Power of Perceptual contrast

Scenario 1: Imagine your boss requests that you work over the weekend to help meet a deadline that's important to him. It means you'll need to be at the office 9 - 5 both days to achieve the objective. Trouble is, you promised your friends that you'd spend time with them this weekend. How do you notice yourself responding on the inside? Now she tells you that a possible alternative is to work through two lunch hours this week to accomplish the same thing. Again, on the inside, how do you notice yourself reacting to the second choice?

Scenario 2: Imagine you've some guests coming to a party at your house and you want to ensure the house is spotless. You ask your reluctant (kids/friends/partner) to help out with some chores: either they can scrub and clean both toilets for five minutes, or they can vacuum for five minutes. Which are they more likely to go for?

Most people when asked the same question choose 'working through two lunch hours' and 'vacuum for five minutes' as the preferred options.

What's at work here is the psychological phenomenon known as "Perceptual Contrast". If you were only asked to work through two lunch hours with no alternative option, how would your internal motivation be different to scenario 1? Notice that when a more scary, unpleasant or more costly option is presented to us first, we gravitate towards the second far more easily than if it had been the only option offered. It's almost a relief when that 'easier' option is offered. And consequently our motivation to take it is far higher than if it had been the only choice.

You only have to look at prices in gourmet coffee to see different versions of perceptual contrast at work. Have you noticed how the price differential between large, medium and small is so negligible that most people go for large without questioning why the small size is so damned expensive. In contrast, it seems like a better deal at $2.40 for a cup of coffee. In effect, we're being encouraged to have a different kind of internal conversation. Rather than "do I buy it or not?" the internal conversation becomes "which one should I buy?". It's a subtle approach: moving the conversation from a selling frame to a negotiation frame.

The original author is Haider Imam of the Kaizen Team. Due credit to him.This article was posted as a part of the Leading minds tip.

How to use it: To make something look good, first show something of inferior quality. To get someone to buy something expensive, first show them something even more expensive.

A car salesman might show us a unit that is overpriced and in poor condition before showing us the one they really want us to buy. By contrast, the second one looks like a great deal and we want it more.

I notice the strategy I generally use when I’m asking for something I want is to pare down the request to something that seems reasonable - something I think I can get a “yes” for. Apparently that instinct may be incorrect. If instead I were to ask for something huge first, I would activate the weapon of “perceptual contrast”. If I were to then ask for what I really wanted it would seem small, reasonable, and trivially easy by comparison.

A corollary principle is that once you have already agreed to something large, additional items that are added seem smaller by comparison. Sales professionals use this technique to sell you options and accessories to large ticket items you have already purchased. Once you buy an expensive camera, the costs of all the accessories like a tripod, bag, filters, etc appear trivial.