All posts by : Cultural Relevance Team

Psychological reactance is a cognitive bias that was initially studied by Brehm in 1966 that describes the extreme reactions human beings experience when we feel as though we are being pushed towards doing something or as though our freedom to make our own choices is being threatened. Reactance is a psychological defence mechanism that we utilise more or less subconsciously in order to try and get back our freedom.

We become “motivationally aroused”, meaning we’re flooded with an excess of righteous motivation that leads us to fight for those freedoms. This often presents itself as a Boomerang Effect of non-conformity, meaning we in fact end up supporting the very position or behaviour that we were being pushed away from. In other words, when we feel we are being forced into something, we often end up with a very negative perception of whatever that is and in fact tend to do the exact opposite thing as a form of extreme resistance.

Research has shown that the more we feel our freedom of choice is being threatened the more elevated and extreme our reactance will be.

Kiesler, Mathog, Pool & Howenstine conducted an experiment by contacting two groups of young women and asking them to sign a petition for opening a family planning and contraception clinic. One of these groups was then also sent some anti-contraception propaganda.

The experiment revealed that many more of the women from the group who had also received this anti-contraception propaganda signed the petition supporting the family planning and contraception clinic than from the group that had not. Instead of inciting a negative reaction against contraception as the propaganda had intended, it had in fact had the opposite result, encouraging the women to support the contrasting cause.

Sometimes reactance is visible when someone does something they know they shouldn’t just as a way of disrespecting authority or acting rebellious. An awareness of psychological reactance can be effective for persuasive strategies, especially in marketing, to encourage a certain behaviour or reaction from your customers or to avoid being subject to a Boomerang effect.

Processing efficacy is based on the idea that objects differ in the fluency with which they can be processed. Our judgement of something can be dramatically altered by how fluent it seems to process it and we engage more positively with high fluency experiences. Fluent processing can be facilitated by several variables such as repeated exposure to a stimulus, aesthetic attractiveness of the object, expressions that rhyme, and so on. By contrast, low processing efficacy occurs when we find something difficult to interact with or understand and so it requires more cognitive effort and strain, which results in a negative feeling towards it.

For example, several experiments have revealed that people are more likely to react positively towards, and agree with, statements that are easier to read: the lack of cognitive strain involved with comprehending the statement results in an intrinsic positive feeling towards it and simplicity is also translated as beauty in the human mind and we often judge something we perceive to be more beautiful as more positive and truthful.

Processing efficacy has multiple applications in web-marketing, especially with regards to website design: the aesthetic attractiveness, the page speed load time or the ease of interaction of your website are all factors that will affect whether your visitors enjoy using your website and therefore engage and interact with it, complete actions, share it on social media, recommend it, etc.

Picture Superiority Effect relates to the fact that the human brain learns and retains information much better when it comes in the form of images rather than words and therefore visual sources can have a much greater and more lasting impact than text. This is where the phrase “a picture paints a thousand words” comes from. Allan Paivio (1971) explains this principle with the theory of “dual coding”: that we retain images better than words because they are coded twice in our memory. Paivio explains that our memories take in information using two different codes: “verbal” codes and “image” codes. When we’re presented with an image it generates both a verbal and an image code (taking the visual image and generating a verbal code using an associated word or phrase) whereas when we’re presented with something that is solely verbal it only generates the one verbal code. When our brain then wants to retrieve information, it finds it easier to locate the images because they have been “dual coded”. This is why we find it both easier to memorise and then later remember information that is presented in a visual manner.

Hockey carried out an experiment in 2008 to demonstrate the Picture Superiority Effect. He asked participants to memorise both random pairs of words and random pairs of images. He then rearranged the pairs so that some of them were no longer with their original partners and asked the participants to identify those that had changed and those that hadn’t. The results overwhelmingly showed that people were able to identify the original image pairings much easier than the word pairings.

Picture Superiority Effect can be utilised in many ways: it is certainly an aid for learning environments to help people learn and retain information more easily, but it can also be highly effective when applied in communications, marketing or advertising to help your message be absorbed better and retained for longer.

