We compare things all the time.
It is one of the good things concerning our species’ elevated intelligence that it is not concerning simply survival any longer, we can compare, evaluate, and build a call on a choice after thinking about it first.
This idea of setting things against one another based on qualities that we'd realize useful is what Robert Cialdini refers to as the Contrast Principle or Contrast Effect. We can say that this is how our brain plays us. We tend to evaluate the lesser or greater value of the second thing through direct comparison with the primary if things are placed in succession.
It is one of the principles that's used as a sales and selling technique as a result of its completely effective in stigmatization and evaluation. Let's perceive with the assistance of an example of a retail business.
Suppose a person enters a shop and says that he desires to shop for a suit and a sweater vest. If you were the employee, what would you possibly show him first to make him likely to spend the most money? One might say that if a person has simply spent tons of cash getting a suit, he may be unwilling to spend a lot on getting a sweater. However, the clothiers know better.
Clothing stores instruct their sales employees to sell the expensive item first. They behave following what the contrast principle would suggest: Sell the suit first because when it comes time to look at sweaters, even expensive ones, their costs won't appear as high in comparison. A person may balk at the concept of paying $95 for a sweater, however, if he has simply bought a $495 suit, a $95 sweater doesn't appear excessive. The same principle applies to a person who wishes to buy accessories like a shirt, shoes, and belt beside his new suit.
The effect goes with selling the property as well. The property dealers show a different set of properties to potential buyers which is undesirable. The company maintains a run-down house or 2 on its lists at inflated costs. These homes aren't supposed to be sold out to customers, but to be shown to them. This is done so that the real properties within the company's inventory would have the benefit of the comparison. The prospects' eyes light up once dealers show the place they need to sell after customers have seen the run-down homes.
The effect results in an increased or diminished perception of the second thing dependent on how we tend to view the primary. It is a result of how our brain evaluates things supported by the mode of comparison that's most simply accessible at that given moment, instead of the most appropriate one.
In other words, we tend to gauge by comparison to accessible referencing instead of using more correct, absolute values, as these aren’t readily out there for our brains to utilize, and this leads us to make biassed judgments.
The Contrast Principle, initially studied by Robert Cialdini in his 2007 book 'The science of Persuasion', explores how our perceptions are formed by using comparison techniques. Once we experience similar things in succession or at the same time, we tend to compare the second with the primary.
This unreliable scale of comparison in our mind affects our judgments concerning people, products, market values, and therefore the values of the many alternative attributes and characteristics. They make us prone to anyone who knows how these biases work.
Here's a letter of a student to her parents that clearly explains how the principle works and I know it for a fact because, for a second there, I was persuaded as well :)
Dear Mother and Dad
Since I left for college I have been remiss in writing and I am sorry for my thoughtlessness in not having written before. I will bring you up to date now, but before you read on, please sit down. You are not to read any further unless you are sitting down, okay?
Well, then, I am getting along pretty well now. The skull fracture and the concussion I got when I jumped out the window of my dormitory when it caught on fire shortly after my arrival here are pretty well healed now. I only spent two weeks in the hospital and now I can see almost normally and only get those sick headaches once a day. Fortunately, the fire in the dormitory, and my jump, were witnessed by an attendant at the gas station near the dorm, and he was the one who called the Fire Department and the ambulance. He also visited me in the hospital and since I had nowhere to live because of the burnt-out dormitory, he was kind enough to invite me to share his apartment with him. It's a basement room, but it's kind of cute. He is a very fine boy and we have fallen deeply in love and are planning to get married. We haven't got the exact date yet, but it will be before my pregnancy begins to show.
Yes, Mother and Dad, I am pregnant. I know how much you are looking forward to being grandparents and I know you will welcome the baby and give it the same love and devotion and tender care you gave me when I was a child. The reason for the delay in our marriage is that my boyfriend has a minor infection that prevents us from passing our pre-marital blood tests and I carelessly caught it from him.
Now that I have brought you up to date, I want to tell you that there was no dormitory fire, I did not have a concussion or skull fracture, I was not in the hospital, I am not pregnant, I am not engaged, I am not infected, and there is no boyfriend. However, I am getting a ''D' in American History, and a 'B' in Chemistry, and I want you to see those marks in their proper perspective.
Your loving daughter,
Sharon
Did you not feel relieved when Sharon mentioned her grades? The D and B felt a little less concerning as compared to skull concussion, pregnancy, infection, marriage, and living in a basement. Well, this is how the contrast principle works. It makes you vulnerable first, tricks your mind into comparing irrelevant things, and makes a wrong judgment.
Next time you go into a showroom, look out for making wrong decisions, and then you may end up spending less :)
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