Jesper Noehr

Pythonista, RESTafarian, Binary Poet & Proud Bucketeer

Consumer Psychology

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A few days ago on reddit, there was a link to a book outline called “Predictably Irrational.” I’ve been reading through the entire thing, and there are some real gems in there — many which I’m sure you can apply to a vast variety of business and consumers.

Check it out – Predictably Irrational

Some examples:

Simonsohn and Loewenstein found that people who move to a new city remain anchored to the prices they paid in their previous city. People who move from Lubbock to Pittsburgh squeeze their families into smaller houses to pay the same amount. People who move from LA to Pittsburgh don’t save money, they just move into mansions.

and:

“If companies want to benefit from the advantages of social norms, they need to do a better job of cultivating those norms….It’s remarkable how much work companies (particularly start-ups) can get out of people when social norms (such as the excitement of building something together) are stronger than market norms (such as salaries stepping up with each promotion). If corporations started thinking in terms of social norms, they would realize that these norms build loyalty and–more important–make people want to extend themselves to the degree that corporations need today: to be flexible, concerned, and willing to pitch in.  That’s what a social relationship delivers.”

Written by jespern

December 31st, 2008 at 12:02 pm

One Response to 'Consumer Psychology'

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  1. I can relate completely to the second quote.

    In 2005, myself and four others decided to give an insane software development project a crack and pushed the better part of nine months work into three.

    We talked it through after the fact and the harder we all worked on making sure we were working against our project plan and keeping things as lean and agile as we could – the harder we all worked out of mutual respect for each others accomplishments.

    While I don’t want to go through that sort of a software development cycle again, it was an unforgettable experience and we still regale it over beer now simply for the enormity of the task.

    Al

    29 Apr 09 at 3:13 pm

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