The principle of Physical Attractiveness explores the way in which we react to models used in advertising (whether that be online, on TV, in magazines, etc.). Many researchers have studied this subject and have found that, when in an appropriate context, the use of attractive models can have a positive effect on an advert’s effectiveness. If we find a model physically attractive, this somehow increases their credibility (Kamins, 1990), our desire to buy and our positive attitude towards the product (Kahle & Homer, 1985), as well as the attention we give to the advert and potential purchase (Caballero & Pride, 1984).

Many hypotheses have been put forward to explain this phenomenon, notably the fact that we tend to compare ourselves to models used in advertising and are prone to project their qualities (beauty, confidence) on to the product they’re using and therefore feel that owning said product will somehow bring us closer in comparison to these models. However, this tendency for comparison can go two ways and in other studies, notably by Bower in 2001, it has been proven that in certain contexts, the presence of attractive models can serve to diminish the effectiveness of an advert as it can also diminish the image that potential customers have of themselves in comparison. So there are several factors in play with this cognitive bias, such as how your customer will compare themselves, the type of product, the sex of the customer, etc. The model’s physical appearance will influence us in some way as we make immediate and perhaps subconscious deductions about them and therefore the product that they are advertising in turn. These deductions could be positive, seeming to represent luxury, success, kindness or other positive values that the consumer aspires to, or equally could be negative, inciting ideas of superficiality, distrust, jealousy, etc. There are certainly cases where using a physically attractive model doesn’t work. For example, Caballero and Pride (1984) showed that if trying to sell something such as tissues, using an attractive model is in fact less effective as it diminishes the credibility of the advert and product seeing as someone who is sick and requires tissues would not be looking so healthy and attractive in reality.

In marketing, it is therefore essential to use the Physical Attractiveness principle wisely and carefully, of course making use of attractive models to advertise your products but at the same time being aware of the wider context and whether it is appropriate for certain products and target audiences etc.

Perceived Value Pricing explains the fact that our perceptions of a price and its value aren’t necessarily determined by actual market price or financial worth but rather through the way in which the price is presented to us. This is because human psychology is victim to a Price-Value Bias which means that we are easily influenced by elements that aren’t necessarily related to the value of the product when we decide how much something is worth. There are very few products and services available that are priced according to a real calculation of their monetary value. Businesses will charge what people are willing to pay. And people will be willing to pay whatever is consistent with the perceived value of the purchase. The value of something is of course highly subjective and will depend on how the customer chooses to perceive it. The important thing to remember is that how the customer chooses to perceive it can be strongly influenced by how it is presented to them.

In sales, the perceived value of a product is often altered by the way the price is framed: meaning the price can be made to seem much smaller or more attractive than it is. For example, the price could be broken down to show how much it would cost per day over a year, which makes the amount seem much smaller as, suddenly, a £300 washing machine becomes less than £1 a day – a bargain! Similarly, the price can be reframed by simply changing the price tag from £100 to £99.99. The difference is minuscule but, in the psyche of the buyer, it becomes a much more attractive purchase. How often have you bought something that was “only” £9.99 when you would have thought twice had it been £10? It’s not just because the former price is slightly cheaper than the latter, it’s been proven that prices ending in ‘9’ are more attractive to us – even when cheaper items may be on offer! In his book “Priceless: The Hidden Psychology of Value”, William Poundstone explains how “we’ve been culturally conditioned to associate 9-ending prices with discounts and better deals.” Similarly, choosing the price you present carefully has particularly important connotations when dealing with a large sum of money: Thomas, Simon, and Kadiyali (2007) analysed 27,000 real estate transactions and found that people paid more money for houses when the prices were very precise (i. e. were willing to pay £362,130 over £350,000). This has been explained by the fact that we associate the small numbers used in precise pricing (1,2,3, etc.) as having small values and therefore automatically see these numbers and think the price is smaller.

The wording used to explain prices can also have an affect on the customer’s perception of its value. For example, when offering a discount, sometimes this won’t have the desired effect because the word “discount” or “bargain” can have negative connotations, making people believe that the quality or value of the product isn’t as high. In order to counteract this it is important to accompany the discount with a reason. As Mazumdar, Raj, & Sinha (2005) noted, some large stores found that giving a straight-forward reason for a discount or saving, such as it being a cost saving obtained from a supplier that they then want to pass on to their customer, helped to minimise negative effects and enhanced the success of promotions.

