This week I read Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior by Ori and Rom Brafman. While I can’t say I liked it as much as their first book, The Starfish and The Spider, it did have some good points for marketers. The premise of the book is that humans don’t always make the most rational decisions. Well, that’s for sure because if we did, divorce lawyers, overpriced fashion designers and the entire city of Las Vegas would be out of business.
Sway is not a “business” book, in the sense that it doesn’t give instructions as to how to sway people to buy your services or products. But it does explain what can happen to cloud people’s rationality. It’s an intriguing read, and I thought it explained much more about gut instincts than Malcom Gladwell’s Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking did. Unfortunately, there were no major aha moments. However, there were a few, “hmmm, now that makes sense” ones.
In fact, as I was reading the book, there were a couple of instances where I did a double take because I thought I had read the section before. It turns out that Sway was covering territory touched on by The Breakthrough Company and Predictably Irrational. I didn’t see this as a bad thing. It reminded me of doing research as an attorney: When all the cases started quoting each other, you knew you had that brief down solid.
Here are some of the interesting points I found to ponder:
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We overreact to perceived losses. Humans have loss aversion. See also the section in Breakthrough Company about the psychology of betting. Why do we buy an unlimited plan when we have never gone over 400 minutes on our cell phones? Because we fear that one day we might. Thus, we fear a loss and perhaps overkill on the precautions. Loss aversion hit home with me because I realized that I was paying my tech support team on a monthly basis and incurring monthly wire transfer fees that could definitely be saved if I paid every other month or even quarterly. What prevented me from doing that? My fear that my tech team (in India) might disappear on me. Yet I’ve been working with these guys forever and they even traveled to Boston to meet me. The chance of them disappearing after I paid them my monthly retainer is probably less than a wire transfer getting lost.
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First impressions mean a lot. For example, NBA players are stuck performing at the level at which they were drafted, regardless of whether they deliver. Studies have found that when a team drafts a player in the first round the team will play that player consistently more than a third round or lower pick regardless of whether the player’s stats are better or not. So we shouldn’t be surprised that once you are labeled a lower pick, you are forever deemed to be on that level. (Interesting outtake for this would be re: salary negotiations: Come in at a low value, and you’ll remain there!) This example reminded me of my own college tennis experience. I was a doubles specialist on a Division 1 team. I was number nine on the bottom of the ladder right next to our number 10, who was also a doubles specialist. Together we could beat any of the better players at doubles. Yet, the coach insisted on playing our number one and two singles players at the top doubles position (they didn’t even like each other); three and four at the number two position, etc. It didn’t matter that we could beat most of the combinations of players. I never understand this before now. The coach had worked hard to get nationally ranked players on his team: He had a much bigger investment in them than his number nine and 10, who got in on grades, not athletics!
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Interviewers are not well-served by interviews where they hit it off with the interviewee. They can be swayed into thinking the candidate is more qualified than he or she may actually be. Also, read the book to find out why the best question to ask in an interview is: “What do you know about our company?”
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In advertising, people will often focus on the wrong data points. For example, a pretty woman in an ad might sway a man to ignore the minor details. Attractive woman = attractive offer.
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When we label people, they start to take on those characteristics. First, because it’s that old parenting “no-no”–tell a kid he’s a failure, and he will live up to your statements; and second, because we want to be right about people, so we focus on things that make our original characteristics accurate.
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Different cultures can act differently in similar situations. The Who Wants to be a Millionaire example was really interesting. When someone needs a lifeline (i.e. the audience) to help him or her answer a question, audiences in Russia were almost all likely to give the contestants the wrong answer. The authors tie this back to a Russian cultural belief that “why should anyone be better or richer than the rest?” In the US, on the other hand, we worship those who make money, even if it’s handed to them, so American audiences were more than likely to provide the right answer. I’m assuming this is similar to Australia’s Tall Poppy syndrome (rise too far above the crowd and someone will come along and lop you off!)
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Monetary incentives do not work. This was also covered in Predictably Irrational. Ask a friend to move some furniture, and he probably will. Offer to pay him to do so, and he won’t find the time.
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The sway of the group mentality is a powerful force. Call it peer pressure or whatever. When we have to stand alone, we tend to question ourselves. The authors have an interesting Supreme Court solution. The lone dissenter states “I disagree, but not enough to write an official dissent.” This gives room for another justice to jump in on the disagreement, which might help sway the court in a different direction, while it allows the lone voice to speak up and fish for other supporters.
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When we find ourselves unsure about whether to continue a particular approach, it’s useful to ask, “If I were just arriving on the scene and were given the choice to either jump into this project as it stands now or pass on it, would I choose to jump in?”
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They also discuss in the epilogue how the price of an object can affect how we feel about it. That $600 purse has to look so much better to us than the $60 alternative; otherwise, why would it be that expensive? I see this all the time in fashion. I block out the designer influence by figuring out in advance the item I might need (i.e. a gray cashmere blend V-neck sweater). Then if I find it in TJ Maxx or at a French flea market, great–why pay more if I’ve met my need? This way the item doesn’t become any less attractive to me (or others) just because it only cost me $20, not $2,000.
The book concludes with the obvious finding that people do not behave rationally. How you put this into action is up to you.
Top Shelf Bottom Line – This was a good read for someone who’s adept at picking up on theory and running with it. As mentioned, this is a book about people’s behavior, not an instruction manual as to how to manipulate them to buy your product or service. Yet it covers relevant material for any marketer trying to sway an audience with some really interesting anecdotes, much like their first book. I found it a good complement to Predictably Irrational, which had more studies and data incorporated but some of the same results. In retrospect, Sway would probably be a great audiobook.
**A couple of other books besides those mentioned above that touch on this and related topics are:
Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious – click here for my review.
The Paradox of Choice: Why Less Means More
This entry was posted on Saturday, September 20th, 2008 at 10:15 am and is filed under Nonfiction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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