New Psychological Model Predicts When You'll Try Something New
Research published today in Nature Human Behaviour sheds slight on how to change ourselves (or be changed by others), specifically our lifestyle choices to more healthy ones.
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There are always the currently accepted ways we do things. But is there an alternative and better option out there?
If you want to find a new restaurant that is better than your current one, or add a New Year's resolution, or change a habit, then this requires some exploration to uncover new possibilities.
As we see alternatives, this increases our uncertainty in our current choice. As a result our exploration of alternatives should increase. This is the case with objective rewards like money. But in subjective rewards, like what we value in tasting better, the opposite seems to be the case.
The anonymous purchase data from more than 280,000 supermarket shoppers over several years was used to evaluate the impact of alternative options. The main product purchases analyzed were from six categories: bread, beer, coffee, toilet paper, washing detergent and yogurt.
Senior author of the study, Professor Brad Love, said they "developed a model to predict when somebody is ready to try a new product, such as switching from one brand to another."
"Our model shows that the more people purchase a product, the more likely they are to continue to do so, until they reset the cycle by exploring a new product."
To test this theory, thousands of coupons were sent people in order to predict who would use them. Those who had recently switched to a new brand or product were twice as likely to use a coupon and try another new product.
The longer we use something, the quicker we are to use a coupon to exploit that product more. The sooner we start to use something new, the quicker we are to use coupons on another new product.
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Consistent with coherency maximization, customers redeemed coupons to exploit products more quickly the longer they had been exploiting the product (that is, on long exploitation streaks). Coupons to explore alternatives were used more quickly when customers were only beginning to exploit (that is, on short exploitation streaks).
This is contrary to previous studies using monetary rewards. They showed that the longer someone sticks with receiving something they know the value of, the more likely they are to risk choosing something they don't know the value they will get out of it.
The new research shows that subjective rewards, such as food preferences, are being driven by our choices with subjective reward valuations, whereas the previous research on objective rewards like money showed preferences driving choices.
People showing purchasing patterns for one product tended to show the same for others as well, from beer to washing detergent. There seems to be an "exploration personality" that people carry with them when they shop. The rate at which certain people explore is "remarkably stable", says Dr Peter Rifer, lead author of the study.
The longer we use a product, the less likely we are to explore an alternative. This locks us in the habit.
The paper ends with some hints on how this can help you change your behavior and habits, or even how the social engineers can influence you to change your habits for you:
"The same approach we utilized, linking big data with psychological theory, could be leveraged to properly time interventions aimed at improving diet and exercise regime. "
"One basic lesson from our research is that people periodically enter periods of exploration with a predictable likelihood, creating a window of opportunity to modify behaviour for better or worse."
That's good news for self-knowledge and understanding how we get locked into the current condition.
But it's also chilling to me how they phrase it, and how they tested the experiment through coupons alone, without people even realizing they were having their behavior directed in some way. It shows how easily we are influenced to modify our behavior with rewards. Something to think about more deeply for those who haven't yet ;)
References:
- New model predicts when people are willing to try new things
- Coherency-maximizing exploration in the supermarket
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@krnel
2017-01-09, 8:30pm
Interesting, there are so many ways throughout the day that I am mentally being controlled with out even knowing it.
Indeed there are. Everything around us, from the sounds we hear to the things we see, influence us, and some things more than others. Being aware is the way to no longer be unconsciously influenced at least hehe. Thanks for the feedback.
Very interesting, thanks for bringing these studies to light.
Welcome, and interesting indeed. I had to reread some stuff over as the wording was a bit confusing on what they were showing. I tried to simplify it hehe. Thanks for the feedback.
We should (in average) leave more room for exploration! That's how new things could be discovered!
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Hi @krnel
There are so many factors influencing ones choices. Some of it could be economical, where one would just go for the cheapest option, that is if there are no perceived quality differences. Other times one will go for the brand that is perceived as superior, even if it cost double. (My wife and I always fight on some type of margarine, which cost double that some other makes, but she believes it taste better and for me it seems the same as the cheaper brand) So I think it has a lot to do with a person's perception of the different products, and even the type of product, in some cases the quality is not that important. There is still a whole host of factors that can influence choices.
Thank you for sharing.