Puppet Strings

Evan Fitzer

If you have read the Zigzag long enough you will know 2 things 1) I’m a bit of a geek and 2) I’m fascinated by what influences how we behave as humans.

I love economics as a social science because of how it applies the scientific method in making sense of certain aspects of human behaviour; how societies organise themselves to provide for their material wants. The knowledge of macroeconomics especially helps us to understand how the world works. I feel it should be a compulsory subject in schools.

I particularly like behavioural economics which is the “love child” of psychology and economics. It shines a light on our inner biases and approaches to decision-making.

It plays an essential role in shaping how we live our lives, by helping us “see” the effects certain influences have on our behaviour and our daily realities.

“We usually think of ourselves as sitting in the driver’s seat, with ultimate control over the decisions we made and the direction our life takes; but, alas, this perception has more to do with our desires—with how we want to view ourselves—than with reality.” Dan Ariely, PhD, in his book, “Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions.

Here are some principles of behavioural economics:

Herd mentality/ peer pressure: We thought left peer pressure behind when we waved goodbye to our teenage years but we are still being influenced unknowingly by this. This is based on the fact that humans are social beings who like to “belong”.

Here is an example of how a hotel used this principle to influence its guests. They were trying to be more eco-friendly and encourage people to reuse their towels. They put up notices pleading with guests, but that didn't work, people still left towels on the floor which meant they had to be changed. They offered points but gained minimal traction. Then they put up a notice in the rooms saying that 80% of guests that stayed in this room reused their towels and that did it.

The “humans of those rooms” wanted to be like the other guests.

Anchoring: This is the “magic” trick people use when they are trying to make you feel like you are getting a better deal. My children fell for this recently when they went to a restaurant with their friends. They said they ordered a reasonable meal eg $30 because one of the meals like $200.

What the restaurant had done was to make a meal outrageously expensive so that others’ meals look like a good deal in comparison when in truth those supposed deals might be expensive when looked at on their own merit or compared to how other restaurants have priced a similar meal.

Framing: This one is for our charismatic salespeople. They will highlight all the amazing things about a product, and you will be so blinded by its “shininess” that you forget to stop and say “hol’ on but how about this or does it do this?

Please note you can swap out product for a person. Eg a person with a very charming personality can distract you from paying attention to some problematic traits they might have.

We might all think that we have full control of our decisions but we are all “monkeys on a chain” of sorts being manipulated by invisible puppet masters.

It's great that we know some of these tricks, while we can’t escape them all we can at least recognise when they are being used.

Keep going,

Ije