It’s also important to remember though that, in some cases, making a product appear more expensive actually helps sales because higher price tags already carry with them an intrinsic sense of value. If you’re charging more money for something, people will naturally assume there is a reason for this and attach a higher value to that product. It’s important therefore in marketing your product to really know who your target audience is to understand what type of Price-Value Bias they will be susceptible to.

In their research paper “Divide and Prosper: Consumers’ Reactions to Partitioned Prices”, Morwitz, Greenleaf, & Johnson (1998) explore the effect that splitting a total price of purchase in to two (or even potentially more) parts can have on consumer behaviour: this is named Partitioned Pricing.

In most cases, your typical consumer is unlikely to undertake the cognitive effort required to accurately add the separate components together before they make the decision to purchase. The “base price” – being the price itself of the product – is sometimes the only part really taken in to account with any “surcharges” – being additional costs that are presented separately, such as shipping, handling or taxes – simply discarded mentally. If they do decide to calculate the full amount it will often be using rounded-down numbers that make for more manageable sums so the overall price is therefore reduced in the mind of the customer.

However, the opposite effect can be had if all components of the partitioned pricing aren’t made salient as the customer can feel as though they are being misled in some way which will lead to no purchase at all or an unhappy post-sale situation. For example, if you offer a cruise for £100 and, all the way through the purchasing process, this remains the only visible cost with sudden extra costs for port fees, baggage handling and/or medical insurance only added at the final payment page then the unexpected escalation in cost is likely to disrupt the purchase as well as lead to possible anger at the misrepresentation. This is why it is important to ensure that the majority of costs are included in the “base price” so that any additional surcharges are nominal enough that they won’t affect the decision to purchase.

In web marketing, this can be a useful tool to help increase conversion rates as reducing the perceived pricing of a product by not including delivery charges or obligatory handling fees in the main product price will, of course, make the pricing seem more competitive and attractive. This will help the customer to make their decision to purchase based on product price alone and having additional costs presented separately can make it seem like a better deal, despite the overall amount being the same.

The Paradox of Choice principle is explored by the American psychologist Barry Schwartz in his book The Paradox of Choice – Why more is less (2004). Schwartz shows how, instead of increasing our capacity to make a decision, an abundance of choice can often lead to feelings of anxiety, loneliness and depression. Even if we might believe we’d be happier if given a larger range of choices in everyday life, we actually make better decisions and end up happier and more satisfied when fewer options are presented to us. Reducing choices will reduce consumer anxiety as too many options is overwhelming for our brains and, having to choose just one option from a large selection of “desirable” options often leads us to feel unsatisfied and hung up on those other possibilities we missed out on. The more choices we are given, the higher our expectations become and the lower our sense of final accomplishment and satisfaction. It can even lead to “suspended action”, where we are so overwhelmed by the choice on offer that we fail to make a decision at all.

This sensation is well known to all during those Christmas shopping trips where we wander aimlessly without a set idea of what we need to purchase in mind and ultimately end up not having bought anything as we spent the whole time deliberating over all the different options on offer. Online dating is also a current example of this Paradox of choice as we are given so many potential matches that we never feel as though we have found “the right one” yet and so continue searching endlessly; rather than considering each profile in terms of its own “potential satisfaction”, we are instead caught up thinking of all the other profiles yet to discover and are constantly worried we are missing out on something better.

The Paradox of Choice is often applied in the world of sales and marketing as it can greatly affect consumer purchase decisions. Whether shopping in store or online, customers can often be put off making that final purchase if shown too many products or if too much cognitive effort is required of them to make a decision. Under this cognitive pressure, customers will tend to either turn away from making any purchase or make a decision that will ultimately leave them feeling unsatisfied. It’s therefore incredibly important to ensure that it is as simple as possible for your customers to make a choice so that they don’t feel overwhelmed and so their final decision is satisfactory for both them and you.

The Pain of Paying principle, first explored by Prelec & Loewenstein in 1998, explains the psychological link between payment and pleasure (or lack thereof) for the experience or product you are paying for. The simple fact is that people don’t like to part with their money and so making payment can reduce the pleasure taken from making a purchase. It has been proven that spending money actually activates the areas in our brain that are associated with physical pain and feelings of disgust.

