As tends to be the case in winter, cases of the common cold and the flu are on the rise. You might have experienced this already, and if so, you might be cursing others for getting you sick and wondering why people can’t just wash their hands more. Well, psychology has a way to potentially increase the number of people who wash their hands, and therefore reduce the amount sickness spreads. How? By giving people an option that’s worse then what their already supposed to be doing. This is known as the decoy effect.
The decoy effect is a fairly simple concept. By offering people a new option that is clearly worse than the existing one(s), it changes how people respond to a choice. For instance, more people will use the original option more than they would have normally when the decoy option wasn’t there. There is a classic example of this phenomenon: choosing a camera. Generally speaking, when people are presented with two camera options, one that is $100 and one that is $200, most people will choose the less expensive camera. But when a third option is added, a camera priced at $600, the $200 camera suddenly becomes a more attractive option. This phenomenon has been well demonstrated in psychological laboratories, but hasn’t been verified much in the real world.
In light of this, a study was conducted by researchers from the University of Colorado Denver and the Chinese Academy of Sciences to test the decoy effect in a real world setting. They went to three different food processing plants in China and tested the decoy effect in different ways. All the participants involved were unaware that they were in an experiment, so that their responses would be genuine. Workers at the plants were required to sanitize their hands every hour with a plastic spray bottle (not unlike the kind you might squirt at a misbehaving cat), that contained an alcoholic sanitizing solution (unlike the kind you might squirt at a misbehaving cat). The researchers thought that if new options were introduced that were clearly worse than the spray bottle, use of the spray bottle would increase. So in one processing plant they added a squeeze bottle that contained the same sanitizer as the spray bottle but was thought to be less convenient, in another plant they added a soaking basin that workers were required to put their hands in for 30 seconds, and in another they added a secondary spray bottle that was a different colour than the original.
They found that almost no one used the squeeze bottle or soaking basin, and did indeed find that use of the spray bottle went up compared to when there was no second option. Additionally, the hands and workspaces of the employees were found to be cleaner. And in the plant were the second spray bottle was introduced, there was no additional usage of the spray bottles. In other words, the decoy effect showed itself in a real life setting.
I’m sure you’ve guessed it by now, but what if we could apply this knowledge to hand washing in public washrooms? By adding an additional option that is worse than what’s already there, there is a good chance that more people will use the existing method. For instance, what if we put squeeze bottles of soap on the counters of washrooms? It will be the same soap that's in the existing dispensers, so there’s no extra cost besides the bottles themselves. That makes it a cheap solution that has the potential to increase the amount of hand washing. With any luck, one of those extra hand washers will be the would-be cold/flu transmitter that infected you. Considering how little it would cost, it’s worth a try!
Maybe you can think of other ways to use this little cognitive trick! Maybe to help your child, friend, or partner do something more often. Also be sure to keep an eye out for the decoy effect the next time you’re out shopping. Now that you’re aware of it, you might recognize it.
Li, M., Sun, Y., & Chen, H. (2018). The decoy effect as a nudge: Boosting hand hygiene with a worse option. Psychological Science 30, 139–149. doi:10.1177/0956797618761374
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