedure for inducing compliance: The door-in-the-face technique. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 31(2), 206-215. doi:10.1037/h0076284
Let’s pretend I’m an evil version of Google that cares nothing about privacy (is this an allegory about the real Alphabet… you be the judge). Anti-Google. And my slogan is “Always Be Evil”.
What I want to do is get customers to disclose all of their private information to me. I want to have access to all of their social media accounts, emails, basically I want them to tell me, or disclose, all sorts of information.
But I also have to do so legally, and there are (pesky) laws that require me to get consent; laws that require the user to authorize me to use their information. So, what can I do? I can use behavioral science!
One behavioral science trick is to limit the number of disclosure events. You’ll get more compliance if you only ask the user once. Multiple decision points are more opportunities for the user to restrict their data.
I want to focus on another strategy using a paper on this exact topic. In “Slights of privacy”, by Adjerid, Acquisti, Brandimarte, and Loewenstein, they try to figure out the effect of privacy notices.
In the first experiment they manipulated changes in privacy notices by increasing or decreasing protections. The idea is that you can change behavior by changing the notices.
People were asked to give up (disclose) various information about themselves.
In the low protection condition people were informed that their responses would be actively linked to their university email accounts. This is more “big brothery” because personal information could be more easily gathered.
In the high protection condition people were told the accounts would not be actively linked to their university email addresses. Not being linked to an email address gives the user more privacy by protecting from the aggregation of personal data.
What they found was a 10% increase in the propensity to disclose other information when participants were given increasing (high) protections. And I quote from the paper:
“Similarly for decreasing protections conditions, we found that participants were, on average, 14% less likely to disclose, with some questions having as high as a 40% reduction in the propensity to disclose.”
This is not a surprising result. People are more likely to speak up if they feel a certain level of anonymity. If you’re trying to get specific information out of someone, make really strong protections to not use or attach that info to other information you don’t care about. That’s a great takeaway. Further, people care about privacy, and people don’t want to disclose all of their personal information.
That’s why, in Experiment 2, the researchers tried to get people to disclose lots of personal information.
Today the game is often that companies are trying to get people to disclose personal information, and people try to resist doing so.
Participants were told they were participating in a research study to create an online social network and were asked to create a profile in a college setting. They would have to disclose lots of personal information about themselves (exactly what Anti-Google would want). All the juicy details.
In the control case, people were taken (online) straight to the disclosure decisions after reading the privacy notice in a regular way.
In the other conditions, people were played with. Instead of going straight to the disclosure decisions, they were presented with one of four different mis-directions after the privacy notice before filling out the same profile fields.
For example, the first misdirection was a simple 15 second delay between the privacy notice and the disclosures (author note – 15 seconds is forever when browsing the internet).
What were the results? In the control, the disclosure rate was significantly less when presented with a riskier privacy notice (disclosure rate of about 0.5 for more risky vs. 0.7 for less risky). This was the same result that occurred in Experiment 1.
However, that difference almost completely went away with a slight misdirection, I quote from the study:
“In our second experiment, we found that the downward impact of riskier privacy notices on disclosure can be muted or significantly reduced by a slight misdirection which does not alter the objective risk of disclosure.”
With a little bit of misdirection, the entire effect of people wanting to disclose less disappears! People didn’t care. For the vast majority, privacy disclosures are simply not that important if they have to spend the inconvenience of kicking up into System 2 mode to actually think and follow through on a decision.
After waiting 15 seconds, they got bored, and just went ahead and filled out the stupid profile to be done with it. The ideas about “oh privacy and what does this mean for my future”… it’s too hard to make a calculated decision on, and it certainly doesn’t affect people in the present, so they don’t make the calculation and they just do what the form asks.
The author’s hunch is that this strategy works well in all sorts of situations. When people complain, or are worried about taking an action that affects them in the far future, all that is needed for most of them to put down the pitchfork and become docile sheep is a simple 15 second misdirection. It is so unconformable to stay in System 2 thinking mode for 15 seconds, that the majority of people would rather not care and face the consequences to jump back into System 1, than to sit in System 2 and continue to care strongly.
The other misdirections all worked just as well, like having them make some other decision that was perhaps important but not related to their disclosure risk at all. Think of waiving a dog toy in front of a puppy to distract it from whatever and you get the idea.
Evil Anti-Googles of the world rejoice! It’s easy to get people to waive their principles. All it takes is a little bit of behavioral science and you’ll be on your way.
Adjerid, I., Acquisti, A., Brandimarte, L., & Loewenstein, G. (2013). Sleights of privacy. Proceedings of the Ninth Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security – SOUPS ’13. doi:10.1145/2501604.2501613
I want to walk you through a rather complicated paper that I think is pretty important; it’s called “Bringing the Frame Into Focus: The Influence of Regulatory Fit on Processing Fluency and Persuasion”. It’s by Lee and Aaker from 2004.
The focus of the paper was the importance of what they call “regulatory fit”. Now this is not a term I would have invented, I personally think it’s clunky and doesn’t actually explain the concept, but I didn’t invent it, so I don’t get to name it.
The person who did invent it was researcher E. Tory Higgins in the late 1990’s. The regulatory fit theory examines the motivation of people (what they want), and how they go about achieving that goal (how do I get what I want?).
And just like there are liberal and conservative solutions to the same problems, regulatory fit theory says that people “orient” themselves when they solve a problem to either prevention, or promotion.
Unlike politics, people don’t always go with prevention, or always go promotion; it depends on the situation and the problem.
Promotion strategies, also known as “promotion focus” emphasize the pursuit of gains, or at least avoiding non-gains. Promotion focus is based on “aspirations towards ideals.”
Prevention strategies, also known as “prevention focus” try to accomplish the same goal, but from a different mindset. Prevention tries to reduce losses, or pursue non-losses. It often is invoked during the fulfillment of obligations.
Let me give you an example. Let’s analyze a road trip from Washington D.C. to Chicago from two different situations. The goal for both is the same, drive from the nation’s capital to Chicago.
