The power of irrationality
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We have this nice cozy image of human being a rational being. We are...rational. We know what to think, the right thing to do and say, we have our own set of values, and we will always do the right thing to do.
Erm, unless stated otherwise, psychology has pretty much proven us a bunch of irrational folk. There is always one question that I asked, just to reassert the point we are not really a rational folk.
You go to a store to buy a toothpaste. It's 4dollars, but if you buy tomorrow, it's 2 dollars. Will you buy tomorrow?
This is a no brainer question, of course yes.
Then you go to Bestbuy to buy laptop, it's 900 dollars, but if you buy tomorrow, it's 4 dollars. Will you buy tomorrow.
Of course not.....
WAIT...
Why a difference of reaction, on a similar amount of saving. Why are we thinking in percentage all of sudden? To point out, the 4 dollars (or 2 dollars) doesn't have difference if "Hello, I am the measely 0.003% you saved from the laptop sale " and Hello, I am the 2 dollars you save from 50% discount of toothpaste sale.
We are really attracted in a high number of % , as composed to a high amount of money. A store can publish up to 70% discount on products, only when you realize the 70% discount is on a 10 dollar product and your dream 200 dollar product has a measly 5% discount.
A 1 dollar saving, eh - not so much, oh wait 20%, ah now it is something. Although keep in mind i am referring to the 5 dollar frozen veggie pack in rainbow.
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Anchor
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If you noticed when you are buying some gadget, or going to some unknown restaurant. There is a concept of anchor, in which a product that you don't want to buy influence your choice.
http://www.t-mobile.com/shop/plans/Cell-Phone-Plans.aspx?catgroup=Individual&WT.z_shop_plansLP=individual
Question. If you do check the website, how do you know
Unlimited Talk + Text + Data (2 GB of high-speed data) for USD 79.99 is such a good deal?
You seriously can't tell whether this is good or not. So you decide to "compare", and here's when the anchor gets awry.
Unlimited Talk + Text + Data (200 MB of high-speed data) For 69.99 ?
Aha, just an upgrade of 10 dollars, and you can have 2gb instead of 200mb, that's like x10 of the price. Dang, the 79.99dollars deal is good? But if you will stop and think for a second....
Who the heck in this world will only use 200MB bandwidth for a month? If you go youtube at least once a day , download some pdf document, download some apple or android app, you are very most probably exceed the limit. Keep in mind, i am drawing my assumption based on how I toyed with my android toy. The 200MB limit? I swear it's reached just a couple of days.
So, why the heck AT&T has this plan of 200MB? Could there really a customer that uses a 200MB net on a month with a smartphone? AT&T knows more about user bandwidth much than i do, And they know practically a 200MB plan is horribly unpopular. But why the package is still there?
Easy, the 200MB plan is there to tell you that the 79.99 plan is good. Why is it good? because 69.99 dollar plan only has 200MB plan instead of 2GB. It's a 10 dollars and you get 10 TIMES the speed! T-mobile folk suddenly make you think that 79.99 deal sound so good, because of a 69.99 deal that you won't bother.
Even when you subscribe the plan just for the sake of the phone, you will find the 79.99 dollars deal incredibly irresistible, unless you don't plan to facebook in your phone at all - which i sincerely doubt. And the fact I point out this whole anchor thing, it ;s not really useful in the end.
I will discuss about anchoring in more detail, but i am sleepy. If you will listen to the tale why am i still awake...
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Emotional
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The Greek once pointed out the ethos pathos logos, which is the three way speech is delivered. Ethos is a emphasis on credibility, pathos is emphasis on emotion , and logos is the emphasis of logic. We are thought the logos way, in which speech is delivered logically. However, as my experience dictates, logic as a way to reason is a horrid horrid way.
In recent wake of Japan Tsunami, we have once again talks about nuclear as a bad alternative to energy. It is very easy to point out the fact that the little radioactive element surpass coal, and petroleum. Go to wikipedia, and you have figures of a coal plant emit much more radiation than uranium, and you have more people die because of coal plant mining instead of nuclear explosion, along with the fact that a uranium mining center has the same level radiation as background radiation etc etc etc......
This is what geeks call a shitload of evidence, although someone could just shoot down this fact by
1.) Mentioning chernobyl incident, a nuclear disaster that happen on a rare basis, and he will show how the city is destroyed, and proceed to mutant baby, along with some background music.
2.) Show you a game of resident evil, and point this to uranium as fault.
Despite of the apparent logic behind nuclear, those chernobyl reactor pictures, along with the grim music, and those zombies will prolly scare the logic out of you. This is one of the nuclear advocator fail to understand - that emotion is a better tool to convince than logic. In promoting nuclear plant as opposed of coal plant, I will suggest
a.) dig out the corpse of people that died in coal plant disaster, and picture it as true and scary as it could be
b.) take a geiger muller tube, and measure how high coal plant radiation rate is, then proceed to have a doctor speaking behind how those radiation can kill you
But who am i to say i am a logical being. Early 4am in the morning, when I was prepared to sleep, my secret little crush appeared on facebook. A few short conversation proved this crush might as well ended up crushed. The logical mind tells me to sleep, but the emotional part tell me to wait.
It was half an hour before I finally close the laptop.
After checking my android device for facebook, and convincing that my logic is heeding, I scrambled to grab my laptop after I saw a facebook message of "are you still here?"
To date now, it is 9 o clock, and the rest of the time is spent - ironically, on typing how irrational people is, and reading how irrational people can be - In Dan Ariely's predictably Irrational . the emotional part clearly deprived me on sleep.
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