728: Uncovering the Hidden Elements that Influence Decisions with Eric Johnson

Pete Mockaitis
Eric, welcome to How to be Awesome at Your Job.

Eric Johnson
Pete, thanks for having me.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m excited to dig into your wisdom when it comes to decision-making. It’s one of my favorite topics. We’ve had luminaries like Annie Duke and others on the show, so excited to get into your perspective. But I’d love it if you could kick us off by sharing a particularly tricky decision that you’ve had to make in life and kind what was hard about it and how did you, ultimately, come to that decision?

Eric Johnson
So, one of the things that was most devastating in my life was actually a diagnosis of stage 4 Hodgkin’s. Now, granted, that’s a buzzkill to kick this off, but one of the things that got me thinking about is how people make such serious decisions about treatment, and the way that people actually pose those options to people, changes what they choose. And I became madly obsessed with the literature, and that sort of kicked me off, a lot of my interests in choice architecture.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, now, that’s fascinating right there. So, life or death, high-stakes decisions, you would think, unlike software where you have like a bold, blue, highlighted choice of the two, which is nudging you that way, that people might be a little bit more robust in working through this. But can you expand upon that? Like, how might presenting the options lead people to choose one treatment or approach more or less often than another?

Eric Johnson
So, my experience is interesting but there’s actually a nice study that makes the point even better, and that is they were looking at, actually, patients who were at the end of their life. For some reason, this is going to be a depressing day today but I’ll try it not to be. And they gave them the choice of two different kinds of end-of-life care, “Just pre-check one box or the other. One is called comfort care. The other is called, essentially, extreme care. We’ll do everything we can to keep you alive and the other case, we’ll just take care of your pain.” And there was a 30% difference between people’s choices.

And the question is “Why is that the case?” It’s because that’s not something we’ve thought a lot about. So, you might think an important decision is something where it doesn’t matter how you ask the question. Well, this is an important decision we don’t get to make very often. Hopefully, almost never. And so, lots of the decisions we make in life are things where we don’t have a clear preference, and that’s one of them, but some of them are pretty common.

Like, “What are you going to eat in a restaurant?” You may have a rough idea, “I don’t like liver,” but there are a lot of options out there. You’re trying to predict what you’re going to like in a half hour when you’ve actually finished the meal.

Pete Mockaitis
Wow, yeah, that’s powerful and, in some ways, and I guess the why behind it being a number of things, it’s like, “Well, I don’t know, I guess this is what’s checked, that’s what most people do. I guess this is the standard or recommended go-to option if it’s the one that’s checked.” Or, maybe it’s like, “This decision is so overwhelming and intimidating that it’s kind of a relief that something has been sort of been checked for me, so I’m just going to roll with it.” We’re speculating here but what do you think is behind that?

Eric Johnson
So, you got two of the three things, I think, happens. One is basically it’s easier to take the default – ease. Second thing is endorsement. It’s as if the person who designed the menu, chose something for you so that must be the best thing. But there’s something that’s a lot more fundamental, which is we actually think about things differently depending upon how they’re framed.

So, there’s a great study I love, which actually gives people the choice between 70% lean hamburger or 30% fat hamburger. Now, you’re smart, your audience is smart, you realize that’s the same thing. But, yet, people, when they have the word fat as a description, think about the hamburger differently. They think about clogging their arteries. They think about it being juicy. When it’s lean, they think about protein and muscle mass. It’s actually as if they’re eating two different things even though the label is the only thing that differs.

When you ask about how much they’ll pay, they pay different amounts. Or, you ask people how good the burgers taste, they rate it differently. So, that study shows that when we’re in these situations, what I call assembled preferences, it’s actually the label that changes what we think.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that’s fascinating. And so, the 70% lean won on all the dimensions of measurement.

Eric Johnson
Except unless you like a really juicy burger.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Understood. Okay. Well, so that’s one big surprise right there in terms of just the way things are presented to us changes how we think about them, and, thus, what we select even if it’s high stakes. Any other really big surprises or discoveries you’ve made over your lifetime of work in this domain?

