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Behavioral Economics and Social Media
Behavioral Economics and Social Media
Raghu Vinod
MA 15 in International Media and Marketing
Student-No. 1155800002
Table of Content
Abstract..............................................................................................................
Chapter 1: An Introduction To Behavioral Economics...............................1
1.1 WHAT IS BEHAVIORAL ECONOMICS?..........................................................1
1.2 INDEPENDENT VARIABLES THAT INFLUENCE CONSUMPTION AND
BEHAVIOR........................................................................................................ 3
Chapter 2: Principles Of Behavioral Economics......................................... 6
PRINCIPLE 1: THE EFFECT OF EXPERIENCE.....................................................6
PRINCIPLE 2: LOSS AVERSION THROUGH REFERENCE DEPENDENCE...............6
PRINCIPLE 3: THE PROBLEM OF SELF-CONTROL AND PROCRASTINATION......7
PRINCIPLE 4: THE PRICE OF OWNERSHIP.........................................................8
PRINCIPLE 5: CONTEXT OF OUR CHARACTER.................................................8
PRINCIPLE 6: PATERNALISM IS GOOD AND BAD..............................................9
Chapter 3: Applying Behavioral Economics Theories To Social Media ..10
1. SOCIAL HERDING.......................................................................................10
2. FRAMING....................................................................................................11
3. ANCHORING................................................................................................12
4. VARIABLE SCHEDULE OF REINFORCEMENT...............................................13
Chapter 4: Conclusion.................................................................................. 14
References...................................................................................................... 15
Abstract:
Economics traditionally works on the principle of assuming people are rational by nature and
using that economists base their theories to determine economic behavior or outcomes in a
considered scenario. Behavioral economics takes the assumption humans are rational by
nature out of the equation and uses cognitive, social and emotional influences on economic
behavior to develop theories about peoples perceptions of values and a range of biases.
Behavioral economics uses psychology to determine how humans make decisions based on a
set of metrics such as environment, personal preferences and traditional values. According to
Behavioral Economics, people are not always rational and most certainly not always arriving
at decisions after rigorous cost-benefit analysis and careful deliberation. Through this paper,
the author chooses to focus on how our thinking and decision making process can be subject
to uncertainty, feedback from our environment and our processing capability.
Given how were unconsciously influenced by our habits, feelings, physiological and
emotional states, Behavioral Economics offers an insight to researchers of Human behavior
as well as Economists in determining how our choices could be applied to various domains
such as finance, health, consumer marketing and public policies. Since our world is
interconnected through Social Media, businesses and psychologists consider Facebook,
Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram more prominent than ever before because these social
structures are an important determinant of economic behavior. The author hopes to provide
an outlook into
1. How Social Media is influenced by Behavioral Economics through its principles and
salient examples.
2. How economic behavior can be understood by considering and analyzing social
interactions through social media platform
economics has also been defined as "the combination of microeconomic concepts, principles,
and measures along with concepts, principles and experimental methods developed by
behavior analysts" (Bickel & Vuchinich, 2000, p. 5).
Economists often ask themselves why do consumers choose as they do? Marketers use
various means at their disposal to try and influence peoples preferences but they are often
unable to explain what people really want and why their preferences are relative, social and
contextual but not absolute. Thaler (2015, p. 25) outlines that the core premise of economic
theory is that people choose by optimizing. If you were to choose weekly grocery items,
youre bound to choose the ones that best serve your needs and desires. Thaler (2015, p. 25)
also states that the belief upon which Economists make their choices is based on human
behavior as unbiased. The premise of optimization can be witnessed in our day to day lives
through the cycles of supply and demand or choosing to spend $10 on a multitude of items
through sale in a supermarket rather than buying a single item for the same price.
The model used by economists assumes that human beings are extremely calculative and
deliberate in their choices. This is a popular misconception and the best example for this is
Financial crash of 2007-2008. Virtually no economist predicted such a financial meltdown
would be a possibility because economists based their financial models based on predictive
human behavior of resisting big changes.
In retrospect, behavioral scientist, Alex Samson, summarized Behavioral Economics into six
points (2015, p. 1):
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)
as a
complement so as to form a framework where the key variables are consumption and decision
making.
The key independent variables that influence consumption and behavior are:
1. The delay between the behavior and the reward, which is considered in terms of the
discounting of future value of the reward (Rothschild, 2001, p. 10).
