DUKE (US)—Given a choice between spending a token to get their absolute favorite food or spending it to have a choice from a buffet of options, capuchin monkeys will opt for variety.
In fact, they’ll even eat a less-preferred food from that buffet when the favorite food is on it. They choose variety for variety’s sake.
The choices made by these captive-bred monkeys in an Italian research facility seem to show some innate desire to seek variety, says Dan Ariely, the James B. Duke Professor of psychology and behavioral economics at Duke University.
In a series of experiments Ariely conducted with colleagues at the Istituto di Scienze e Tecnologie della Cognizione in Rome, the eight monkeys first had to be taught that the abstract tokens, such as poker chips, plastic cylinders and metal nuts, represented different kinds of choice. With training, the tokens were associated with being able to buy one piece of the most-preferred food, or being able to buy one piece from an assortment of foods that included the most-preferred food.
Lead author Elsa Addessi has used this token method before with this troop of capuchins, who are on public display as well as being used in non-invasive cognitive experiments.
“Economically, the tokens should be equivalent, because they both give you the food you like,” Ariely says.
But once they had the hang of it, the monkeys as a group chose to use the variety tokens and not the “single-food-tokens.” Moreover, once they chose the variety tokens the monkeys also didn’t always take the most-preferred food when it was offered as part of the variety assortment. What this means is that they prefer variety for variety’s sake and are willing to eat food they like less to satisfy their desire for variety.
The work appears online in Behavioural Processes.
The implications of this simple experiment shed some light on consumer behavior, Ariely says. Earlier work on variety-seeking has found that people eat 43 percent more M&M candies when there are 10 colors in the bowl instead of just seven.
“People choose variety for variety’s sake,” Ariely says. “They often choose things they don’t even like as well just for the variety. We knew about this, so the interesting thing was to figure out how basic it is.”
The behavior of the capuchins, which are native to South America, “suggest that there’s some inherent basic strategy for variety,” Ariely explains. In the wild, variety seeking may help ensure a nutritionally varied diet. It is also possible, the authors suggest, that variety-seeking contributed to the rise of bartering and then abstract money in human society.
At the same time, Ariely is somewhat puzzled that humans can get stuck in a rut and not seek more variety. “Ask yourself: How many new things have you tried lately? Have you tried every cereal in the cereal aisle?” It may be that you’re enjoying a daily bowl of a cereal that you would rate as an 8, when just a few feet away on the shelf there is a cereal you’d rate as a 9, but you’ve never tried it.
Businesses can push variety on customers with assortment packs, Ariely suggests, and vicarious experiences like the Food Network can encourage exploration as well.
“How do we get ourselves to explore? Even monkeys do it—so maybe we should also try more variety.”
The research was supported by the Istituto di Scienze e Tecnologie della Cognizione and Duke.
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Like A few months ago I attended a conference held by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. One of the interesting things they noted this year was about their lunch offering.
You might be surprised to know that meat production, between raising, processing, packaging, and preserving meat uses a lot of energy. In fact, Michael Pollan, author of The Omivore’s Dilemma once asserted that “A vegan in a Hummer has a lighter carbon footprint than a beef eater in a Prius” (it turns out that this was a bit of an exaggeration).
If you’ll note in the picture below, it seems that in this meeting (2009) the council was able to convince attendees to switch to a vegetarian lunch.
The trick, as I’ve blogged about before, was making the vegetarian option the default option! For the past two years, the council did not have any default and the vast majority of the attendants picked the meat option. This year they set up the vegetarian option as the default, and this yielded a more environmentally friendly results, with a mere 20 percent insisting on having their steaks (see the column for 2009).
The other good news is that the vegetarian option was also (in this case) more tasty and healthy.
Inspired by Valentine’s Day “Mine” is a short story by sportswriter Patrick Dorsey about the steps that lead, or don’t lead, to a new relationship. Featured in this story are the Behavioral Economic principles of virtual ownership and the self-fulfilling prophesy.
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I am not a serious athlete, but I do like playing squash from time to time. What I mostly like about squash is that it is a game of strategy, where each player tries to build an advantage over multiple shots. First you get your opponent to run to the right, then you get them to run to the front left … and as the game progresses, they (hopefully) get behind the ball, their shots become worse, until at some point it is possible to finish the point! Of course when you are the one that runs from side to side and trying to get back into control – the game is much less fun.