Eric Johnson
So, that first thing is called a default. I want to give it a name so we have a handy name. It’s not default like going broke. It’s like default in what happens when we don’t take an action. A second thing that surprised me, actually, as I was writing the book, is the effect of order. What you see first can be more attractive. This is why you go down to a supermarket, people actually pay to be in different positions of the aisle so you’ll see them. So, something at eye level is actually, typically, gets more attention and is seen first. So, it turns out when you look at the many studies that have been done, effective order is surprisingly large.

Pete Mockaitis
And first is where you want to be if you want to be chosen. Is that right?

Eric Johnson
Well, almost most of the time, particularly if it’s a place where the decision-maker is in control. So, they look at first, they look at second, and then they stop. So, on lots of websites, for example, people only will look at one or two options, click on them to look at them more carefully. But let me give you the counter example. Imagine, instead, we’re going back to the same restaurant we had the menu at before, but now the waiter, it’s a fancy place, is reading you the menu. Now, are you going to pick the first or what else is going on there?

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that’s so funny, that happened to me a few times, whatever that says about my dining choices, but I remember I feel like a little bit nervous, like, “Okay. All right. I really got to strap in, listen, pay a lot of attention.” And I’m thinking, I don’t know if this is what most people do, but like, “Okay, I got to think. I’ve got to give something, a judgment of like thumbs up or thumbs down.” Like, “You’re a finalist or you’re out,” like right away, or else I just can’t even process seven options given to me verbally.

So, I’m like, “Okay, don’t even need to think about that one. Okay, don’t even need to think about…oh, maybe. Prime rib. Interesting. Remember that one.” And so, I’m trying to hold finalists in my head, and then I usually have to ask them and repeat something, like, “What was the third one again?”

Eric Johnson
Right. Exactly.

Pete Mockaitis
So, that’s me but I might be an anomaly.

Eric Johnson
But you’ve gotten a great intuition for it. Because what happens, of course, is what’s the one that’s not going to be clobbered by the next one? The last one. And it turns out, in those situations, where the decision-maker is losing control, last has a big advantage. One of my favorite studies of this is, you may or may not have seen it, but there’s a famous song contest that’s been held for over 50 years in Europe called the Eurovision Song Contest.

And it turns out, people have done studies, last has a big advantage there because people remember it. Memory is really important in both cases, but, yeah, between the head, “Who knows what Estonia…” I’m sorry, any Estonian listeners, “But who knows what Estonia did in the second song?” You remember who was the last. So, order, to go back to your question, is surprisingly important.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Thank you. Well, it sounds like we’ve, maybe, potentially mentioned this, but just to make it explicit, can you give us what is the big idea, core thesis, behind your book The Elements of Choice? It sounds like we’re hitting it. There are things like this that are impacting our choices. Or, how would you articulate the main idea?

Eric Johnson
So, there are two main ideas. The first one is how questions are posed make a difference. But the second one that’s probably most relevant to your listeners is that you are a choice architect. You are a designer. You make the decisions whenever you present somebody with a choice, whether it be your spouse, someone who reports to you, someone you report to. Whenever you’re presenting choices, you’re actually a choice architect. You have control over many of these things, like what the default is, what the right order is.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, so then give us some core principles then in terms of if I have something…Well, I guess, first of all, this presupposes that you’re offering people choices as opposed to saying, “This is what we’re doing now.” Now, I guess you may or may not have the authority or power, influence, sway, relationship, to just, by fiat, say, “This is what’s happening now.” But, maybe, before we delve into the how do we present choices, I’d love to get your take on under what circumstances is it optimal to present multiple choices versus just the, “Hey, I’d like to do this,” or, “How about we do that?”

Eric Johnson
Well, it’s interesting. You say it in a way that says, “How about if we do that?” and in your voice there was a question mark, as if I can come back and say something else. An extreme would be, by fiat, “We are going to go and order this,” and that certainly saves lots of work in decision-making but people often feel like they have lost a lot of power or input or it can be demotivating.

