Which magazine do you think men are more likely to buy:
- a men’s health magazine with the cover, “Lose Your Gut Fast” or
- a similar magazine with the cover, “Get Six Pack Abs”?
One study showed that over 80% of men chose the first cover – “Lose Your Gut Fast.” Why?
People are more interested in avoiding (or reducing) pain than they are in increasing pleasure.
The Austrian economist, Ludwig von Mises, once said that three requirements must be present for an individual to change:
- The individual must be dissatisfied with the current state of affairs.
- They must see a better state.
- They must believe that they can reach that better state.
That last point is critical as it relates to the “gut” issue. When someone is 20 pounds overweight, as many Americans are, six pack abs may be desirable but seem inconceivable. I sometimes joke that I would be happy with a “two-pack.” Only when your gut is gone will the idea of six pack abs seem like a possibility.
Tversky and Kahneman demonstrated how people change their perceptions when the same problem is stated in different ways. The classic example is the “Asian disease” problem (1981) where a group of individuals were asked the following question:
Imagine that the US is preparing for the outbreak of an unusual Asian disease, which is expected to kill 600 people. Two alternative programs to combat the disease have been proposed.
- Program A, which will save 200 people
- Program B, where there is 1/3 probability that 600 people will be saved, and 2/3 probability that no one will be saved
Which of the two programs would you choose?
Tversky and Kahneman found that 72% of those asked chose the “risk averse” position – Program A. The prospect of saving 200 lives with certainty was more promising than the probability of a one-in-three chance of saving 600 lives.
A second group of respondents were given the same story of the Asian disease problem, but were provided with different options.
- Program C, where 400 people will die.
- Program D, where there is 1/3 probability that nobody will die, and 2/3 probability that all 600 people will die.
Which of the two programs would you choose?
A whopping 78% of respondents in the second problem chose the “risk taking” position – Program D. The certain death of 400 people is less acceptable than the two-in-three chance that 600 people will die.
Of course, options A and options C are identical, as are options B and options D. Yet the different phrasing stimulated completely different responses.
This study again shows that people will take greater risks to minimize (or reduce) their pain, yet they will play it safe when the option is to increase their pleasure.
Barry Schwartz provides some other excellent examples in his Scientific American Mind magazine article (August/September). One example he sites: “Appeals to women to do breast self-exams that emphasize the benefits of early cancer detection (gains) are less effective than those that emphasize the costs of late detection (losses).”
In my article, “How to Tell If Your Intuition Is Good,” I discuss how we get attached to what we have. When taking a test, we remember (painfully) situations where we had an answer correct, changed it, and therefore got it wrong. Surprisingly, we rarely notice the reverse. We are more aware of our losses than our gains.
Many years back I did work for a client. Although I would have been happy to do it for $9,000 (not actual figures) they agreed to pay me $10,000 for my efforts. Unfortunately, due to shoddy work by a subcontractor, I volunteered to refund $1,000 (out of my own pocket) to the client, netting me $9,000. Interestingly, I would have been happy getting paid $9,000 for the job, yet getting $10,000 and losing $1,000 still irks me to this day.
The loss of $1,000 hurts worse than a gain of $1,000 feels good.
When you are trying to get someone to change (or buy your product/service/ideas), do you focus on their gained pleasure or eliminated pain? From my experience, the latter is much more effective.
What are your examples of where you changed your language and got different results?