In one group is a newlywed couple from Sweden taking a holiday in the United States for the summer. In the second group are two people who work for a Heating and Air Conditioning (HVAC) company. They have to make a series of repairs for their commercial clients, and therefore have been sent on this driving route from Washington D.C. to Chicago.
Both groups have the same trip, same stops, same time. So, in theory, their approach might be the same, but if you look at the situation from a regulatory fit theory analysis, you get different results.
The fun Swedish couple are probably using a promotion strategy. They want to have fun! They want to maximize their time on the trip and see as many cool things as possible. They want to take risks and climb mountains and drive on the Blue Ridge Highway (as this author can attest is very cool). They want to see Gettysburg and stay at weird hotels along the way. They have aspirations. They want to maximize gains.
The HVAC repair folks are probably using a prevention strategy. They just want the trip to go smoothly, and their clients to be happy. They don’t want hiccups, they don’t want flat tires, and they don’t want anything bad to happen. They want to minimize losses.
In both cases it’s the same trip, and both times people want the trip to go as well as possible; but they are oriented in different directions.
The same can hold true in a variety of political contexts. Right now, as I type this, immigration in the US is a huge issue. It’s a “hot-button issue” as they say. Generally, liberals in the US in the form of the Democratic party orient themselves in a promotion strategy on immigration. They are looking to maximize gains and talk about the benefits immigration can bring; more small business, greater cultural diversity, and higher economic growth for most (personal note from the economist writer, immigration is a net positive economically for the United States, but is a negative for some groups, mainly non-college educated white males).
Conservatives in the form mainly as the Republican party take a prevention strategy on immigration. They talk more in terms of a prevention orientation to reduce loss, such as reducing drug imports, stopping terrorist threats, reducing job losses, and not overcrowding the social safety net.
The reason the study that I mentioned earlier, “Bringing Frame Into Focus”, is important is that it dives into the effects orientation can have on how much a person likes a certain solution. The hypothesis they wanted to test was: do people treat solutions that are framed in the direction of their viewpoint more favorably? Does a better problem “fit” (either promotion or prevention) lead to a higher rating of the quality of that solution?
We’ve had a lot of talk recently about the “ideas bubble”. If you’re conservative you only follow conservative people on Twitter, and only get your news from conservative news sources. And if you’re liberal you are only friends with other liberals and only get your news from liberal sources. The effect being that both sides are shouting past each other because there is no sharing of ideas.
Many see this as a problem. I don’t want to frame it as positive or negative but it certainly is a “thing” that exists now. I feel confident in saying that the vast majority of Americans feel more polarized and split into factions, especially politically, than they have in the past.
I think this paper gives a big clue into why this is happening on an individual level. Why it is happening now is a much bigger conversation about trust in social institutions and technology, and a whole host of other topics I won’t get into now. But to have a good mechanism for why people like to be so tribal in their solutions is important.
To those who do see this polarization as a problem and want to try and fix it, let me give you this advice. A friend of mine specializes in racial inequality and gave me an interesting thought. We all have unconscious racial biases (check out https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/selectatest.html to take a test for yourself and see). She told me that having racial biases is okay on a personal level because we all are a little racist. What’s important is that we recognize in what ways we have racial biases, and then work and act to negate those instincts. The important work that you can do to stop racism is not to stop the negative biases that exist because those are often already imprinted into us through society at a young age. Our brains automatically make “us” and “them” categorizations. Only the passage of time can defeat that by redefining the “us” as all humans, or at least not seeing “us” and “them” on the basis of race. Rather, the work you can do in this moment is understand the racist biases you have, be honest with yourself and with others, and then work to not make decisions based on those feelings. Understand, accept, and account for them. It’s sharing that understanding that will actually work towards ending racism, not pretending that the feelings don’t exist.
In the same vein, if you want to help stop the polarization it’s important is to understand, accept, and account for your self-regulatory orientation biases. To understand which way you are facing, and if the message you inherently “feel” bad or good about is logical, or just a feeling. Only by spreading that understanding, acceptance, and accounting for your orientation bias can the polarization be stopped. The brain will always win…
And that’s why framing is so important. We’ve talked about framing a lot, and this is another example that works qualitatively. The bias in how ideas are presented is fascinating because it is so antithetical to how we perceive ourselves. When we talk about number framing for example, it’s very interesting, and unconscious, but it’s sort of a mind trick. Look at this nifty magic trick I can do to make you act a certain way.
But we take our core believes very seriously. The idea that I could manipulate what strategy you think would best enact your core beliefs based solely on how I presented my ideas, how I “framed” my ideas, is scary! And insanely useful to people out there who work in the marketing field. Again, it’s because of this orientation and fit theory. Ideas presented in a way that are in the same orientation you are in will “feel” like a better fit, and therefore you’ll be more receptive to them.
So what did Lee and Aaker find in their research? It’s time to walk through it now.
Their first experiment had small groups of 5-10 people presented with ads for Welch’s Grape Juice. After the ads people rated a few questions on a 7-point scale including their attitudes towards the brand, with 7 being highest and 1 being the lowest.
People were split into a 2×2 condition. The first split was to get either a promotion condition, or a prevention condition.
The promotion condition had language in the ad such as “growing evidence suggests that diets rich in Vitamin C and Iron lead to higher energy levels,” and other gain maximizing language.
The ad in the prevention condition had language such as “growing evidence suggests that diets rich in antioxidants may reduce the risk of some cancers and heart disease”, and other language to minimize loss (of life due to a heart attack or cancer).
The second split in addition to the promotion vs prevention condition was the framing condition. People were even given a tagline for example of “prevent clogged arteries!” in the gain frame, and “don’t miss out on preventing clogged arteries”, in the loss frame.
As you can see, there was a nice split. Those who were prompted with a promotional regulatory focus had a better response when presented with opportunity for gain, and those who were prompted with a prevention regulatory focus had a better response when presented with the reduction of loss.
Both methods were effective, but how the message was framed changed based on the orientation.
Interesting stuff, but there’s lots more. Experiment 2 and 3 were similar as Experiment 1, but they included a perception of risk.
There again was an ad about mononucleosis (mono) this time, a relatively common but not fun disease. Exposure risk was manipulated by conveying that one could get mono from either frequent, or infrequent behaviors.
