Psychology of Choice: How We Assess Risk When Buying Products
I started playing piano in first grade, and when I started, I was obsessed with piano. I loved the new instrument and couldn’t wait to get home from school to tinker with it and practice my newly learned pieces. Eventually, that fervent enthusiasm diminished and my mom struggled to get me to practice. She brought the matter up with my instructor who suggested an interesting solution: if I completed 15 minutes of practice on the pieces I was supposed to be working on, I could then choose to practice any of the songs in the book and show my instructor the following week. I ended up enthusiastically and diligently practicing for those 15 minutes, just so I could play what I wanted after. When I was being forced to practice, I had significantly less enthusiasm than when given the chance to exert my own will and choice. By giving me a choice about my actions, my teacher re-sparked my piano-playing interest. This phenomenon – that when given a choice of doing something, people are more likely to want to do that thing. The Psychology of Choice has important implications for marketing.
