Number Food Health Characteristics

Why did a group of consumers who were told, “This bottle of olive oil is made from the extract of 80 ounces of olives. It is a valuable addition to your healthy eating habits,” consider the contents to be more healthful than did a group of similar consumers who were told, “This bottle of olive oil is made from the extract of a high concentration of olives. It is a valuable addition to your healthy eating habits”?
     Shahin Sharifi, the La Trobe University researcher who designed the study, answers that it’s due to inclusion of a number. Consumers are accustomed to using numbers—such as for package size and nutrient amounts—to assess foods.
     In the studies, magnitude of the number didn’t matter much as long as it plausibly portrayed what quantity of olives would be contained in a bottle of olive oil and olive oil was perceived as a healthy food. The description “made from the extract of 5 lbs of olives” worked about the same as “made from the extract of 80 ounces of olives.”
     But it did make a difference what the number was describing. In another of the studies, participants were told the olive oil had a top rating on a standard food healthfulness scale—five stars in the Health Star Rating system. Now the participants’ average rating was less affected by whether or not they had also been told the bottle contained the extract of 80 ounces of olives. The HSR scale rating was what principally persuaded the consumer. Absent HSR, including a number in a product content description could mislead about healthfulness.
     Tips for using another rating system—the NuVal, in which each integer rating is based on the relevance of the item’s contents to health conditions like diabetes and heart disease—came from Boston College and University of Pittsburgh studies: 

• Range familiarity. The NuVal system uses a range of 1 to 100. This allows shoppers to easily sense the relative value of a score of 63 compared to a 37, for instance. 
• Convenience. Most consumers balance healthfulness against price in making purchase decisions. To assist that, place the nutrition ratings on the same shelf tags and signage as the price and in an easy-to-read font style and size. 
• Credibility. Train store staff to answer questions about the system in ways which are easily understood. Brochures or signage explaining the system can be helpful.

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Spout Quick Numbers for Desirability 

Measure Your Magnitude Quotes Situationally 

Hit Shoppers with a Two-by-Four

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Take Pains to Sidestep Sadism

For purposes of their study about people’s motivations to watch mixed martial arts matches, researchers at University of Lausanne and University of Monaco describe MMA as a full-contact combat sport which differs from traditional martial arts and combat sports in that it allows fighters to use a wide variety of techniques, including striking and grappling.
     The researchers surveyed about 800 North Americans who were aware of MMA fights. The respondents replied to 36 items covering a range of factors involved in desire to watch the matches.
     Results of analyses of the data indicate that deriving pleasure from seeing others’ pain is one motivation. For some audience segments, witnessing violence seems to be a bigger draw than the usual attraction in competitive sports from uncertainty about who will prevail in the match.
     This is an example of sadism—deriving pleasure from the suffering of others. In my email exchange about the study with Tommy K. Quansah, the principal researcher, he emphasized, “We are speaking about entertainment-based or benign forms of sadism, not clinical or antisocial behavior.”
     Sadism’s cousin is schadenfreude--delight when seeing others’ ambitions being crushed. Among researchers, schadenfreude has been attributed to envy, to raw hostility, and to the sort of emotion tunnel vision which keeps us from acknowledging the pain caused to the others.
     There are times when schadenfreude is considered acceptable. Researchers at University of Georgia point out how viewers of NCAA football, ATP men’s tennis, and WTA women’s tennis games can feel fine about cheering wildly when the fan’s favored team or player crushes the competition.
     However, in marketing MMA, an encouragement or even open tolerance of sadism would be problematic. Early in MMA history, it was argued that it was too barbaric to be considered a sport, and MMA was banned in all but three American states. Only after rules were changed to protect fighters were the bans lifted.
     Dr. Quansah wrote me, “Viewers can empathize with what fighters go through physically. This emotional engagement can lead to complex reactions that are not necessarily cruel in nature. The pleasure some people feel may come from the intensity of the experience or the resilience of the fighters, not just the harm.” He and his fellow researchers propose that media materials marketing MMA highlight these intensity and resilience aspects.
     That advice could generalize to fostering viewership of boxing, football, and ice hockey matches, for instance.

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Crush Close Ones with Schadenfreude 