People in the “high risk” condition were told that they would be at high risk of getting mono from kissing, any kind of sexual activity, or sharing a toothbrush, razor, water, or soda, etc…
People in the “low risk” condition were told they were at high risk of getting mono if they got a tattoo, used needles, had a blood transfusion, or multiple sexual partners at the same time, etc…
The ads were then framed either in a gain condition or a loss condition. The gain frame ads said “enjoy life!”, and “know that you are free from mononuclousis.” The loss frame said things like “don’t miss out on enjoying life”, etc…
Results? Appeals that are low in risk are more effective when presented in a gain or promotion frame. Appeals that are high in risk are more effective when presented in a prevention or loss frame.
And this makes sense. When the risk of loss is low, like the newlywed couple, whose worse outcome is they have a “meh” vacation, we humans look to maximize gain. It’s a great biological adaptation strategy. Go take risks and maximize your potential rewards now while it’s safe. We naturally turn to a promotion orientation.
When the risk of loss is high, like the HVAC repair team, whose worst outcome is that they destroy millions of dollars in business and get fired and foreclose on their house, the great biological adaptation strategy is “be safe”. Minimize your losses; just get out alive. We naturally turn to a prevention orientation strategy.
This explains so many of our political framings as well. As I said earlier, immigration is a net positive for many groups of Americans. They adopt a promotion orientation.
But especially for those populations who experience immigration as a much larger threat to their livelihood, their community, and their career opportunities (again strongest among non-college educated white males), they take a prevention orientation. They are worried about losing their job to outside competition. They have a much higher fear of loss.
Therefore, messages that are oriented in the same direction that they are already facing will be much stronger.
Donald Trump was so effective with his message because so much of the discourse his supporters were hearing from other candidates was not in the same orientation they were in. They didn’t want to hear all these messages about how great the US economy was doing after the recession, or all the great things other establishment Republicans were going to do once they were elected. They were, and are, in a prevention orientation. They were trying to minimize losses.
President Trump soared in with a prevention message, that he would “make America great again.” That he’d stop drugs and people coming over the borders. That Washington D.C. was a corrupt swamp that needed to stop hurting America. His message was really, really effective. Very few other politicians were aligned in the same regulatory orientation as Trump and it carried him to the White House.
It’s the flip side of the wave President Obama carried to the White House in 2006-2008; “Hope and Change.” Here was a very upbeat message, that if elected he can maximize the gains American already has. But it was even stronger than his rivals and did especially well with the young people in his base that were in a promotion, gain maximizing, orientation. This author’s bet is that he would not have done nearly as well had the election occurred in 2009, in the heart of the Great Recession when more people had probably politically switched to a prevention orientation on many political topics.
There are countless more examples where this applies. But why is it so strong?
The theory is that people have an underlying perception about what message “feels right”. I quote the authors:
“When a message frame is consistent versus inconsistent with the way in which individuals naturally think about issues that involve positive versus negative outcomes, the message becomes easier to process. This ease of processing is subsequently transferred to more favorable attitudes”.
Connor Diemand Yauman, researched this idea that when people feel that information is easy to process then they process it differently (fluency) than when they feel that the information is difficult to process (disfluency).
It’s a brilliant idea so I want to make sure you caught it. When a message is in the same orientation you are in, the message literally becomes easier to process. The brain doesn’t have to spend time and energy and resources figuring out why this information doesn’t align with what I’m already thinking. It all makes perfect sense in the world, and the brain speeds it along. It’s familiar. And when things are familiar, they are processed faster, which makes them “feel” better, and more correct.
We’ve already covered a few studies in which recognition leads to more positive receptions. You process it fast, it feels good, and it fits with your self story. The orientation regulatory bias is that your brain simply says, okay, cool, that sounds right. I agree with that. And you move on.
You like messages you don’t have to think about. You like messages that fit and make sense to your self-story.
The smart researchers decided to test this theory! Because here we don’t simply spout ideas about why the world is the way we think it is… WE BACK IT UP WITH DATA! They wanted to test if indeed faster processing of a message (which they call “processing fluency”) when the message was aligned with their regulatory orientation.
The researchers used the same setup as Experiment 1, with the Welch’s grape juice. However, this time they did so on a computer, with words that flashed on the screen that they had to write down. It’s called a perception test and is pretty common. Because the words only flash briefly (we’re talking 50 milliseconds), the idea is that if you process some words faster than others, you’ll be able to perceive and write down more of those words. Simple enough right?
There were lots of random words that flashed, and then 8 target words. Four were promotion focused (enjoy, active, energy, vitamins), and four were prevention focused (disease, arteries, cancer, and clogged).
Remember the promotion group was told juice would give them more energy, and the prevention focus told they would reduce the risk of disease.
Results?
You can see that in the promotion control group far more words associated with promotion were perceived, and in the prevention, far more prevention words were perceived. This is clear evidence that supports the hypothesis that faster processing of a message occurs when the framing was in the same orientation as person.
The research paper quotes: “In sum, results from Experiments 4A and 4B provide evidence that participants experimented greater processing fluency when message frame was compatible with regulatory focus.”
In Experiment 5, they asked for how effective the message was. And I’ll let the paper’s authors sum this Experiment up quickly for you (you’ve already been through so much):
“[I]n high regulatory fit conditions, more support reasons came to mind, and heightened effectiveness was perceived by participants. However, it was the perceived effectiveness that appeared to directly impact brand attitudes, thereby shedding light on the specific nature of the processing fluency mechanism.”
So to tie it all together then:
“Our results demonstrate that enhanced processing fluency associated with higher eagerness and higher vigilance under regulatory fit conditions leads to more favorable attitudes. Thus, the current research shows that processing fluency may contribute to the “feeling right” experience that is transferred to subsequent evaluations of the product.”
What they are saying here is what I’ve already explained. The processing fluency, aka, the ease in which a message that is oriented in the same way your regulatory orientation already is contributes to the “feeling right” experience. Because it “feels right”, you rate that product, or that message as more favorable.