So, a slightly gentler version of that is how many options do you give somebody? Do you give them one, which is your extreme case, in which case, it’s not really a choice? Or, do you give them two, or four, or five? It’s actually quite an interesting aspect of choice architecture.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, yes. And so, I’m curious, are there certain…what are the criteria or factors which might lead me to think, “Hmm, I’m going to go with one choice or option versus a multiple choice or option”?

Eric Johnson
So, how well do I know the person making the decision? If I know a lot of their taste, I can cut down the number of things I show them. So, a menu, when I tell my wife, “What’s on the menu?” Let’s say I’m calling her and saying, “What’s on the menu?” because she’s running a few minutes late and wants me to order for her, if I know her taste, I can give two or three. If it’s somebody I don’t know, I’m going to expand the number of options. I’m going to try and figure out what options are different. So, the more I know the person who’s making a choice, assuming I’m trying to help them, the fewer options I can give them.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, it makes sense certainly as a principle. Okay. And then I’m thinking if it’s just from a general, like influence-mastery perspective, I’m thinking in the course of, let’s just say, I want boss, or collaborator, peer, to come my way with something. And I guess there’s a whole another set – we had Bob Cialdini on the show who was awesome – of principles associated with being influential. But here, it seems like we’re specifically zeroing in on, in a world where we’re sharing multiple options and we would like them to pick the one we want them to pick, how do we do that?

Eric Johnson
So, I think we’ve covered two things already. One is default, say, “If you don’t have anything else in mind, here’s the default.” So, I’ll give you an example of that that turns out to be very handy in my life. I could say to somebody, “Oh, we should get together for a meeting. What’s good for you?” That’s giving them, in essence, an infinite number of options. Instead, I could say, “Look, 9:30 on Tuesday is good for me, but I’m flexible.”

Now, from my perspective, as the designer, as I call that person, I’m going to increase the probability that gets chosen and it’s better for me. From the other person’s perspective, it saves them a little bit of effort. Instead of having to go through their whole calendar, they can look first and start with that as a starting point. And so, that actually probably makes both the designer and the chooser, or the person making the choice, better off.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, I like that. And then, it’s funny as I’m thinking about, I’ve had some conversations with some sales-type folk in which they’re reaching out, and they say, “Hey, would you like to meet at this time or that time?” And I’m thinking, “Well, neither of those times because I don’t want to meet with you at all.” Any thoughts on, I don’t know if you call that presumption, or when there’s a good possibility that they don’t want none of your options? Like, how does that come across in terms of this little…?

Eric Johnson
So, let me step back one second. The premise of the book is actually a little bit different than it would be if I was doing sales. And it’s basically you’re trying to make the chooser make the choice that’s in their best interest. And the world we’re talking about, of course, that may not always overlap but you probably want to get a time that doesn’t get somebody that has to drive into work an hour early for the meeting.

Pete Mockaitis
Sure. And if you’re an ethical salesperson, hopefully, your solution really is, worth their time and effort relative to the alternatives.

Eric Johnson
And, in fact, I’m an optimist, and I think they’re trying to get the right product to you or make you a repeat customer.

Pete Mockaitis
Sure, I’m with you.

Eric Johnson
So, default would be one. We’ve already talked about sorting, what would be first, second, third. And if it’s a salesperson, that’s actually getting closer to a place where it’s a verbal list so you have to be careful that the last is going to be something that’s also remembered. You have to be careful in that decision as well. So, those would be two very concrete steps you could make in setting appointments.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, certainly. And so then, let’s hear some of the others. We’ve talked about the ideal number of options. So, there’s the one or there’s the infinite, and then there’s some discrete numbers in between. How do we think about that?

Eric Johnson
Well, I think there, the issue is basically, again, a lot of us are going to be thinking about the decision-maker and how well you know them, but let me give you a sort of application that’s not exactly how to be great, at least on your job per se. But there’s a really nice example at dating sites. Dating sites differ in the number of options.

