Imagine for a moment that you are at Burger King. Let's suppose you are somebody who goes there
and you want to eat some french fries. But you are not too hungry. Your hunger is about medium.
But there are only two options. One option is a small portion of french fries for €1.79
and the other option is a big portion of french fries for $2.79. Maybe you
convince yourself that you say well I think the small portion is enough and it's also cheaper so
I think I can live with eating just a small portion of french fries. Now imagine a different
scenario how it is really at Burger King. You go there and there are three options. There is the
small one for €1.79 and there is also the big one for €2.79. But there is also a third one which
is the medium one for €2.59. And as you are medium hungry you think well that's exactly what I was
looking for. I wanted a medium portion of french fries. But then you take a closer look and you see
well the difference between the big portion and the medium portion is just 20 cents. So it's a
better deal to take the big one. So Burger King is not really interested in selling this medium option.
This medium option in fact is just there to make you buy the big portion of french fries.
Because without the medium portion you probably had chosen the smaller one. And in fact there are
several studies in psychology which show that this lure offer effect really works quite well.
For example in one experiment which was about gambling participants in one condition could
choose between two options which were you can either win $179 with a probability of 73%
or you can win $516 with a probability of 28%. Which one would you choose? And usually people
tend to choose the safe one. They more often say well I think I take the 79% chance to win $179.
But when the experimenters added a third option you can win $507 at a probability of 23%.
Much more participants now chose the more dangerous option which in comparison to this lure
option now seemed much more attractive. So now twice as many participants said well I will take
the risk and I will try to win the $516 even though my chances are just 28%.
So this lure offer effect really seems to work quite well and fortunately it could be shown that
when people know about this effect it's not that strong any longer. And the best thing you can do
if you're for example at Burger King and you have to choose the best thing you can do is to think
how you would decide if this lure offer this medium offer would not exist. Would you really
go for the big portion of french fries or would you rather go with the smaller portion of french
fries? So if the science is right this episode should have helped you to make more rational and
more clever decisions in the future. I really hope you enjoyed this one and if you want we will see
next time.
