I know. Your answer is a definite
“NO”. You are neither stupid nor crazy to pay 1000 Euros for something that
costs usually around 5 Euros. Moreover, you are now baffled by the idiotic idea
of paying 1000 Euros for a lousy piece of Turkish (junk) food. Probably now you
are thinking that this guy that writes the “Decision Designer & Behavior
Builder” Blog has gone coo-coo.
Yes, I’m talking to you… and do
you know how I know what you’re thinking about my outrageous question? It’s
simple. I know that you have eaten in the last 24 hours at least one meal.
Since you are not starving (by the way, people who are hungry while reading
this would pay more for a kebab than people who are not hungry), it is
reasonable to think that 1000 Euros is a crazy price for some bread, meat and a
few vegetables. At the same time if you would have not eaten for the last 10
days, trust me that 1000 Euros (if you would have them) is a reasonable price
for a Kebab, especially if it is the only food item that you can get your hands
on.
Extreme hunger is one of multiple
visceral factors that influence people’s decision making and subsequent behavior.
Other visceral factors are extreme fatigue, sexual arousal, severe pain, severe
thirst, fear, anger and craving.
As you can see all these factors
are related to physical and emotional aspects of a human. Another interesting
thing about them is that almost all of them are somehow related to evolutionary
based functions. For example hunger, thirst, fatigue, pain and fear are all related
to survival. In order for an organism to survive it needs metabolic resources
such as food, water and rest. None of these sensations and feelings is
pleasant. By their very nature they are unpleasant and there is a good reason
for this, namely that when these nasty sensations occur, we need to alleviate them
resulting in ensuring survival.
A person might eat in order to
escape the nasty sensation of hunger, but by doing so she will also acquire
metabolic resources such as proteins, carbohydrates and fats which are
essential for survival. In a similar line of thinking, a person might run away
from a threat, thus alleviating fear and at the same time ensure her survival
from something that might have killed her.
Sexual arousal is not about
survival, but about something much more important from an evolutionary
perspective. If an organism survives, but does not reproduce, the genes of the
organism will disappear with the organism’s death and be forever removed from
the evolution process. Sexual arousal is about reproduction and sending the
genes into the next generation of organisms. Having sexual intercourse might be
performed because instinctual forces are at play or, as in the case of humans,
simply because “It feels good”. At the same time, having sex leads to having offspring…
or at least in principle it does…
The visceral influences are also
called “Hot states” of thinking or of behavior. The absence of the visceral
influences is called a “Cold state”. In essence whenever a person is satiated, not
experiencing a very strong emotion and not being sexually aroused we say that
the person is in a “Cold State”. The opposite is valid for “Hot states”.
Most of decision making theory
has focused on people being in “Cold States”. “Hot states” have been virtually ignored
till about 20-25 years ago. Moreover, the beloved field of normative economics
has simply dismissed these states as “people not thinking strait”. The truth is
that when in a “hot state” a person is not “thinking strait” but she is still
thinking. Let’s take a short trip in the land of thinking in “Hot states”.
As George Loewenstein states,
when in a “hot state” an individual narrows his attention (focus) on three
dimensions. The first narrowing of focus is on the means that can alleviate the
visceral factor that is present. For example when a person is starving, alleviating
the hunger (eating and food) is all that he can think about. Similarly, a person who is in severe pain will
do anything to ease it.
The second narrowing of focus is
a temporal one, namely that the present becomes so important that the future is
virtually disregarded. As in the earlier Kebab question, a starving person
would pay 1000 euros for a kebab, even if this means not having money to buy
any more food in the future (Tomorrow). However, this temporal narrowing of
focus should refer only to means related to the visceral influence. For example
a hungry person might pay more for food now but would not pay more for TV sets.
The third narrowing of focus is
on the social dimension. In brief, a person under strong visceral influences
will become egoistic. A severely hungry or extremely sexually aroused person
will simply not care about other people, including (with some variations)
significant others such as parents, friends, loved ones etc.
A very nice study by George
Loewenstein and Dan Ariely (presented in Ariely’s book Predictably Irrational)
investigated attitudes under sexual arousal (“hot state”) as compared to a “cold
state”. The results are at least surprising. People (men – the study was done
only on men) that were sexually aroused were more willing to have sex with very
fat women, older women, they were more willing to have unprotected sex with a
complete stranger and would insist (try more) to have sex with someone even
after she said “no”.