Obviously this has loads of marketing potential. But it’s very important to know which orientation your audience is, or your message won’t land. That’s why it’s so easy to tell people what they want to hear. Selling Coke to people who already drink Coke is easy because that population of people already like Coke. It’s a much harder task to try and get people who think soda is bad for you to drink Coke.
Okay, so obviously there are huge political implications, and important marketing implications. Let’s sum things up with some takeaways:
People have self-regulatory orientations. On different topics they can either have promotion orientation, to maximize gains, or prevention orientation, to minimize losses.
When messages are framed in the same orientation people are in, they are more effective and better received. This is because messages in the same orientation are processed faster, and therefore “feel” better.
If you want to be successful in any sort of voting contest where it is between a few choices, it is best to use a message that is framed in the correct orientation as your target audience. If everyone is in the same direction, including your competition, be the loudest voice. Either be the most preventing loss, or the most maximizing gain to make yourself stand out to a “base”.
If at all possible, do both! Be preventing losses to one crowd and maximizing gain to another.
Lee, A. Y., & Aaker, J. L. (2004). Bringing the Frame Into Focus: The Influence of Regulatory Fit on Processing Fluency and Persuasion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 86(2), 205-218. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.86.2.205
I want to give credit to an old paper that was quite ahead of its time. In 1956 Herbert Simon in his paper “Rational choice and the structure of the environment” had some of the ideas of behavioral economics before the field had really developed.
His take on some of the interesting human behaviors was a word entitled “satisficing”. It’s a combination of sufficing (good enough), and satisfying. Behavioral scientists often will use different phrases today like cognitive biases and prospect utility, but you’ll still hear economists mention the phrase satisficing now and then.
Satisficing is the idea that when people make decisions, they don’t optimize for maximum enjoyment the way an economist would expect. Rather, as the Behavioral Economics Guide of 2016 summarized, people “choose options that meet their most basic decision criteria.”
For example, if you really want fancy Mexican food, and eating fancy Mexican food would give you the most happiness, and maximum utility, the traditional economist would predict that you get fancy Mexican food. But, of course, we don’t do that, we do what is satisfying, and sufficing; satisficing. So instead of getting fancy Mexican, you go to Chipotle and get a burrito. It’s enough.
Later Tversky and Kahneman would come along and invent prospect theory, and a much more solid behavioral economic model and base on which the modern version of behavioral science is founded. But Herbert Simon gets lots of credit for being really far ahead of his time and putting down a ton of ideas that influenced future thinkers.
Simon, H. A. (1956). Rational choice and the structure of the environment. Psychological Review, 63(2), 129-138. doi:10.1037/h0042769
Okay this one is a tough one. It’s kind of complicated, but it’s worth it, trust me. We mostly talk about how humans work biologically and in which ways that influences our decisions. That is somewhat the field of the behavioral science. But beyond biology that is consistent across all humans there are also cultural and societal differences, along with age and gender, and so on, that also have an impact.
I don’t want to leave these out! Today’s topic explores whether there are cultural and societal differences in decision making through a paper on individualistic societies verses collectivism societies.
Cialdini, Wosinska, Barrett, Butner and Gornik-Durose wrote a paper in 1999 entitled Compliance with a Request in Two Cultures. They compared social decision making between the United States and Poland with the emphasis on examining what they call “social proof”; or the idea that you examine the behavior of others, especially similar others, to determine the appropriate behavior for yourself.
Individualistic societies tend to define the self as autonomous and independent from groups.
Collectivistic societies tend to define the self more in terms of group membership.
The theory is that you can invoke behavior (in their study they used whether you’d go out of your way to help someone else) by using different strategies in different societies. It makes sense that different societies would respond differently to requests for help depending on how the request was presented.
But you still have to study it! Okay so here’s the experiment they set up. This was a 2 x 3 x 2 conditional study. Lots of conditions so it’s a little complicated. The bottom line is that participants were asked to do a task and answer a survey.
The first 2 conditions were Poland vs. the United States. They did the Study in both places to see if there was a difference.
The next 3 conditions were using different degrees of social influence: either high, medium, or low.
To measure the intensity of social influence, participants indicated their willingness to comply three different times. Once when all other classmates had agreed to take the questionnaire (high social), once when half agreed (medium social), and once when no one else agreed (low social).
The last 2 conditions used the survey answers.
Half the participants were told to do the survey while considering their peers (group focus), and half were told to only consider themselves (individualism focus).
Again, it was a 2 x 3 x 2 conditional experiment by using the categories Poland vs. US, the amount of social pressure or influence used, and social influence vs. individualism.
What the researchers found was that there were similar effects. When there was more social influence (everyone else around had taken the survey), people were more willing to also take the survey. That’s not surprising and we’ll get into a lot more research about social pressure later.
What was interesting is that the strength of the impact differed. Social pressure was more effective in Poland, and using individualism was more effective in the US. This is most likely because the US has more individualism and Poland more collectivism generally, in their society.
Also, the effect on collectivists could be canceled by a making the person focus on themselves, rather than the group. To quote from the paper:
“In sum, the predicted tendency of collectivists to be more willing than individualists to perform a collaborative task was canceled by a prior focus on oneself rather than on one’s group as a standard for decision.”
Now one small caveat, the study is from 1999, when Poland was much closer to the USSR than it is today. Regardless, the main point is that society matters. It’s often hard to measure, but there are interregional differences that do make a difference.
In practical takeaways then, don’t assume that just because a strategy works in Chicago that it will be as effective in other cultures. There often will be overlap, but sometimes not.
Specifically, if you are trying to use social pressure to drive action, use social pressures more often and with a higher priority in societies that are more collectivism and group focused (like Eastern Europe or Japan). If you want people to succumb to social pressure, make sure their focus is not on themselves as it can cancel the push to do a collective task.
If you want people to reject social pressure, try and direct their focus onto themselves as a person before they are exposed to the social pressure. It can negate the effect.
In societies that are more individualistic like the US, you can drive action more through a story of self-consistency than group action. Social pressure is still effective, but it is not as effective.
Again, the impact of the effects will change based on the specific circumstances.
So try it out! Let me know how it goes. This is a pretty nuanced subject so hopefully it was decently explained.
