Decision Making and Emotions Review

When we talk about persuading people and making them take a decision, whether in-person or digitally, there are a lot of factors that affect their decision-making process. There is no one factor that we can pip point to, that is solely responsible for their decisions. One factor might be dominant over others, but it’s not the only factor that is influencing their decisions. Some of the most commonly talked about and most influential factors are:

1.     Cognitive Biases: This means that human beings tend to favour some or have prejudice for some things based on limited information. These are of several kinds and play an active role in our decision-making process. One of the most talked about cognitive bias is Sunk Cost Fallacy. This arises from the fact that we tend to stick to things that we have put time and efforts in. Even though something might not be worth continuing for us, we tend to stick to it.

2.     Memories: Having previous memories of something tremendously influence our decision-making process. Suppose you have a bad experience using a product of some company and then you later get an option to buy another product of that company, it’s highly likely you are not going to buy it, as your previous memory kicks in and convinces you to not buy. This can also lead to positive outcomes when the experience is good or even when someone might have recommended that product to you.

3.     Reason: We try to reason our decisions based on the best information available. That is why it is crucial to give the users they might need to rationalise their decision-making process.

4.     Emotion: As they say, ‘We buy with emotion and justify it with logic.’ That is very true. We might want to think that our decisions are rational, and we have reasons for everything. However, it turns out that human beings do a lot of post-decision rationalising. We tend to rationalise our decisions after we’ve made them. That is why it’s very crucial to bring that emotional element in your product page, where people would want to buy their product.

These are some of the factors that control our decision-making. Working on optimising our landing pages for these factors will lead to more conversion of customers as we are assisting them in making that decision easier.

When we talk about decision making and rationality, there are lots of theories in Behavioural Science that explain why humans do what they do. Although, the debate of rationality and irrationality might go forever, we have observed a lot of decisions that human beings take are rationalised after its taken, i.e, post-rationalising. This leads us to explore what’s really happening inside our brain and how we can use that information to take advantage.

When we dive into the neuroscience and brain, we realise there are two systems that are working inside our brain: System 1 and System 2.

System 1: This is the subconscious and emotional part of our brain that has majority of the control. It’s fully automated and we don’t really control it. It’s there so that we don’t have to spend energy taking decisions. This was necessary as we evolved in the jungles with tigers and hyenas, where quick decision making was absolutely necessary. If we didn’t take snap decisions, our survival would be threatened. It’s also the part where the habit loops sit and they control what we automatically do.

System 2: This is the conscious and rational part of our brain that needs full focus to function effectively. It’s very less involved in the decision-making process. It’s the part of our brain that makes us aware about our own presence. It’s also involved in the post-rationalising of the decisions.

The two systems are dependent on each other. The one is necessary of survival and the other is necessary for growth and progress. That is why it’s very essential to cater our message to both in the proportion of their decision-making involvement.

One very interesting theory from Behavioural Science is Mental accounting. This means how we place different values on the same amount of money, based on subjective criteria, often with detrimental results. If we present the cost of a product in terms of amount/month, people tend to not think of the thing as very expensive.

For example, suppose a mattress costs 99 USD. This might be expensive for people. But when you tell them it’s only 0.99 USD per month for 100 months, they don’t feel it as expensive. The reason being they immediately start comparing it to other per month expenses, and clearly 0.99 USD/month doesn’t seem to be a huge investment. There are other theories in behavioural economics that might be very useful in understanding the human behaviour and why people make decision the way they do.

When presented with information in the form of a copy/advertisement or anything, there are basically three things that are responsible for our decision-making process.

1.     Attention: Research has shown that we pay attention to things very selectively and may ignore some information completely. That is why it’s very important to gain attention at the beginning, as that would allow them to continue reading our copy, or watch the entire clip, in case of an advertisement.

2.     Emotion: If the emotion is produced with the product involved, it boosts up memory for that product and can lead to positive impact on the sales of a product. If the emotions is evoked, and the consumers don’t remember what part of the product was involved in that, it might affect your sales. That is why placing your product at the emotional peaks is very crucial, as it allows them to remember our product and associate the product with the emotional high. Coco-cola does this amazingly. Their association of coke to happiness is pretty evident in their campaigns and that is why people buy coke so much.

3.     Memory: Emotion is the glue that causes the memory to stick. As mentioned earlier, it’s very crucial to place your product at the time when the emotional peaks are high, so the memory is long-term and their chances of remembering the product are more.

This is how you can optimise your web-presence and your landing pages to make the decision-making easier for your users. Understanding how our brain works and why we do what we do give us an upper hand when creating products/landing pages, etc.

This was the week 4 for the CXL mini-degree and I’ve already learnt a lot. If you found this article helpful. Also, I will really appreciate any comments on the same, as I will be publishing more articles on digital psychology and persuasion in the upcoming weeks. All of them are to make sure you become a better persuader online and help grow your business.