Keep things simple
Sometimes our rational mind is overloaded, and we want to go with our gut (see “When we should go with our gut” posting, May 8, 2009). We should do this when there are too many parameters, and no amount of analysis will give us the right answer. Sometimes our rational mind is just cluttered, and our gut gives us the wrong answer.
One situation where our gut gives us the wrong answer is… food choices.
Baba Shiv and Alexander Fedorikhin are clever experimenters. They are also a little sneaky. When they enrolled participants for a study they told them this was about memory. Not so. Here is the setup: participants are given either two or seven numbers to remember, and are sent to another room to test their recollection. On the way is a table with a choice of a bowl of fruit and a piece of chocolate cake.
Which will they choose, and will remembering numbers make a difference? Strangely, trying to remember more numbers decreases our self control. We now know why. Our prefrontal cortex, crucial to our rational decision making, can only hold a small amount of information. It roughly can hold seven plus or minus two “items” at the same time. The result: when our rational brain is busy remembering numbers, it is less able to control our emotions. We go for the fattening piece of cake.
This has important implications.
First, this tells us multi-tasking does not work. We simply do not have the bandwidth to handle more than one complicated task at a time. Trying to do more means we will make emotional decisions when we may have made a better, rational one.
Second, it has implications for how we design our environment. If you want to make (or you want your customers to make) rational decisions, keep things simple. Keep your desk clear, your product display neat and simple. If on the other hand you are trying to sell triple cream cheese, create clutter.
This is one way to “nudge” individuals. Allow them to choose, and influence the outcome.