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People will use the actions of others to decide how to behave, especially when they view those others as similar to themselves.
children who saw a film depicting a child’s positive visit to the dentist lowered their own dental anxieties principally when they were the same age as the child in the film.
each front-page suicide story killed fifty-eight people who otherwise would have gone on living.
“We created fake queues [of paid actors] in front of twenty stores around the country to drum up interest.”
social proof, should never be trusted fully;
simply pointing to the popularity of an item elevates its popularity.
Social proof is most influential under three conditions. The first is uncertainty.
A second condition under which social proof is most influential involves “the many”:
The third optimizing condition for social-proof information is similarity.
“Look at all the people who are doing it,”
recognizing that the actions of similar others should not form the sole basis for our decisions.
Annual deaths in the United States from medical errors exceed those of all accidents,
tall men earn more than their shorter contemporaries and are more likely to rise to positions of leadership
Five stars is too good to be true.
Negative reviews establish credibility.
The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost.
people are intensely motivated to make choices designed to avoid losing something of value—to
people are more driven by the prospect of losing an item of value than by the prospect of gaining it—is
Apple’s phone division, which is infamous for undersupplying its stores on the day of a launch.
The wisdom of offering abundant items for sale one at a time recognizes that abundance is the opposite of scarcity and, consequently, presenting an item in abundance reduces its perceived value.
Scarcity—highlighting items low in stock. Social Proof—describing most popular and trending items. Urgency—using time limits, often with a countdown timer. Concessions—offering discounts for visitors to stay on the site. Authority/Expertise—informing visitors of alternative products that are available. Liking—including a welcoming message.
in general, limited-supply appeals are more effective than limited-time appeals
When something becomes less available, our freedom to have it is limited, and we experience an increased desire for it. We rarely recognize, however, that psychological reactance has caused us to want the item more; all we know is we want it.
that person is going to want it more as it becomes unavailable.
during the taste tests, it was the New Coke that was unavailable to people for purchase, so when they knew which sample was which, they showed an especially strong preference for what they couldn’t otherwise have. But, later, when the company replaced the traditional recipe with the new one, now it was the old Coke that people couldn’t have and, it became the favorite.
when people know they’re getting something new, their desire for it will shoot up.”
people see a thing as more desirable when it recently has become less available than when it has been scarce all along.
It is amazing how strongly people react when you try to take things away, even if they never use them.
Each prospect who was interested enough to want to see the car was given an appointment time—the same appointment time. So, if three people were scheduled, they were all scheduled for, say, 2:00 p.m. that afternoon. This device of simultaneous scheduling paved the way for later compliance by creating an atmosphere of competition for a limited resource.
we are most attracted to scarce resources when we compete with others for them.
people who got the “How are you feeling this evening?” question agreed to receive the cookie seller at their homes, nearly twice the success rate of the standard solicitation approach.
obtain a large purchase by starting with a small one.
you can use small commitments to manipulate a person’s self-image; you can use them to turn citizens into “public servants,” prospects into “customers,” and prisoners into “collaborators.”
Just reducing the number of first-page fields from four to three increases registration completions by 50 percent.
something special happens when people put their commitments on paper: they live up to what they write down.
The developers of the app discovered that users who exposed their calorie counts to friends lost 50% more weight than a typical user.
“He who agrees against his will / Is of the same opinion still.”
Reminders of existing commitments possess yet another bonus. They not only restore the commitment but also appear to strengthen it by augmenting one’s related self-image.
Psychological research indicates that we experience our feelings toward something a split second before we can intellectualize about it. I’d guess the message sent by the heart of hearts is a pure, basic feeling.
if I could go back in time, would I make the same choice again?”
We all admire the wisdom of those who have come to us for advice. —Ben Franklin
giving advice is indeed a mechanism of unitization,
focused attention to images of themselves when they would be closer to retirement led people to elevate the importance of taking care of that person.
people check their phones on average over one hundred times a day, and 84 percent say they “couldn’t go a single day without their mobile devices.”
