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.

Label Desired Behaviors to Increase Likelihood

As reported in Genesis 1:3, God commanded, “Let there be light,” and there was light. On a separate note, legend says the spirit of Bloody Mary foretells the future only after her name is chanted 13 times.
     The use of a label by researchers at Zeppelin University, University of Cologne, and UNSW Business School to bring a concept into existence does carry less significance than did the report of God’s command. Still, unlike with the requirements of Bloody Mary, the researchers needed to use the label only once. Their studies conclude that when we coin a name to describe a behavior, we increase the likelihood others will engage in the behavior.
     In one of the experiments, participants were asked to engage in the behavior of writing a highly positive review hyping their dining experience. The instructions for some of the participants used the word hypeview, a word created by the researchers to describe this behavior. The instructions for the other participants did not use this word. Those participants who had read the word hypeview wrote more positive reviews.
     In another of the experiments, participants were encouraged to reduce plastic waste by not using a lid when picking up a takeout cup of tea. For some of the participants, this boycotting of lid consumption was described as lidcotting. Each study participant was then offered a free cup of tea. Among those who accepted the offer, participants who had previously been exposed to the behavioral label were less likely to take a lid.
     A possible explanation for the power of behavioral labels is that the existence of a name indicates the behavior is relatively common, and people are generally more likely to engage in behavior they consider to be the norm. The explanation the researchers analyzed has to do with consumers being more receptive to carrying out a behavior they’ve previously imagined themselves doing. The label unites the various parts of the behavior sequence, making the whole easier to imagine. This explanation was supported by another of the researchers’ experiments.
     Related to this explanation, some consumer researchers have created the term consumption vision to describe a shopper’s mental image which is vivid and specific enough to let a shopper vicariously experience benefits they would personally enjoy in using the product or service. Consumption visions increase purchase likelihood. Encourage consumption visions in your shoppers by labeling the behaviors you want them to initiate.

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Dream Consumption Visions of the Past 

Limit Terms in Customers’ Vocabulary

Image at top of post based on photo by Gianandrea Villa from Unsplash

Pack In 3D Online Portrayals of Packages

Shoppers associate package size with value. A bigger box means you’re getting more for your money, so, in general, people are willing to pay a greater amount. Shoppers’ judgments of package sizes seen online depend on the number of dimensions in the image. Researchers at Kanagawa University and Toyo Gakuen University find that a 3D image—where the container is shown at an angle and multiple faces are visible—is perceived as both larger and heavier than is a 2D image—where only the front face is visible.
     It is the portrayal of depth in the 3D image which accounts for the effect. That’s important to understand because the visual image of the package online is rarely the same size as the actual package. When we add the depth dimension to whatever is perceived in the 2D view, the 3D comes across as larger and heavier.
     Researchers at Erasmus University and INSEAD found that shoppers estimate changes in the volume of a product container by roughly adding percentage changes in the height, width, and length. But the accurate way to calculate the change in volume is to multiply the percentage changes in the three dimensions. That’s more complicated to do, so shoppers take the mental shortcut.
     As a result, participants in a study failed to notice a 24% downsizing of the package when one dimension was increased to mask the decrease in overall volume. Astoundingly, this distorted perception held even when the study participants were instructed to closely attend to the package size and weighed the container.
     For circumstances where a marketer is shrinking the package size—such as to maintain per-item profit while keeping the same selling price as raw material costs climb—using a 3D image in ads and other product presentations might ease shopper upset. This tactic could be combined with attention to other factors which influence size perception, such as color, shape, and surroundings.
     The 3D effect also applies when we want to portray a package as smaller and lighter. Containers for milk, coffee, and chocolate products were used in these studies showing that 3D portrayals increase the amount a shopper is willing to pay. But when it comes to consumer electronics, miniaturization is often valued for portability and sometimes as an indicator of a product upgrade. There are also shoppers who prefer smaller, lighter items for ease of transport, storage, and consumption.

