In my last blog, I noted that I just finished reading a book for our book club- The Catalyst: How to Change Anyone’s Mind by Jonah Berger (Simon & Shuster Paperbacks, New York (2020)) (“Catalyst”). The thesis of the book is how to get people to change their minds through self-persuasion. To do this, one must “remove[] roadblocks and lower[] the barriers that keep people from taking action” (Id. at 7.) or act as a catalyst.
The author identifies five principles: Reactance, Endowment, Distance, Uncertainty and Corroborating Evidence. (Id. at 11-14.) I discussed Reactance in last week’s blog. This week, I will discuss endowment and devote subsequent blogs to the remaining principles.
The endowment effect is the notion that people value more the things that are in their possession than what they might acquire. The classic study on this involves the coffee mug. People were asked how much they would pay for an ordinary-looking coffee mug. The average response was less than $3.00. Then they were asked how much would they sell that very same mug for. The average response was a little more than $7.00. (Id. at 65-66.). In short, “people demand more to give them up than acquire them.” And “…the longer people do or own something, the more they value it. (Id. at 66.)
In close connection to this principle is loss aversion. People are loathe to lose; “losses loom larger than gains” (Id. at 67) to the point that research has shown that “… the potential gains of doing something have to be 2.6 times larger than the potential losses to get people to take action.” (Id at 67.) (Other research shows a value of 2 times will suffice. (Id. at 67 n.7.)
As the author notes:
Whenever people think about changing, they compare things to their current state. The status quo. And if the potential gains barely outweigh the potential losses, they don’t budge.
To get people to change, the advantages have to be at least twice as good as the disadvantages. (Id. at 68.)
To get people to budge, one must do two things: show them the cost of inaction and burn the ships.
The cost of inaction is simply the risk of doing nothing. One must show people that “sticking with the status quo actually has a downside.” (Id. at 73.) The author uses the example of comparing a minor sprained ankle to a broken leg. If we have a broken leg, we will immediately seek medical intervention as we are in severe pain and unable to walk. We will do whatever is necessary to heal the leg as quickly as possible. However, with a minor sprain we will downplay it, thinking it is nothing and may not even bother to employ the RICE (rest, ice, compression and elevation) method to heal it. We will probably ignore it, hoping it will go away. But it won’t. By our inaction, we are actually prolonging our pain and agony. This cost of doing nothing is actually costing us a lot more time with a sprained ankle than it should and much longer than had we broken it. Inaction makes it worse! (Id. at 71-72.)
Another example is avoidance. Often, if we have a problem to resolve, we may stick our head in the sand hoping it will go away. Chances are, it does not and by avoiding the issue, it may have escalated and gotten worse. By discussing with these people (remember reactance from last week!) the real cost of doing nothing or avoiding the problem, they will see that keeping the status quo is not as costless as it seems, but rather has its own costs which may be even higher! Because most people are risk averse, once they see how much they are losing by doing nothing, they will change. “Losses loom larger than gains!” (Id. at 77.)
“Burning he Ships” relates to an ancient Chinese saying, “Break the kettles and sink the ships.” It forces the soldiers to commit to a course of action to fight. If the ships are burned after landing, the troops have no means of retreat and so must fight until the end. (Id. at 80.)
While the tactic “is extreme” (Id.), it forces people to take action. By taking the old way of doing things off the table, it will force someone to adapt to the new.
One example is affecting me. The USC law school has adopted a new learning management system (LMS) or platform for teaching. It had been using Blackboard and is now using Brightspace. To encourage faculty to start using Brightspace, the school gave a lot of tutorials and extensive seminars on the fine points of this new LMS. But the ultimate is that Blackboard would no longer be available after June 28, 2024. So, whether we liked it or not, the faculty (and the students) were forced to learn Brightspace and to use it. Blackboard was no longer available: the ”ship” was burned. Maintaining the status quo or doing things the way we always did them was no longer an option!
And by burning the ship, the school focused on the cost of doing nothing. If we did not take the tutorials on how to use Brightspace, we would be in a world of hurt. We would be unable to teach effectively. The cost of avoiding the implementation of Brightspace would be very expensive.
To get people to change, show them how expensive it is to stay the course, and if necessary, burn their ship!
… Just something to think about.
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