Concept of Framing
My friend is not alone in experiencing the remarkable effects of merely launching a large number into the air and, consequently, into the minds of others.
Researchers have found that the amount of money people said they’d be willing to spend on dinner went up when the restaurant was named Studio 97, as opposed to Studio 17; that the price individuals would pay for a box of Belgian chocolates grew after they’d been asked to write down a pair of high (versus low) digits from their Social Security numbers; that participants in a study of work performance predicted their effort and output would be better when the study happened to be labeled experiment twenty-seven (versus experiment nine); and that observers’ estimates of an athlete’s performance increased if he wore a high (versus low) number on his jersey.
What’s more, the potent impact of what goes first isn’t limited to big initial numbers.
Other researchers have shown that just after drawing a set of long lines on a sheet of paper, college students estimated the length of the Mississippi River as much greater than those who had just drawn a set of short lines.
In fact, the impact of what goes first isn’t limited to numerics at all: customers in a wine shop were more likely to purchase a German vintage if, before their choice, they’d heard a German song playing on the shop’s sound system; similarly, they were more likely to purchase a French vintage if they’d heard a French song playing.
Use the strength of “association”
1. Become associated with the concept of trust.
He didn’t claim to be the sort of individual—a close friend or family member, perhaps— that people let have open access to their homes. He just arranged to be treated in a way characteristic of trusted individuals of this sort.