Therefore, the more strongly we feel this “pain of paying” when we spend money for something, the less we will enjoy it and it can affect our decisions to make purchases. Studies have shown that certain forms of payment hurt more than others: the more evident, tangible or transparent the payment is, the less we are able to enjoy the pleasure of our purchase. We feel this “pain of paying” less when we pay by credit card or when there is a gap between paying and the time of receiving or using the purchase. Inversely, we feel it more when we have to pay for something immediately or by cash as it really draws attention to the amount that something is costing us.

Automatic payment systems available for online purchases are an example of one way in which some brands are trying to reduce the pain of paying in order to therefore make more sales. Registering your customers’ payment details is an effective way of limiting the feeling of making payment and encouraging more purchases. For example, when you buy music or a movie on iTunes, there is no mention of the fact that you are paying, you simply click on the “download” button and, as your bank details are already registered, payment is automatic and therefore less visible and tangible.

Kagan (1976) revealed that as part of our six basics human needs, there exists at the same time both a need for certainty and another need for variety and uncertainty. This need for certainty comes from the fact that our brain likes to know what is going on and feel in control of its interactions by recognising patterns. Indeed, feeling more certain about the world around us, as though we understand something correctly and can therefore predict what will happen, leads to positive feelings of control and security. Moreover, when the craving for certainty is met, there is a sensation of reward. The ability to predict something and then obtain data that meets those predictions results in a positive feeling. That’s why some people enjoy the accomplishments they feel by cleaning their house, organising their files, solving problems, and so on: it gives them a positive feeling of certainty. In contrast, the brain reacts negatively towards uncertainty leading us to feel alert, anxious and uncomfortable.

The paradox is that this tension we feel when we are uncertain can also have a positive effect. It is often uncertainty that drives creativity and results in the variety and the element of spontaneity and surprise that we also crave as humans. Because of this, both certainty and uncertainty are human needs that have to exist in balance.

This theory has many important applications in marketing. In some cases, bringing certainty to your customers, reassuring them and giving them information is vital to ensure positive feelings are induced. Indeed, there are even entire industries that exist to resolve larger uncertainties because people are willing to pay in order to receive an increased level of certainty (for example, for expert advice on stock market predictions). On the other hand, sometimes inducing a certain level of uncertainty in your customers helps to encourage them to interact in the way you would like, motivating them to complete the desired action in order to regain a comfortable level of certainty.

Much research has shown how people tend to have an aversion to risk or ambiguity (eg. Ambiguity Aversion, Ellsberg 1961; Risk Aversion, Tversky & Kahneman 1979). However, newer research (Moon & Nelson; Klein & Fishbach, 2014) has begun to suggest that uncertain rewards can actually be a strong motivator for completing a task: this is the Motivating-Uncertainty Effect. For example, in a competition where a task must be completed to win a monetary prize but in situation A the amount is unknown (so could effectively range from small to very large) and in situation B it is a known amount, people are more likely to be stimulated by situation A. Researchers have found that this system of variable rewards makes the experience more exciting as we are often more stimulated by the unknown, meaning we will in turn be more motivated to complete a task where the reward is unknown. Motivation comes from our concentration levels, which are stimulated and excited more by the unknown than by the certainty of an outcome.

This can also lead people to have more interest in repeating an experience as well: the psychologist Skinner had already revealed in the 1950s that a variable rewards system induces stronger compulsions to continue the same behaviour with a well-known experiment called Skinner Box. During this experiment, he observed that lab mice responded most strongly to random rewards. The mice could press a little lever and sometimes they’d receive a small treat, sometimes a large treat, and sometimes nothing at all. In comparison to another test sample of mice who received a small treat every time they pressed the lever, this first set were shown to press the lever compulsively, seemingly addicted to this unknown pattern of rewards. In 2014, another experiment was carried out using people with participants asked to drink a large quantity of water in 2 minutes. Group A was told that they would receive a reward of 2 dollars for completing this task and Group B were told that they would receive either 1 or 2 dollars. The results showed that 70% of Group B (with the variable reward) completed the task as opposed to 43% of Group A.

The Motivating-Uncertainty Effect can be effectively used in business and marketing: offering up uncertain rewards can be a potent strategy for gaining and maintaining customer loyalty. For example, it could be possible to encourage an online visitor to complete a desired action (buy, click, share, sign up, etc.) if this comes with a potentially unknown reward.