So, let me ask you how you do this. If you go to Tinder, the number is infinity. There’s actually something called Tinder thumb for swiping too much. Now, on the other hand, there was a site called Coffee Meets Bagel.
Pete Mockaitis
Yes, I utilized that back in the day. That’s great.

Eric Johnson
It gave you one option, originally, or a small number of options, and they were good. Now, the thing about the chooser who thinks about those two things differently. In Coffee Meets Bagel, you would read the profile and go beyond the picture.

Pete Mockaitis
So, you have more time.

Eric Johnson
Yeah, you have more time and you’re not screening. On the other hand, with Tinder, you’re looking at pictures, I suspect, and then pictures get a big weight, and all the other things like personality get almost no weight. So, it depends on what you want the person to do. If you want them to make a good choice, it’s probably a reason to reduce the number of options.

So, if I gave them too many options, that can result in a poor choice because they may be more shallow in their evaluation, kind of like a Tinder effect, versus if I gave them a limited number of choices, like, “Hey, here’s three really good options,” as opposed to, “Well, there’s 14 things we can do,” then they’re like, “Well, I don’t know. That consulting firm seems to have a cool name, so let’s go with them,” versus, “Oh, three. Okay, I can kind of get into a little bit of detail here and think through the pros and cons of this.”

Eric Johnson
That’s right.

Pete Mockaitis
Cool. All right. Well, so then, three, I said, was kind of arbitrary. But do you have some thoughts on two versus three versus four versus five?

Eric Johnson
Right. Well, one of the things that’s very tempting to write a book like this is to say five is the magic number. But imagine we’re designing an airplane, would I say, “Two engines is always the right number of engines”? No, it depends on the kind of plane it is. So, rather than say three, I want to give you the principles to think about, which is one thing is that you increase the number of options, people get more variety, but they tend to get overloaded.

So, there are lots of cases where you want to give people variety, particularly if they don’t know you well, but I don’t want to go, like the New York City school system gives kids 769 different high schools they could choose between. That’s a bit too many.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. Well, I’m thinking about my toddler, I kind of give him two shirts, generally, to choose from, and that seems to work pretty well. What do you think?

Eric Johnson
As they get older, they may want a little more, a couple more. But, notice, you’re doing something super important there, which is you’re limiting the choice or the options you want by assuming…you picked those two shirts.

Pete Mockaitis
It’s cold outside so I’d like the long sleeve situation, “This one is cleaner than the other one and a nice shirt.”

Eric Johnson
A friend of mine solved a problem, how to get their three-year old, so this might be useful, to bed by changing it to, “Do you want to go to bed or not go to bed?” to, “Do you want to fly in the bed or do you want to bounce in the bed?”

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, yeah. I did that one.

Eric Johnson
No more fighting but, notice, control of the choice set is a lot of control there. And I think, as a parent, you’d argue it’s in both your and their best interest.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s excellent. Like, “Do you want to fly to the car like an airplane or hop to the car like a kangaroo?”

Eric Johnson
You’ve done this before.

Pete Mockaitis
I can’t get away with that with grownup professionals. “You pay them with a check or with Venmo?”

Eric Johnson
Right. But you could, for example, limit…let’s take a common that many of your listeners have, which is pension plans. How many pension plans are you offered? Which ones? That’s a real-world example that I think is really important. And the funny thing is, for many of these things we’re talking about, people aren’t aware of their effects.

So, the defaults, people have actually done studies where they say, “Okay, now you’ve made a choice,” people see different defaults, they choose different things. And you say, “Did the default affect what you chose?” And they say, “No. It might affect other people but I made my decision based on what I wanted.”

So, the interesting thing for folks here is that the choices you make as an architect, as a designer, actually are things that will influence people and often they won’t realize the influence you have.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s powerful and the results can be massive when you come to retirement age, like, “Oh, shoot. There might’ve been a whole lot more money had I chosen a different option,” or a whole lot less. So, okay, we got a number of elements. Any other key elements you want to cover?

Eric Johnson
I think we’ve gotten a big list. The only other one that I think would be important is when you give people choices, you often describe the choices.

Pete Mockaitis
Got you.

