”Now, let’s choose the material for the implant,” the dentist’s female assistant said to me.
I got up from the medical chair and blankly flipped through the product catalog. The terminology in it made me feel like I was looking at the material introduction of the atomic reactor. “Give me a brief introduction,” I said.
”This kind is made in China, the price is 4,000, and the price is relatively affordable; this is made in Germany, the price is 7,000, the material is pure titanium, and the price is very high; there is this kind, which is relatively expensive, But this is the latest product from Switzerland, and the price is 12,000 yuan.” Her introduction didn’t add anything to my knowledge of dental implants, but I didn’t hesitate to choose the middle one, which was 7,000 yuan. .
In fact, maybe the three materials are not much different at all, but many people will make the same choice as me.
Joel Huber, a professor at the Duke University School of Business, once conducted an experiment in which he divided students into three groups, all tasked with buying beer.
One group of students had two options, a premium beer for $2.60 and a cheap brand for $1.80. Connoisseurs of premium beer tasting rated it 70 out of 100 for quality and taste, compared to 50 for cheap brands. At this time, the first choice of students was high-end beer, and the number of people who chose it accounted for 67%.
The second group also got the two beers, but they also had one more option on hand: another super-cheap, low-quality beer for $1.60 with an overall score of 40. Although not a single student wanted to buy this ultra-cheap beer, its existence had a real impact on people’s choices. The percentage of students who previously opted for those cheap beers increased from 33 percent to 47 percent. The existence of super cheap beer has made cheap beer popular.
The last group of students are also faced with three choices. They are the original cheap beer and the premium beer, and there is an additional luxury beer. This luxury beer is relatively much more expensive. The price is $3.4, but the quality Only slightly better, with an overall rating of 75. It turned out that only 10% of students said they would choose luxury beer. Surprisingly, the remaining 90% of students chose premium beer, and no one wants cheap beer this time.
Behavioral economist Amos Tversky and others put forward the principle of “avoiding extremes”: that is, when we buy goods, we often do not buy the most expensive, nor do we buy the cheapest, and people’s choices tend to go The golden mean, choose the middle one. Not only the price, but also the choice of size models. If a coffee shop has three types of cups, large, medium and small, the best-selling cup must be the medium cup. Merchants are well versed in this, for example, they often put a slightly higher-quality bait product next to the target product they are promoting at a much more expensive price.
Choice is painful, and when we choose one product, we are often afraid of missing out on another. Therefore, among multiple options, people tend to choose the middle one. It seems that we have found a reason for ourselves that we will not regret it. The middle option is particularly precious under the background of the other two options.
In the beer choice experiment, the reason why people’s favorite options have changed so much is because consumers find different compromise points that they can accept in different situations, and then convince themselves to make their choices appear to be justified full.
At the end of the day, choosing the middle option is nothing but self-compromise.
