Rory Sutherland Columnist The same but different O many doctors will nod at being told that a virology test is . ne of the most valuable contributions consumer accurate without asking what the false positive rate may be. nd he research can make is to probe the remarkably different recommends that, in presenting rows of decimals, we must include effects on consumer behaviour that may be obtained all the values, even if they are eroes such as . alongside by presenting the same seemingly objective information . , not . lest the shorter number will seem to our in different ways. brains to be smaller. In the and the , a car s fuel efficiency is typically presented ow many markets, I wonder, are ruined by the fatuous and in miles per gallon. In other words, what distance you may drive for unmotivating metrics that are presented supposedly to aid objective a given unit of fuel. This has significant unintended conse uences comparison The interest rate looks ob ective enough, but it on consumer perception of fuel efficiency. woefully underplays the compounding effect, hence reducing the It means that, at first glance, replacing a car that does 15 miles to perceived cost of borrowing and making saving look less the gallon with one that does seems no more significant a attractive than it is. decision than replacing a car that does miles to the gallon with ther sectors are ust as confusing. olar power is one area one that does . et, the first is proportionately far more where, unless you have a degree in physics, you haven t got a clue important than the second for both the environment and the what on earth you re getting for your money. The cost of panels is motorist s wallet. normally stated in terms of the number of years it takes them to In other parts of the world, by contrast, the measure used is litres repay their purchase cost. This looks bad. ut expressed as an per 100 kilometres; this arguably presents a much more accurate annual return, it would look better than and proportionate portrayal of fuel any savings product on the market. consumption. et we are completely We assume numbers are cold Electric cars are sometimes ranked by unaware, for the most part, of the and objective, but they arent. the amount of time it takes to charge a profound biasing effects that these two We impose our perception on battery from flat to full. et how often do different formulations distance fuel them, unwittingly we drive miles on two consecutive versus fuel distance may have on our days or most of us, it s perhaps twice a thinking and actions. year or even less. The norm has been set When I first bought a sat nav, I very around a completely abnormal behaviour. uickly learned that it made very little difference to the estimated The first lesson of marketing, in many ways, is that people are not time of arrival whether you drove down a motorway at a perfectly much influenced by objective reality, hence research that assumes legal mph or wellied it at mph. I noticed that the duration for ob ective perception is always dangerous. espondents may be which I would have to break the speed limit to shave a couple of reacting to the presentation of the facts, not the facts themselves. minutes off my ourney was simply too long to be worth the candle. Some time ago, bird researchers looked at parrot behaviour by y contrast, there was an enormous difference in arrival time showing the birds photographs of various types of fruit. between travelling at and mph. The parrots reactions seemed bi arre, until, that is, someone Using the analogy of miles per gallon, it occurred to me that if pointed out that the photographs were as all printed and speedometers had been differently calibrated to display minutes per televised pictures are optimised for human colour perception. mile instead of miles per hour, our driving behaviour since the photograph of a banana that looks yellow to a human might invention of the automobile might have been entirely different. therefore look green to a parrot. In that parallel universe, ames ean could still be alive. uman perception is like parrot vision. e don t see what others ere s the thing. e assume numbers are cold and ob ective, but think we should. nd don t get me started on pricing research. s they aren t. e impose our perception on them, unwittingly. anyone who s bought overpriced tat at an airport shop can attest, sychologist erd igeren er has written wonderfully about this, the same thing can seem extraordinarily expensive or astoundingly pointing out that natural fre uencies are much preferred to cheap, depending on what mood you are in. percentages when presenting probabilities. e has also found that 7 Impact ISSUE 31 20_pp6-7_Rory.indd 7 18/09/2020 10:01