Eric Johnson
So, what might be called attributes, so price, quality. For a car, it’s how many miles per gallon it gets, how fast it gets. Another thing that a designer does is present attributes. Imagine you’re giving someone a choice between two consulting assignments. You might use travel. You might use challenge. You might use opportunity for advancement. You, as a designer, get to choose which attributes are first and what’s presented.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s true.

Eric Johnson
So, I know it’s a long list but these all are things that you, as the designer, have as tools.

Pete Mockaitis
And when you describe choices or attributes, are there any best or worst practices there? Because, again, I’m thinking about the overwhelm, I guess there’s relevance, like, “I might not care about your liter is a turbo horsepower or whatever. Like, those numbers don’t mean things to me.” And maybe I should be better educated about vehicles. That’s come up before. “But I’m just not.” So, any pro tips on best and worst practices for great descriptions within the attributes?

Eric Johnson
So, I think one of the things that is a classic result is imagine calories. Now, if you’re really concerned about your weight, you probably understand calories, but a very nice example is to convert that into the number of miles walked you would have to do to walk off those calories.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, yeah. Got you.

Eric Johnson
The general principle is making sure the attribute is in a concrete way that people understand.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes. And I think that’s a great in terms of I think like computer things, in terms of like I understand very much what the impact of a 1-terra byte versus a 2-terra byte drive is, and I just bought a 2-terra byte, versus others, like, “What’s that even mean in terms of movies or songs or pictures or whatnot?” Because I often find myself, if I’m reading something and I’m just sort of out of my depth, I don’t know, I’m thinking about power tools or drills or impact drivers or something, they have numbers, like, “Is that good? I hope. It’s probably not horrible if you’re telling me about it. So, certainly, it has to be kind of relevant and understandable.”

And I guess I’m also thinking about just like, “How much is too much?” And now I’m thinking about sales landing pages on websites. And some of them can just go for dozens of pages, like, “Wow, people are reading that?” And others are pretty darn quick in terms of header, subhead, couple bullets, and then that’s that. How do you think about how we make the decision for more versus less?

Eric Johnson
The really interesting thing about your point is that people seem to be very sensitive to the initial cost of information. So, if you land on a page that has an ugly font and it’s hard to look at, even if the offer is attractive, you’re likely to bail. So, we know a lot just by watching firms do their customer funnel, how they actually acquire customers, that each click is very important, and to minimize the effort for each of those clicks is terribly, terribly important in attracting customers. And, again, if you think about trying to get somebody at work to sign on for a project, very similar stories apply.

Pete Mockaitis
So, reducing the friction, making it as easy as possible to do that.

Eric Johnson
Particularly at the beginning.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, then I’m curious about, so the flipside, any sort of like mistakes, or cognitive biases, or things we really got to be on our guard for when we are trying to make optimal decisions and present choices optimally to others?

Eric Johnson
So, the first big mistake is most of us don’t realize we’re designers so we’re doing this very haphazardly. So, we use what is first in our mind is what we tell people. So, if you’re saying, “Where do we go to lunch?” well, what happens is the thing that you think of first, it may not even be where you want to go. But, in general, I think neglecting choice architecture is the biggest mistake that we make. It’s because we don’t think it affects us, and, in fact, we don’t even realize how it affects other people. So, there are now a lot of studies showing that people don’t do things that would be in both their best interest and that chooses best interest.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Good. Thank you. Well, tell me, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we hear about some of your favorite things?

Eric Johnson
Well, I think the only thing I would say is realize that deciding how to present information to people is almost a secret power that you have, that it’s actually something that is a source of your ability to help other people, that if you don’t know about it, you’re neglecting a really important aspect of your job as a boss, or as a colleague, or as a report, any of the above.

Pete Mockaitis
And when you talk about power, that makes me think, can you share with us some more of the most sort of eye-popping sort of results or case studies and how little changes make huge differences? So, that pre-checked thing, that was pretty wild in terms of, “How do you want to be taken care of in your final years?” I mean, wow, what a huge impact just to pre-check can make. Any other striking examples or cases that leap to mind?