Cialdini, R. B., Wosinska, W., Barrett, D. W., Butner, J., & Gornik-Durose, M. (1999). Compliance with a Request in Two Cultures: The Differential Influence of Social Proof and Commitment/Consistency on Collectivists and Individualists. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25(10), 1242-1253. doi:10.1177/0146167299258006
One of, if not the most, important motivator in behavioral economics is the fear of loss. We’ve talked about this extensively and it takes many different shapes. One of my personal favorites is what’s known as a “sunk cost”.
Compared to a lot of behavioral economics terms this is pretty popular and well known, but just in case let me mind-journey for you.
You’re really hungry. It’s a hot Chicago summer day and you’ve had a long day at work.
On your walk home on the corner is a friendly neighborhood torta foodtruck. Oh my god. You love tortas. The thought of savory Mexican jamon (ham), topped with avocado and all the fixings with amazing green chili hot sauce and crema between bread carries you away. The smell hits you and you’re again reminded that there is a god. The cost is $8 for a sandwich. Even though you have leftovers at home that you can eat, you decide to stop and order one. You’re hungry and it’s after work; time to treat yourself (#treatyoself).
You wait in line, pay your $8 cash, and get your perfect torta. Warm juices of salsa and jamon dribble down the sides. Your mouth waters. However, unbeknownst to you, years of freezing ground has pushed up a part of the sidewalk by 3 inches. Your foot catches the ledge and your perfect torta flies out of your hand into a dirty puddle; gone forever.
You turn around and there’s now a line around the block to get another one. What do you do? If you had not just already stood in line for forever you would have been overjoyed to stand in line and pay $8 for a torta. But dejected you droop your head and go home to your leftovers.
Okay! Mind-journey over. What is interesting about that story is that if you wrote a computer program that would make decisions for you the calculation is different than what happened in real life.
You were hungry and willing to wait in line and pay money for a torta. You lost a torta so you didn’t eat one and are still just as hungry. Your situation hasn’t changed, and a computer program would say that humans would get back in line and wait again.
But your lost torta is a sunk cost. You paid for it, and it’s gone. In theory, sunk costs should have no impact on your next decision. It’s sunk, it’s gone. But, of course it has an impact on your decision-making process. It shouldn’t but it does.
It’s partially because we humans have a fear of loss, and partially because we have trouble segmenting time and decisions. We lump things together. So even though the calculation should be would I pay $8 for a torta, because we’ve already lost one we can’t help feeling like we’re paying $16 for one torta, even though that previous loss is immaterial to our next decision.
This effect creeps up all over the place. We’ll talk about it more later, with for example the gamblers fallacy, where gamblers feel that if they’re on a losing streak they should keep gambling because their luck is going to turn around…
Okay so how does this idea manifest itself? When humans make decisions, they can weigh the emotional experience of a sunk cost as value and make what on paper is an “irrational” choice. Or a choice that is against their own self-interest.
There are a lot of great papers about real life experiments demonstrating the effect. I’ll stick with one by Arkes and Blumer from 1985, The Psychology of Sunk Cost. They asked a series of questions. Here’s a slightly modified version of the first experiment:
“You have spent $100 on a ticket for a weekend ski trip to Michigan. Several weeks later you buy a $50 ticket for a weekend ski trip to Wisconsin.
You think you will enjoy the Wisconsin ski trip more than the Michigan ski trip. Suddenly you realized your just-purchased Wisconsin ski trip is the same weekend as the Michigan trip! It’s too late to sell either ticket, and you cannot return either one. You must use one ticket and not the other. Which ski trip will you go on?
$100 ski trip to Michigan OR $50 ski trip to Wisconsin?”
Think about it and write your answer down.
THE ANSWER SHOULD ALWAYS BE WISCONSIN!
It literally says, “you think you will enjoy the Wisconsin ski trip more”. Forget the price or what you purchased. The Wisconsin trip is the better trip! Go on the better vacation! Why would any pick a worse vacation?
Of course, 54% of respondents picked the Michigan vacation, and only 46% picked Wisconsin.
People who pick the Michigan trip say it’s because they don’t want to “waste the money.” But that money is already gone. It was spent and is a sunk cost.
Obviously, a fascinating result. And there are other questions that are variations on this theme.
The other interesting result was an experiment researchers did at the Ohio University Theater. People who bought season tickets were put into one of three conditions. One group got the normal price, one got a $2 discount (on each $15 ticket), and the third got each ticket for $7.
Results? The no-discount group used significantly more tickets (4.11) than both the $2 discount group (3.32) and the $7 discount group (3.29); but only for the first half of the season. There was no significant difference in the second half.
Now there are potentially a few factors at play. The first is sunk cost. After purchasing a season pass, those that paid full price felt compelled to go and not “waste money”. Even though it’s a sunk cost. Those who paid less had a smaller sunk cost effect.
The second main factor that may be operating is that people who pay more may give the concert tickets a higher value. The higher value is because it’s “worth” more for those who bought at full price than those who bought at reduced price.
Either way, the fact that the effect was time limited and faded after a few months is another interesting twist. The study doesn’t present a causal link, but there are a number of behavioral economics effects that seem to fade over time.
The takeaway here is that the sadness of a sunk cost may fade over time, and eventually fades away to a point where it truly is sunk. Maybe it’s just people’s way of processing grief. I know this author would grieve a lost torta.
So again, your mileage may vary. The effect may be strongest at the moment of “sunk” (think torta on the ground). And then its magnitude (technically amplitude) fades over time as the person goes through acceptance.
What are some real world applications?
Use the fear of sunk costs to stop customers from switching. Try breaking a payment in half or into smaller payments, and make each payment final. For example, tell the customer that they can’t complete the training without finishing the entire payment. This will trigger the fear of loss due to a sunk cost. The customers will want to pay to finish the training.
Conversely, if a customer feels like their payment has been wasted somehow, they will be much less likely re-up to get back to their starting position. This can generate a lot of negative emotions; even if it’s not even your fault.
