The Hindu Business Line : Dangers of discount bookmark

We do know that we don’t always behave rationally. But are you aware that once we attribute a certain value to a person or thing, it can dramatically alter our perceptions of subsequent information, as Ori and Rom Brafman write in Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior ( www.landmarkonthnet.com)? The authors caution that the power of value attribution is so potent that it affects us even when the value is assigned completely arbitrarily, as it happened in an experiment using SoBe Adrenaline Rush, a beverage that claims to increase mental acuity.

“To test acuity, the researchers developed a thirty-minute word jumble challenge that was administered to three groups of students,” narrate the Brafmans. “The first group, a control group, took the test without drinking any SoBe.” The second group was told about the intelligence-enhancing properties of SoBe, given the drink, and asked to watch a video while the tonic had time to take effect, and these students were charged $2.89 for the SoBe. And the third group, which too was given the drink, got a discounted rate of 89 cents. Top performance came from the second group, next was the control group, and last, the ‘cheapso SoBe’ drinkers, the third group. When you get something at a discount, “the positive expectations don’t kick in as strongly.”

A book you can’t sway away from!

D. Murali

BookPeek.blogspot.com

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Dangers of discount bookmark