What is most important about “hot”
and “cold” states is that many decisions and behaviors are made and occur in
one type of state and the consequences are in the opposite type of state. People
who are in a “hot” state will make decision and exhibit behaviors that will
impact them while in a “cold” state. Using the results of the above mentioned
study, one might be willing to have sex with a very fat woman while in a “hot”
state, but when he will come back to the “cold” state, the consequences (making
breakfast) will occur.
But, let’s come back to the 1000
Euros kebab. You as a sane person say that you would not pay 1000 Euros for a
kebab. This is perfectly normal, but at the same time it is inaccurate. You are
now in a “cold” state – not hungry (or at least not starving for 10 days). The
fact that you are in a “cold” state makes you blind to how you would act in a “hot”
state. Humans are horrible at predicting how decisions and behavior will be
influenced by visceral factors. Usually these factors are simply ignored altogether.
Let’s take the same 1000 Euros
kebab example from another perspective. Let’s assume that you hear from a
friend – Jane - that another friend – Bob – has paid 1000 Euros for a kebab.
Most likely you will think that your mutual friend (Bob) has gone crazy and
that he should seek psychiatric help. What you fail to take into account is how
hungry was Bob at the time of purchasing the obscenely expensive kebab. In
brief, when judging someone else’s actions we discard completely the influences
of visceral factors.
Now, let’s go to another angle
and see the 1000 Euros kebab issue from another perspective. Assume that you
have paid 1000 Euros for a Kebab 3 years ago. Of course you were in a very
difficult situation at the time and you were starving for the last 10 days and
some heartless person sold you the hyper-expensive Turkish sandwich. Most
likely, today, you will not even remember ever buying the kebab. People tend to
forget instances when they were under visceral influences. If the full memory
is not “erased”, then you might remember buying the 1000 Euros Kebab, but you
will have forgotten the 10 days of starvation and you will try to make some
sense of your own (weird) actions.
In brief, even if we don’t lose
memory about the entire episode that has happened when we were in a “hot” state
and we remember some of our actions, we will forget about the “hot” state,
namely the influence of the visceral factors.
For example if a (handsome) man
has sex with a very fat woman because he was severely sexually aroused (and a
bit drunk), one year from this episode he might not remember anything or he
might remember having sex with the very fat woman and forget about the sexual arousal
and the effect of alcohol. In the second situation he will try to make sense of
why he had sex with that fat woman and he will be vexed and think that “Why?!?
Why have I done that?? What was I thinking???”.
Usually decision and actions made
in “hot” states are sources of (experienced) regret when the person comes back
into a “cold” state.
To sum up, being under the
influence of visceral factors makes people become focused on alleviating the
unpleasantness (e.g. hunger, pain), makes them focus on the present and discard
future consequences and become more self-centered (egoistic).
People are very bad predictors of
the influence of a visceral factor when not under its influence. When judging
other people’s actions and behaviors we tend to ignore the visceral influences
under which a person is. We forget about the past visceral influences and if we
remember our own (weird) behavior, we are surprised by “what we did”.
You might think that there can be
“cures” for the effects of visceral factors. Self-control is one of them. Some
people can behave quite normally when under severe pain (including emotional
pain), while being hungry etc. There are some instances of people not giving in
even when tortured for days in a row. At the same time, people with huge
amounts of self-control are very few. Moreover, we know that self-control is
limited within given resources and if we use it while being in a “hot” state we
might exhaust all of it very fast.
In conclusion, I’d like to bring
to your attention the futility of the “Drink responsibly” and “Don’t drink and
drive” campaigns. The upside of these campaigns is that they say what people
should do, or what the social norm is. At the same time most of these messages are
received while in a “cold” state and they are supposed to have effects while
people are in a “Hot” state.
Some ideas are: print the phone
number of a taxi company on the label/can of alcoholic drinks. Make cans and
bottles (of beer) numbered (in a six-pack from 1 to 6) and make some frown
faces on the higher numbers (e.g. 6). Make spirit bottles with clear markings
of optimal doses…
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