Shadow Dark Tourism 

Pain a Stimulating Picture 

Stay Interesting

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Support with Gift Over Gab

A client or business associate who is emotionally distraught because of some problem in their life isn’t in the best mood for fruitful transactions with you. To help them through their upset, you might consider briefly chatting with them. Your objective would be to provide social support, even though you’re not directly solving their problem.
     But researchers at HEC Montréal, University at Albany, and Duke University advise you to instead give some moderately-priced, non-personalized item. The researchers’ studies indicate that the gift will surpass gab in helping a recipient feel better. In some of the studies, the past gift a recipient had in mind was merchandise, such as flowers. In other of the studies, the referenced gift was a meal the recipient could eat without the giver there—a combination of a material and an experiential present.
     The researchers’ explanation for the higher effectiveness of the gift is that in these circumstances, the recipient will consider a gift to be a greater sacrifice than would be a conversation and so is greater evidence of caring. A conversation consists of a mutual exchange with benefits to both parties, while a gift primarily benefits the recipient.
     Further, when provided a face-to-face conversation intended to be emotionally supportive, the recipient may feel a need to hide any negative reactions. This effort balances out the sacrifice made by the party initiating the conversation. But if the other party sends a gift, the recipient feels no need to hide reactions, so the recipient feels that the relative sacrifice by the giver is greater.
     I’ll add how, compared to gab, leaving a gift saves you time and avoids you getting enmeshed in personal details of the troubles. These characteristics of the situation may constitute an amendment to a general assumption that recipients appreciate a gift or conversation more when it’s highly personalized.
     An exception to the general finding of these studies concerns apologies. Perception that a gift is primarily intended as an apology leads to a more negative appraisal of the gift giver. This is because the recipient almost always wants to talk with the other party about the hurt feelings and therefore views the gift giving as evidence the gift giver misunderstands them. Receiving an apology gift also leads to a more negative appraisal of the item. This is because the gift reminds the recipient of the argument or hurt each time the gift is used or considered.

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Limit Design Support for Personalized Gifts 

Talk Up Talk Over Gifts for Good Apologies

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Direct Democracy by Lengthening Perspectives

In a representative democracy, such as the U.S., voters elect legislators who are charged with responsibility for establishing laws. But in many U.S. states and localities, another avenue to creating laws is direct democracy, where the electorate can vote to enact a law or policy via an initiative.
     Concerns about the direct democracy process include that many ballot proposals appear to cover complex issues and busy citizens have fewer resources for gathering information and analyzing ramifications than do staff of an elected legislator. The outcome of a direct democracy vote could end up being shortsighted by actually running counter to the voters’ policy preferences.
     A set of studies by a pair of political scientists at University of California Davis indicates that these concerns may be unnecessary. How a citizen votes on a direct democracy initiative tends to adhere well to that voter’s political ideology regarding the issue. This is especially true when voters are provided information about the Democratic and Republican parties’ official positions on the ballot proposition and an objective description of the proposition’s likely consequences. Citizens’ decisions about ballot propositions can be accurately predicted from their positions on a simple liberal-conservative dimension matching that of the lawmakers those citizens have elected.
     However, although the citizen’s vote may not be shortsighted because it misrepresents the voter’s ideology, the voter’s ideology itself could be shortsighted. When voters tend toward limited time horizons, they become less likely to tackle significant long-term public policy problems. Findings from a Princeton University study suggest that parenthood lengthens time horizons of voters. Since birthrates and intentions to have children appear to be decreasing worldwide, the shortsightedness of the electorate threatens to be a problem in many countries.
     Encouraging parenthood would help among young adults, but a more practical tactic that affects voters of all ages is to encourage in the population an attitude which likely explains why parenthood lengthens the time perspective in decision making—generativity, defined as a desire to create legacies by helping others.
     Psychologist Erik Erickson, who coined the term generativity, associated it with elderly adults. But a study at City University of New York and University of California-Irvine says the peak in generativity occurs at about age 56. The same study found that the peak for prosociality—the desire to take actions which will benefit others outside one’s family—occurs more than a decade earlier, at about age 45 years.

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Discuss Disgust Conservatively & Liberally 

Leap Up Donations Using Legacy Potential

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Enhance Big Selection with Population Density

When a shopper encounters abundant alternatives, their receptivity is influenced by population density. For instance, compared to people living in less densely populated U.S. congressional districts, people who live in more densely populated districts are willing to pay higher prices when choosing from a large product assortment.
     The researchers at University of Western Australia, Queensland University of Technology, University of Queensland, and University of New South Wales attribute this effect to a matter of control: In a densely populated community, there are fewer opportunities for an individual to exert control over their physical environment. A larger product assortment when shopping provides the individual a chance to exercise control in that realm, so items in that assortment carry a bonus value.
     Of note, the researchers explored this effect with online shopping. This is why the researchers refer to population density rather than physical crowding. People generally conduct their ecommerce in private spaces like home or work.
     But there’s evidence the effect does hold in public spaces, too. In one of the studies, participants were shown an ad for earphones featuring a person in either a densely populated train station or an empty train station. Next, half the number of participants in each group were asked to choose from among a selection of six earphones, while the other participants were asked to choose from among a selection of 30.
     Participants primed with the ad showing a densely populated train station expressed willingness to pay more for the chosen earphone when they were selecting from a larger assortment. This difference was not seen with the participants who had been primed with the ad showing an empty train station.
     The implication for ecommerce retailers is to vary the assortment size depending on the population density of the shopper’s community. Also, the train station study indicates that a marketer can positively influence an online shopper’s attitude toward larger product assortments by showing a more densely populated situation in an ad for the product category. Beyond providing enhanced opportunity to exert control, large assortments offer higher probabilities of a close purchaser-product fit.
     Other studies—which do look at physical crowding, not just consumers’ density perceptions—document a related consideration with larger assortments: According to studies at Columbia University and University of British Columbia, consumers from Western cultures shopping in tight spaces seek greater variety among products. If they have fewer choices, they'll become less comfortable.

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Crowd Humanized Brands Cautiously 

Abandon Abundance After Attracting 

Space Out for the Hoity-Toity 

Weigh the Ways You Portray Item Weight

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