For example, let’s say someone gets $800 of car work done and then the next week finds out that they need another $800 done on a different part of the car. They’ll be very hesitant to do so because of the sunk cost even though the two are unrelated. They should pay for both repairs, but the sunk cost and fear of loss will make them warry of spending more.
So that’s sunk costs. I hope you sunk some effort and energy into this topic! You’ll never get it back; it’s sunk.
On a personal note. This can apply to relationship and other personal feelings too. Letting go is hard. It’s a feeling of loss that we can’t get back. It really sucks. But this author’s personal advice is to take a deep breath and remind yourself that a sunk cost is gone. It’s just that; sunk and unsalvageable. You can’t get it back, and feeling bad about things doesn’t help anything. Use some mental scissors. Clip away the old circumstances and make your current situation the only factor that matters and make your decision from there. It’s the best way to move forward; even if it’s hard to do.
Arkes, H. R., & Blumer, C. (1985). The psychology of sunk cost. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 35(1), 124-140. doi:10.1016/0749-5978(85)90049-4
I have a confession to make. It took me years to understand the concept of heuristics. I don’t know why. I mean, I’m a smart guy, who obviously understands this economic mumbo-jumbo far better than the ordinary person. And heuristics is/are one of the foundational ideas of behavioral economics.
Maybe it’s the name. Too Greek? A lot of behavioral economists who have written books explaining some of these ideas to the masses have done a pretty good job at explaining heuristics. I like the summary behavioraleconomics.com uses. They define a heuristic as a cognitive shortcut, a process in which a person substitutes a difficult question with an easy one (they cite Kahneman, D. (2003)). Maps of bounded rationality: Psychology for behavioral economics. The American Economic Review, 93, 1449-1475.).
We humans do this intellectually, but also athletically. Let me give you an example by way of a mind-journey.
You’re back in 7th grade playing little league softball. It’s the summer tournament and it’s the first game of the summer season. Mid-afternoon, warm sunshine, pretty grass. Your parents are in the stands, though you will of course completely ignore them all game (you’re cool).
You’ve been at a few practices before the first game and the coach has enough sense to figure out, even at this early stage, that you’re not going to make it to the majors… So out to the outfield you go. That said, you’re not the worst person on the team, so at least they don’t put you in left field (left daydream more-like), they put you in right.
So far the game has gone pretty smoothly. It’s 2-1, your team is up in the middle of the third inning. You’ve already been up to bat, and actually managed to softly dribble a ground ball into the outfield and got on base! Made it over to second but then it was three outs, and you didn’t get to score.
Every little league team has that one kid that actually is good. Just far and away better at softball than other kids. Early puberty I suppose. Good hand-eye coordination. Parents are big into sports. Well they are now up at the plate and you’re a little nervous. So far no one has hit a ball to you. It’s little league and you’re in the outfield. Most runs are scored on errors throwing to first base. But this kid… Could launch one out to you and everyone will be watching. There are already two people on base, first and second, so it’s a big moment in the game.
Nervously you wait. Ball one. Strike one. Ball two. Next pitch is crushed. Right field. A high arcing sky-high hit. Now you’ve backed up a fair way, and no one hits home runs (it’s 7th grade), so it’s going to be up to you to catch it.
If a computer programmer, an engineer, or an economist were faced with this problem of getting your glove to the same spot of where the ball is projected to land (well, right before it lands), they would do the only thing that makes sense. The moment the ball is hit you can clearly see the flight trajectory. Based on the speed of the ball and the angle it is hit off the bat there is a clear concave flight pattern. You calculate the flight path, adjust slightly for wind, and determine the exact location the ball will land. Run to that spot, wait for the ball, and catch it when it gets to your glove. Easy peasy.
But if a human attempts to do that calculation in real time they always miss the ball. Human perception will misjudge the exact velocity. The ark and weight of the ball will change how it falls, so it won’t be perfectly uniform. Wind and air humidity will influence exactly where it will land. The precision required to calculate where it will land is immense! Further, an outfielder needs to be precise to maybe 5 square inches. Maybe even 5 square centimeters.
It’s a nearly impossible problem for the human brain to solve in the 5 seconds of flight time. So humans don’t solve it. We take a short cut. We use a heuristic.
Right now (do this), put your hand up in front of you as if you were going to catch a pop fly. As long as your glove is “blocking” the ball as it’s in the air, you’re in the right place.
Imagine if you saw the ball under your glove, you’re too far back, it will fall in front of you. Conversely, imagine the ball is much higher than your glove, you’re too far forward, it’ll land over your head. And the same left or right. So long as you keep the ball at the same “spot” in your field of vision, you’re going to catch it. If it’s not at the correct height, or left/right, you need to run to get it back into position.
No humans calculate flight trajectories to figure out where the ball will land. They just use a thousand little, quick micro-adjustments to keep the ball at the right angle in air. And at the last second make a slight adjustment before it gets to the glove for the final placement. It’s a much easier calculation.
So this is what you do. Luckily you don’t have to move too far, just run a little in and towards your left. Even with the sun out you can see the ball, you track it, keeping it at a consistent angle. The “correct” angle says your brain. With your glove out, you let you reflexes take over at the last instant, moving the glove over ever so slightly, to correct the errors leftover from your heuristic. Instead of a huge error of maybe 30 meters, you’ve narrowed it down to a fraction of a meter.
You catch the ball. Overjoyed and excited you can’t help but look over to your parents who both gasp and clap and smile. You try to pretend you don’t see them because, duh, you are still being cool. The crowd claps and the other team groans that you didn’t drop it. But no one really cares except your parents, I mean, you’re in right field, it’s your job to catch balls that come to you. What sort of right fielder would you be if you missed fly balls? But you did it, another day another dollar. Your unconscious brain is trying to get your attention. Something you’re forgetting?
Oh! That’s right, we’re playing softball I need to throw it back into the infield! You do, and your throw is horribly off target and short by like 15 feet. But this is softball in 7th grade. No one is stealing bases. The second basement trots out to grab your pathetic attempt at a fastball and relays it to the pitcher who also drops the ball. Again. Softball, in 7th grade.
Play resumes and the parents continue to talk about this cool place they found out in the country that makes its own Chardonnay!
