Speed Procrastinators with Completion Times

Some Erasmus University researchers asked online study participants why they delay doing tasks they’re asked to complete. The responses were sorted into 13 general categories. Concerns about how long the task would take ranked as tenth in frequency among the 13. But then when another group of participants was asked to rate the degree of importance of each of the 13 in their decision to delay a task, consideration of task duration was ranked as the fourth most important reason.
     This apparent contradiction led the researchers to suspect that people will take task duration into account, but only if it’s specifically brought to their attention. A corollary is that including an estimate of task duration in a request to complete a task might reduce requestees’ procrastination.
     Subsequent studies by the researchers supported this conclusion, with completion times ranging from three minutes to one hour for a variety of tasks—submitting a form, making a health care appointment, writing an email. Based on their data analyses, the researchers’ explanation for the effect is that a statement of task duration moves thoughts from deliberating about whether to undertake the task toward contemplating how to complete the task.
     In reporting their results, the researchers take note of other tactics which have been identified for overcoming procrastination, such as setting deadlines, fostering prioritization, issuing reminders, and monitoring progress. They point out that specifying the completion time is simpler to implement than those others.
     A likely difficulty in using this tactic, though, is in calculating a completion time which will hold for a spectrum of potential respondents. You might handle this with a lesson from a whole other area of consumer behavior research called tensile pricing of discounts.
     Tensile pricing presents a range such as, “Save 20% to 45%.” Consumers are, by and large, an optimistic lot. If they see a 45%, they’ll tend to think that the item they’re wanting will be one of those tagged for the maximum discount. Applying this idea to the estimate of task completion time, if you say, “This will take about 15 to 20 minutes,” in order to increase your odds of being accurate, prospective respondents will tend to figure they’ll be among those who will take only 15 minutes. An even lower estimate could come in the minds of those who, when driving, consider the navigation app arrival time estimate as a benchmark to beat.

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Estimate Participative Consumption Durations 

Promote Procrastination Protocols 

Advertise Tensile Pricing Selectively

Image at top of post based on photo by Anders Wideskott from Unsplash

Anchor Policy Anchors in the Policy

For how many months should a person be eligible to receive unemployment benefits? What do you think the minimum wage should be? The way citizens answer such questions of time and money can be influenced by numbers they are exposed to before being asked the questions.
     It’s called anchoring. In a classic example of anchoring, study participants were shown either a low or a high number on a roulette wheel and were subsequently asked to estimate the percentage of countries on the African continent currently belonging to the United Nations. The average of answers from those participants having received the low roulette wheel number was lower than that from those having received the high number.
     In their own studies of anchoring, as applied to public policy surveying, researchers at CEVIPOF and University of Georgia noted that a number coming from a roulette wheel was wholly irrelevant to the probability of a country’s UN membership. With questions such as the time of unemployment eligibility and the amount of the minimum wage, to what extent will respondents attend to irrelevant numbers given them as reference points for their subsequent individual answers?
     Little or no attention at all, was their answer indicated by the studies. To influence the response, the number presented as part of the inquiry had to be framed as relevant to the policy issue. When the number was perceived as relevant, though, the influence was clear. In fact, the study participants’ numerical responses were influenced to a much greater extent by the reference number they were given than by the political party quoted as the source of the reference number. Democrats answered quite similarly whether the reference number was said to have come from a Democrat or a Republican. The researchers point out how the influence might be greater if the reference number is attributed to specific politicians.
     Publicly elected legislators will want to stay sensitive to prevailing opinions of their constituencies when setting policies. Activists who want to strengthen or change political opinions will want to know where their audiences stand now on the issues. Both groups will succeed by recognizing what is called the Overton window, the window of discourse range within which political viability of a proposal can be expected.
     In surveying your stakeholders, recognize how any time or money number you give as a part of each question will pull the answer toward that number.

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Swing Low, Sweet Anchor Points 

Augment Political Projection with Introjection

Image at top of post based on video by Paul Daley.