Eric Johnson
Well, let me talk about another of the tools we’ve talked about, which is order, what’s presented first. It turns out, on ballots, somebody is first, someone is second, etc. What research shows is the first choice gets about 2% more vote even in presidential elections. So, if we think about go back to the year 2000, Gore versus Bush, remember it all came down to Florida. In Florida, there was like 500 votes separating them.

It turns out, Bush, George W. was first in the ballot in Florida because the governor, his brother, Jeb, got to pick who was first. And, of course, any governor would pick the member of their own party. It wasn’t because it was his brother. That probably made the difference in who was elected president of the U.S.

Pete Mockaitis
Hotdog. That was a big case study. Thank you, Eric.

Eric Johnson
It’s not my research but it’s actually there was a case, by the way, in Texas where two Supreme Court justices who ran against each other, Pete Greene versus Rick Greene, whichever Greene, there they randomized. That’s how we know it made a difference. They picked one first in half the time, the other first the other half the time. There was a 20% difference between who got the vote depending upon who was first.

Pete Mockaitis
Wow! So, it was 20% when we actually got to randomized it, so it might be much bigger than 2%.

Eric Johnson
Right. In that case, because they had the same last name, and nobody knew who they were, that’s one of the reasons it’s 20%.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, fair enough. Well, that’s really heavy. I’m just sort of sitting and processing that for a moment. And then for our elections in the U.S., is that normally how it goes, the governor gets to pick? Or is alphabetical? Or does it vary state by state?

Eric Johnson
It varies a bunch by state by state but often it’s, in some places, the incumbent, which gives them an advantage. In other states, it’s the party in power that gets to be first. In Delaware, it turns out, just to be equally surprising, the Democrats always are the first slot in the ballot.

Pete Mockaitis
Always. Okay. All right. Well, now, could you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Eric Johnson
So, something I’ve thought a lot about is a quote that I saw when I was a young person reading science magazines, and it was a Browning quote, “For a man’s reach should exceed their grasp, or what’s a heaven for?” In other words, keep striving. You’re not going to get there, but go for it.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, lovely. And how about a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Eric Johnson
Well, I think I have to admit that I very much like one that I did, which used the default manipulation to change people’s willingness to be organ donors.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, tell us the result. What went down?

Eric Johnson
Well, basically, if you look at people’s willingness, not necessarily to be a donor, but to be willing to be a donor, there is a 40% gap between those people where you are a donor by default, which happens in several European countries, and countries like the U.S. where you have to choose to be an organ donor. So, the default actually can change people’s willingness to be an organ donor.

Pete Mockaitis
Hotdog. And a favorite book?

Eric Johnson
When I was very young, I read two books at the same time practically, and they would change my life. One was Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. The other was Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. And growing up in New Jersey and not seeing much of the world, this really opened up my eyes.

Pete Mockaitis
Cool. And a favorite tool, something you use to be awesome at your job?

Eric Johnson
I actually use, I’ve tried a lot, like many people, many different kinds of planning software. I use something called Marvin, but the important point is not the software. It’s basically sitting down every day and doing a to-do list that includes time, not just, “I’m going to do it in this order,” but, “I’m going to do it at this time.”

Pete Mockaitis
And is there a particular nugget you share, something that really connects and resonates with folks you’re chatting with?

Eric Johnson
One of the things that I find interesting about using social media and, particularly, to promote the book, is to see what other people are saying. And I think one of the things that I hear people are repeating, so I let them choose, is basically, “Being a choice architect is something that’s a power that I didn’t know I had.”

Pete Mockaitis
And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Eric Johnson
Well, really good, Twitter is @ProfEricJohnson. And there’s also a nice website on TheElementsofChoice.com.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Eric Johnson
I think, basically, realize that you actually have the power whenever you present choices to another person that, if you don’t think about it, you’re going to waste an important part of what you can do on your job.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Eric, thank you. This has been a treat. I wish you much luck with all of the choices you make and present.

Eric Johnson
Thank you very much. It’s been a lot of fun, Pete.