Ah yes, little league softball, those were the days…
Snap back to reality. Oh, there goes gravity (as an example). Oh, there goes Guthrie, he overwrote, you’re so mad, but he won’t give up that easy, no, just gotta lose yourself in the mind-journey, don’t you ever let it go. You only got one chance, do not, drop the ball. Use a heuristic! (The author groaned with he saw he had wrote this, but decided to keep it in because it’s so groan worthy…)
The process of catching a softball is a simple explanation of a heuristic and how it works.
Heuristics can be cognitive as well as physical. In fact, perhaps the most important heuristics you will come across are cognitive. Educated guesses, intuitive judgements, guesstimates, profiling, stereotyping, or most mental shortcuts are all examples of heuristics.
Here’s a quick example:
You are in charge of designing the new website for your small business. Your boss comes to you and asks you, “Should the main menu be horizontal or vertical? “
To truly figure out the correct answer would take modeling, and user testing, and analytics and all sorts of tough thinking. But you can simply say horizontal because you’ve seen other websites with horizontal menus and you like them. You’ve used a heuristic to save a lot of time and decide.
There is often a perception that taking a heuristic shortcut is bad, or lazy. But there is research that suggests that you can get better results if you use a heuristic.
I want to talk about the “take-the-best” and the “recognition” heuristic as described by Gigerenzer and Gaissmaier in Heuristic Decision Making in 2011 and Models of ecological rationally: The recognition heuristic by Goldstein and Gigerenzer from 2002.
They very carefully outline the model of the take-the-best heuristic.
Here’s how the (very simple) take-the-best heuristic works:
You’re forced to pick between two choices. One of the choices “feels” good. Don’t think about it, just pick it. That’s all there is to it.
The reason this works is because the alternative with the positive cue (“feels good”) has a higher value. Pick it, trust your unconscious and move on.
The recognition heuristic is basically the same as take-the-best, but with a slight difference. When faced with a choice don’t pick what “feels” the best but pick whichever answer you recognize first.
Most of the time when you use the recognition heuristic you will end up with the same result as if you use take-the-best. This is because answers that come to you quickly often feel the best, and answer you recognize will come to you more quickly.
It may seem weird that using these simple heuristics would actually lead you to a right answer more often than if you think about it. But let me tell you very briefly about the research.
In their studies the researchers asked people two questions. The first was to pick which German cities had larger populations, and the second which mammal lifespans were longer.
German Cities and Mammal Lifespans
They then told participants to use all sorts of various tactics to make their decision. The take-the-best heuristic got the best results as you can see on the graph in Figure 1 (each line on the graph is a different model, the higher the lines the better the accuracy).
The researchers later gave a question about German city size and then American city size. They asked most participants to use the recognition heuristic (if you recognize it, choose it).
Here’s the crazy part, German participants did better on the American cities test than German cities, and Americans did better on German cities than American cities!
Sometimes when you go with your gut, it really is the best choice. By overthinking the answer using more knowledge about cities in their own country people got worse results.
From these results the researchers came up with the very short and simple “fast and frugal” rules you can use to come to better answers, quickly.
First, search for clues, or information that would be useful in making a decision.
Second, stop searching when the costs of further search exceed the benefits. That is to say, stop searching when simple searches fail to provide you with useful information. Excess information is bad; you only want the bare minimum.
And third, make an inference or decision when the search is stopped. Don’t think too hard about it; just make a decision and move on.
Even though that sounds silly and not well thought out, it can often lead to better results than a long-drawn-out process.
We’ll cover more studies later about why heuristics often can create more accurate answers even though they take less thought and effort.
The short answer is that using a heuristic stops your brain from consciously thinking too much. The more you consciously think, the more your biases get in the way. And the more you are misguided by your cognitive biases, the easier it is to come to the wrong result.
If you take the fast and easy solution you skip that whole process.
In conclusion, here are some real-world takeaways:
It’s important to know what a heuristic is and how people think. We use these all the time, but it’s okay! Shortcuts for humans sometimes work best.
Don’t overthink things, it can be less accurate and takes much longer.
Utilize “fast and frugal” heuristic rules when you need to be relatively accurate quickly and en masse.
Let me know if you have seen too much thinking get in the way of the best result.
Goldstein, D. G., & Gigerenzer, G. (2002). Models of ecological rationality: The recognition heuristic. Psychological Review, 109(1), 75-90. doi:10.1037//0033-295x.109.1.75
Gigerenzer, G., & Gaissmaier, W. (2011). Heuristic Decision Making. Annual Review of Psychology, 62(1), 451-482. doi:10.1146/annurev-psych-120709-145346
Everyone loves free. There’s something truly magical about getting something that you value for free and the feeling seems universal.
In another post I’ll talk about why we feel indebted when we get something for free, but for now, I want to focus on the feeling of free. If we want it; we take it. It’s almost like a compulsion; a quick little burst of joy like the pure thought of a child. Here is a thing I wish to possess, and with no effort at all, I simply can possess it. Pure joy. Let me take you on a mind-journey to that feeling.
Imagine I walk up to your desk right now and place in front of you a delicate piece of your favorite candied dessert in the entire world, carefully wrapped in a small square of brown paper wrapper. It sits there perfectly. You reach down, pick it up, and eat it, savoring every second. Is it indulgent chocolate? Smooth and silky dairy crème? Lush strawberry? Fluffy sponge cake?
I encourage you to rate your feelings of joy on a scale of 1-10. Now clear your mind of that fun escape. Picture a paper clip on some sand. Okay, clear? Let’s go on another mind journey.
Imagine I walk up to your desk right now and place in front of you a delicate piece of your favorite candy in the entire world, carefully wrapped in a small square of brown paper wrapper. It sits there perfectly. I look at you and say: “Hi, I am selling this piece of candy. It’s small so I’m going to charge you $.01. If you’d like to purchase it, I only take cash. However, I see that you have a small stack of pennies on your desk so change should be no problem. Would you like to purchase it?”
Think about your decision. Would you pay a penny for the candy? How are you feeling? Are you feeling joy? Even if you did decide to purchase the candy and eat it, which would be amazing, I bet the feeling of pure joy about the transaction was lost or at least greatly diminished. If there was joy it felt different somehow. It was less pure joy and more the happiness and satisfaction of getting a good deal.