Anyway, have not played for a while so yesterday when I played I was out of shape. But what was interesting was that I realized that my thinking ability was also diminished. Usually I try to plan my moves in advance, and think about where my opponent will move, what I will do next etc – but being out of shape made me think very myopically, and focus just on making the next shot. This of course was a very bad strategy and to my delight of my opponent I lost badly.
Perhaps the larger point is that being exhausted (and maybe also being under stress, physical exhaustion, sleep deprived, etc) makes people focus on the short-term and ignore the long-term – and this way become more susceptible to making mistakes….
A few weeks ago, the New York Times announced that they would start charging readers for online content in early 2011, and since then the million-dollar question has been: will it work? Will readers fork over the cash to keep reading the Times, or will they go elsewhere?
The main problem of this approach is that over the years of free access, the New York Times has trained its readers for years that the right price (or the Anchor) is $0 – and since this is the starting point it is very hard to change it.
So, should the New York Times give up? The trick with anchoring is that although we are not willing to pay more for the same thing, we are willing to pay more for different things. What this means is that one approach that the New York Times could take is to present us with a new experience so that we don’t associate it with the previous anchor, and are open to new pricing.
Let me explain. Because we’re not very good at figuring out what we are willing to pay for different products and services, the initial prices that new products are presented with can have a long term effect on how much we are willing to pay for them. We basically can’t figure out how much pleasure the New York Times gives us in terms of $ — so we go back and pay the same price we have paid before. This means that getting people to pay for something that was free for a long time will be very challenging, but it also means that if the New York Times were to offer some new service at the same time that they start charging, they might be more likely to pull it off.
It’s a strategy that Starbucks founder Howard Shultz put to good effect. Before he came along, consumers were used to paying much less for coffee from spots like Dunkin’ Donuts. So to incite us to shell out more for his coffee, he worked hard to separate Starbucks from other coffee shops. He designed it to feel like a continental coffeehouse, putting in showcases with croissants, displaying french presses, and coming up with exotic drink and size names. He redefined the coffee experience, and by doing so, convinced us to pay more.
The Times could try to take on a similar approach …
Irrationally Yours,
Dan
I have “a friend” who will head over to a coffee shop to get work done. Not because she’s unable to work at her desk or because she needs the presence of other people, but rather because it lets her get away from the Internet and all its distractions.
True, she could easily stay put by just keeping her browser closed. But that requires self-control, and as we all know, keeping ourselves in check is easier said than done. Whatever the resolution (start dieting, start saving, stop procrastinating, etc.) we routinely stick to it for a bit and then cave. We make the resolution in one state of mind – a cool, rational state – and then break it when temptation strikes.
That’s the reason for my friend’s coffeeshop strategy: precommitments allow us to commit upfront to our preferred course of action. In her cool, rational state, my friend can decide not to surf the web and make a point to leave the wireless behind; later, when temptation strikes, she’ll be out of luck. Access denied.
On the whole, I like my friend’s strategy. But there’s a potential problem: what if she needs the Internet to do her work? What then?
Not to worry – there’s an app to the rescue: SelfControl, a free Mac-only software program that blocks access to incoming/outgoing mail servers and websites and was thought up by artist Steve Lambert. (As the son of an ex-monk and an ex-nun, he’s well-versed in self-control.) The app only takes seconds to install and comes with all the flexibility that my friend’s coffeeshop strategy lacks.
Instead of taking leave of the Internet all-together, you can pick and choose what you can and can’t access, and for how long. If Facebook is your particular time-suck, then add its URL to SelfControl’s blacklist and the program will block Facebook and nothing else. If Twitter is another danger zone, then by all means, throw its URL into the mix. Next, figure out how long you want to block them for – anywhere from one minute to twelve hours – and move the slider accordingly. Then press start and you’re good to go.
But here’s the key part: once you click start, there’s no going back. (No wonder the app has a skull and crossbones symbol as its icon.) Switching browsers won’t help you, and neither will restarting your computer or even deleting the app. You won’t get those websites back until the timer runs out. As such, it’s as effective of a precommitment as seeking out a wireless-free zone.
Though temptation routinely deflects us from our long-term goals, our struggle with self-control isn’t a lost cause. Once we realize and admit our weakness, we can do something about it by taking on clever precommitments that save us from ourselves. In an ideal world we wouldn’t need the SelfControl app, but in this world it sure is useful.
Irrationally Yours,
Dan
P.S. For more on precommitments, check out this post on self-control and sex.