Predictably Irrational, Revised and Expanded Edition

Aw... ran out. This book is awesome!

A second experiment tested the same general idea by priming the concept of the elderly, using words such as Florida, bingo, and ancient. After the participants in this experiment completed the scrambled-sentence task, they left the room, thinking that they had finished the experiment—but in fact the crux of the study was just beginning. What truly interested the researchers was how long it would take the participants to walk down the hallway as they left the building. Sure enough, the participants in the experimental group were affected by the "elderly" words: their walking speed was considerably slower than that of a control group who had not been primed. And remember, the primed participants were not themselves elderly people being reminded of their frailty— they were undergraduate students at NYU.

"... our results suggest that it is easier for them to fight temptation before it arises than after it has started to lure them in. In other words, avoiding temptation altogether is easier than overcoming it."

"What about the condition with no money? Did these participants work less than the ones who got the low monetary payment—or, in the absence of money, did they apply social norms to the situation and work harder? The results showed that on average they dragged 168 circles, much more than those who were paid 50 cents [101 circles], and just slightly more than those who were paid five dollars [159 circles]. In other words, our participants worked harder under the nonmonetary social norms than for the almighty buck (OK, 50 cents).

Perhaps we should have anticipated this. There are many examples to show that people will work more for a cause than for cash."