To us humans, free feels different somehow, and sure enough, it causes us to act differently too.
In Zero as a Special Price: The True Value of Free Products, a research paper by Shampanier, Mazar, and Ariely, the researchers explored different people’s reaction to encountering free with a series of clever experiments.
Subjects were given a choice between two pieces of chocolate. One was “cheap” (Hershey’s), the other was “expensive” (Lindt or Ferrero Rocher). The experimenters played around with offering different prices to different people. Importantly, the expensive chocolate was always exactly more ($.25 more in the first experiment) than the cheap offering.
Here are the results:
The column on the left entitled “2 & 27” shows what happened when the researchers set the prices at $.02 for the Hershey’s bar and $.27 for the Ferrero Rocher. 45% chose the cheaper Hershey’s, 40% chose the more expensive Ferrero, and 15% chose nothing.
The column in the middle has the results for when the prices were $.01, and $.26. The results are about the same with a little bit of variance which is expected. The difference in price is still $.25 between the two candies.
The column on the right entitled “0 & 25” is the free condition (free and $.25). There is a huge shift when the price was free. 90% went with the free option and only 10% went for the Ferrero.
But there should be no difference between the different prices! You’re paying $.25 more for the expensive candy in any of the three conditions, and yet way more people choose the cheap candy when it is free vs. $.01. Somehow making it free makes it more valuable or desirable.
But what about transaction costs you might ask? Maybe people like free because the $.01 condition has a hidden cost; the cost of the transaction itself (aka, the pain and hassle of paying).
The researchers smartly accounted for this. They set up a real-world experiment where the chocolate choice was made at the checkout of a cafeteria. Everyone was already going to swipe their credit card. As you can see, there are similar results (although more people in the real world choose neither).
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The left column entitled “1 & 14” is the condition when both the Hershey’s and Lindt (this time) candies were not free ($.01 and $.14 respectively for a $.13 difference). Only 8% chose the cheap Hershey’s option, and 30% chose the expensive Lindt option.
The right column entitled “0 & 13” is the free condition. Again, the difference between the expensive and cheap candies is $.13. But once the cheap product is free there a huge increase in the percentage of people who choose the free candy over the more expensive candy.
In sum, in real world tests after accounting for transaction costs, the “value” of making something free is a +387% increase in sales of the free product (8% to 31% of marketshare), and a -230% decrease in sales of its competitor (30% to 13%).
So, let’s talk about some real-world implications. Do you need to destroy the subjective value of a competitor’s offering? Do you need to get a foothold in a market? Use free. And it may seem intuitive, but there’s a good reason why.
The leading theory (which is not yet proven, but makes sense) is that there is a brain science reason behind this. When you present a brain with a buy/not buy decision the brain lights up with activity. There are certain pathways in the brain that evaluate decision factors, determine preferences, and decide if you should make the purchase. Even at $.01 the neural pathways are activated in the same way as if you buy a more expensive item.
But at truly free, the brain uses an entirely different neural pathway. Instead of the “buy” neural pathway, it takes a deeper (mid-brain) pathway that involves feelings and emotions. These pathways determine if you want the item instead of if the item is valuable enough to justify a purchase.
Emotional pathways are processed more quickly. The quicker process feels like the right decision, and is easier to make, making you feel better about it.
Perhaps the “want/not want” pathways are emotionally stronger because the decision is being processed literally closer in the brain to where emotions are processed (mid-brain).
Or perhaps going through a value based buy decision drags up negative emotions because of the sadness of spending money.
Regardless of the reason, the theory is that because free is a different neurological pathway, it feels better and more valuable. Therefore, far more people choose the free item.
Thinking ishard and humans really hate doing it.
Have you seen this effect at work in your own projects? If not try it and see what happens. Again, make sure it is truly free otherwise your mileage may vary.
For example, having a price of 0, but requiring that users fill out their contact information isn’t really free. Other transactional “work” can dampen the effect. Give it a try!
Cite:
Shampanier, K., Mazar, N., & Ariely, D. (2007). Zero as a Special Price: The True Value of Free Products. Marketing Science, 26(6), 742-757. doi:10.1287/mksc.1060.0254
I am planning on embarking on an epic quest, and I want you to come with me on my journey.
Have you heard of behavioral economics? It’s a very fun, interesting field of research that combines decision making, social behavior, and brain science with our everyday human actions.
I’ve been exploring the topic in-depth, and I want to bring you along to share my findings. The purpose of it all is to de-mystify why we humans do what we do. That, after all, really is the point of economics (that and lots of math).
I’ve found 100 Things That Behavioral Economics Can Tell Us About People. How you may ask? I’ve read the research papers. And not the fun “pop-sciencey” articles and books that famous behavioral economists have written. No! I’ve read the research papers behind the books. Hundreds of research papers. I’ve poured over data, figures, tables, and P, R, and T values.
From that wealth of knowledge, I collated, consolidated, and extracted the important (and statistically significant) takeaways from the research. As of this writing it’s 26481 words on 114 pages of research notes alone. And that’s just my notes; I’m just starting now to write this up in a format that you, the readers, can understand without your eyes glazing over in an econometric fog.
Some of the research is about brain mechanisms of behavior. But because we are still in the early stages of being able to see what is actually going on in the brain, most of the studies use the tried and true method of live experiments in the real world to describe and explain the sometimes strange behavior and choices we humans make.
Some of the research results are intuitive, but deserve exploring an answer as to why they are true. Some of the results are not intuitive and make us humans seem stupid. They deserve exploring an answer as well.
Finally, there are big questions about human society and the impact that behavioral economics has on it. Hopefully there are some answers that will provide clarity to those big questions as well.
To help guide you I’ll be using what I call “mind-journeys”. These are detailed narrations, where you can put yourself in the shoes of the person making a decision to help explain these complex topics.
It is going to be so fun! I hope you’ll join me. I hope I can make it to my goal of 100 things. I hope you find the information useful, and fascinating, and maybe it will explain us humans just a little bit more.
