It amazes me how dominating our thoughts and perceptions are
over all of the decisions we make and the way we reason through things. In
Predictably Irrational, by Dan Ariely, there were examples of our irrationality
having to do with everything from social and financial norms to deciding which
brand of pain reliever to purchase. Not only do we reason through things using
our prior experiences, but also the biases of other people’s experiences – causing us to be extremely vulnerable to outside
influences.
Consumer vulnerability was proved in the yogurt and wine experiments. In the
yogurt experiment, everyone believed they were eating strawberry yogurt simply
because that is what they were told they were eating. Even the girl who was not
told until after eating it, and originally did not taste any strawberry, was
mislead by the perception of the others. Preconceived ideas of what something
is supposed to taste like has a very strong impact on what we actually taste. As
for the wine experiment, just like the pain reliever example in Predictably
Irrational, the price of products has an extremely significant impact on the
satisfaction we gain from consuming it. This is proof that we are inherently irrational
and our biases have a large affect on our perception as consumers and as marketers.
I think that both perception and bias influence ethics and honesty. On a greater scale than yogurt tasting, marketers can easily be influenced by other things happening in the market. For example, if a competing company alters the truth of a product just a little bit, then other companies are more likely to justify telling a little white lie as well, because everyone else is doing it too. This allows ethics to be altered and honesty to be downplayed. Another example that questions ethics from Dan Ariely’s book was the placebo surgery experiment. Although doctors were not doing anything to make the patients condition worse, they wanted to find out if not doing anything could make it better. Is using someone’s life as an experiment really ethical? What if they still are cured because of the mental power of believing they were operated on, then does it make it okay?
I think that both perception and bias influence ethics and honesty. On a greater scale than yogurt tasting, marketers can easily be influenced by other things happening in the market. For example, if a competing company alters the truth of a product just a little bit, then other companies are more likely to justify telling a little white lie as well, because everyone else is doing it too. This allows ethics to be altered and honesty to be downplayed. Another example that questions ethics from Dan Ariely’s book was the placebo surgery experiment. Although doctors were not doing anything to make the patients condition worse, they wanted to find out if not doing anything could make it better. Is using someone’s life as an experiment really ethical? What if they still are cured because of the mental power of believing they were operated on, then does it make it okay?
There are no right and wrong answers to
these questions – only perceptions.
For further information about the examples provided above, refer to the following videos and book:
Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely
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