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Sidestep Heuristics When Ethical 

Saturate Hungry Shoppers with Vibrant Colors 

Influence Consumption with Shape & Size 

Get Small with Big Convenience 

Downsize for Elderly Shoppers

Image at top of post based on photo by Point Normal from Unsplash

Inject Into Blood Donors What Happens Next

About 1 out of every 4 blood donors does not make a subsequent donation, according to a past study reported by researchers at University of Groningen, University of Hamburg, and Pennsylvania State University. Based on their own studies, the researchers say that a promising technique for increasing re-donation rates is to inform donors how the blood they’ve already given has been used.
     In one of the studies, some past blood donors received a thank you which added a message that their donation had been used to help save a life. Another group of past blood donors received only the thank you. Each participant was then asked to state their degree of intention to give blood at the next possible blood drive.
     Those people who received the “helped save a life” message reported a stronger re-donation intention than did those not receiving this message. Naming the specific hospital where the donation was used didn’t make much difference compared to saying only that the donation helped save a life. Accompanying studies did indicate that the influence of the message was greater when delivered soon after a donation compared to soon before the availability for the person to donate again. However, an uplift from the message still occurred even when used with donors who had been inactive for a while.
     Data for the studies was collected from people in both Germany and Austria. That the effectiveness of the “helped save a life” was seen in both countries is of note because attitudes toward donation of body parts is dramatically different for these two. In Germany, where a citizen must opt in if they want to be an organ donor, only 12% do so. Next door in Austria, where organ donation is the default option at the time of death, the rate is almost 100%.
     The value of telling donors what happens to their contributions is also seen with recycling. Researchers at Pennsylvania State University and Boston College found that rates were increased by showing people ads demonstrating how recycled items are transformed into new items. This worked regardless of whether the transformed item is similar to the recycled item (material from recycled soda cans being used to produce new soda cans) or quite different (material from recycled soda cans being used to produce bicycle frames). Considering the potential of trash inspires people to engage in the socially responsible behavior of recycling potential trash.

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Mine Golden Veins for Blood Donations 

Embody Right-Left in Body Selling 

Scrutinize Default in Sequential Decisions 

Show Products Made of Recycled Items 

Image at top of post based on photo by Cassi Josh from Unsplash

Vary Item Assortment to Fit Crisis Status

Researchers at Columbia University and University of British Columbia had study participants shop for candy in an area with either wide or narrow aisles. Those shopping among the narrow aisles chose a greater variety of candy bars and more unfamiliar brands. The same pattern of results was seen with supermarket shoppers. The researchers explain the findings by saying that when customers in Western cultures are shopping in tight quarters, they feel a loss of control, and that being able to select from a variety of items helps restore the balance.
     We might argue that variety seeking would instead decrease when consumers feel a loss of control. It seems people would seek choice familiarity to ease stress associated with unpredictability and they’d embrace social conformity to increase comfort derived from interpersonal relationships.
     A study at University of Sydney, University of New South Wales, and Wake Forest University concluded that the direction in which loss of control drives consumer variety seeking depends on a factor few might predict: Political orientation.
     The researchers saw this by considering a crisis with a substantially greater threat to control then narrow aisles in the candy section. They analyzed over 32 million transactions in 687 U.S. grocery stores occurring before and during the initial wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.
     As part of the study, the researchers also defined the political orientation of the county in which each of the grocery stores was located. The proportion of Republican votes in the year 2020 presidential election was used for this, with a high proportion defining a conservative county and a low proportion indicating a liberal county.
     The data analyses indicated that in normal circumstances, when there is no crisis, politically conservative shoppers seek more variety in grocery purchases than do politically liberal shoppers. Then during a crisis, conservatives’ drive for variety drops, while that of liberals climbs.
     Perhaps these patterns are explained by variations in how conservatives and liberals conceptualize change and social conformity. We do know that, overall, the brain structures of political conservatives and liberals differ in the distribution of gray matter.
     Whatever the explanation for their findings, though, the researchers note evidence that widespread environmental threats which affect consumer decision making are increasing in frequency, and so they recommend retailers prepare to fit each stores’ item assortment to the political orientation of the local community and the stage of any threats to shoppers’ personal control.

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Give Shoppers Variety for Control 

Discuss Disgust Conservatively & Liberally 

Market by Political Propensity 

Scale Purchase Restrictions During Shortages