Consumers make decisions based on a trade-off between benefit and cost. Let us consider
this variable from health aspect. Individuals who choose to exercise regularly are making
a choice that includes short term costs over long term benefits while those that do not
indulge in the behavior of exercising are opting for short term benefit over long term
costs. Individuals intuitively discount the future based on their judgment as to its
attainability. They evaluate alternative options with respect to current and future cost and
benefit. When people can't see much future cost or benefit of an action, they discount
these values to a higher degree and choose based on immediate benefits and costs; those
who perceive them actually will receive future value will discount less. (Rothschild,
2001, p. 10)
2. The alternative choices available at the time of the behavior (Rothschild, 2001, p. 10).
Individuals always have the choice to exercise their will in a free society. Because human
beings rarely indulge in dealing with absolutes over their choices, we must consider
everything is relative. There exists no internal compass that directs us to choose object A
over object B. In fact, the only parameter we actively consider while choosing between
two objects are their advantages over one another.
We compare apples with apples and oranges with oranges. The rationality expected of us
holds true when we compare two objects which have no relation whatsoever. If we
compare a car and a phone, depending on our needs, we will either choose the car or the
phone. However, should the two objects be the same, we relate them to one another much
like we relate our jobs to that of our colleagues or our holiday plan to someone elses
holiday plan.
In any scenario, alternative choices may or may not lead to the desired behavior and/or to
reduced externalities. (Rothschild, 2001, p. 10). Social background, emotions, feelings
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and psychological aspects play an important role in estimating value accordingly and
determining the choices an individual can make at any given time.
3. The price of the behavior (Rothschild, 2001, p. 10)
In Behavioral Economics, anchoring is defined as a particular form of priming effect
whereby initial exposure to a number serves as a reference point and influences
subsequent judgments about value (Samson, 2015, p. 28). Consumers are bombarded with
prices and marketers are often trying to find the right balance between overpricing and
underpricing an article.
When we contemplate buying a house, a car, a phone or any consumer related item, we
notice the price tags and compare it with various references for benchmarking. This
behavior is called anchoring and by anchoring were setting a benchmark within which
we establish a range of prices acceptable to us.
Let us take the example of Apple - when Apple released the iPhone, they introduced it at
$600 a piece but later they reduced it to $400. By implanting the price of $600 in
consumers minds and then by reducing the price by $200, Apple was able to make
consumers think that $400 was a real bargain. Its not the $400 or $600 that is relevant in
the example of Apple. Rather, from Apples perspective, it was important to note how
consumers were willing to arrive at a decision to buy their product using simple
behavioral economics tools. By setting up a price, Apple could determine how prices
influence consumers perception of value (Ariely, 2009, para. 24).
In essence, were willing to let ourselves be subjected to manipulation and our own
response to the external stimuli has a price which ought to be considered in terms of time,
monetary expenses and health. Whether a consumer is satisfied with his/her purchase is a
personal matter but for every choice there is a price to be paid and the price could vary
from monetary value to health depending upon the item were willing to consume.
4. The income, or resources, of the individual (Rothschild, 2001, p. 10)
Consumption and spending are the consequents of processing and choice making. Using
scarce resources to maximize short-run benefit is rational when the future is highly
discounted in favor of the present. This discounting results from both accurate and
exaggerated assessments of the environment but is rational within the bounds of imperfect
decision-making. (Rothschild, 2001, p. 10)
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eventual financial meltdown of 2008. In each case, investors with biases comprised the
majority of traders on wall street and outranked the rational traders by a huge margin.
Just before the US dot-com bubble burst, some technology companies had their stocks trading
on wall street at an exorbitant rate due to the actions of few irrational traders. With irrational
traders, short-sale constraints can cause some stocks to become overpriced. With short-sale
constraints, rational arbitrageurs can refrain only from buying overpriced stocks, and if there
are enough irrational traders, stocks can be overpriced (Lamont & Thaler, 2003, p. 249).
Lehmann Brothers is another prime example of how traders and company directors can
utilize behavioral economics principles to psychologically boost a market for their own
benefit.
1. Social herding
People believe something is good or bad depending on others opinions. In our society,
herding often involves people using others point of view or actions as a guide to rational
behavior, instead of investing their time in a trial and error scenario whereby they explore all
possible outcomes of their actions and they choose the best ones.
Herding can be defined as the phenomenon of individuals deciding to follow others and
imitating group behaviors rather than deciding independently and atomistically on the basis
of their own, private information. (Baddeley, 2010, p. 282).
Some of the most prominent examples of social herding from a social media perspective is
Ice Bucket Challenge. From not only sharing something over social media, people were able
to make an appointment with each other virtually by challenging each other to fulfil a task
and promote awareness of the disease - Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis as well as
encouraging donations to research.
Herding can also be destructive in market contexts because blindly following market trends
in swarms can lead to huge bubbles and cause a financial meltdown. During the 2000s, the
internet dot com bubble in US drove the stock price of any companies related to internet
upwards and consequently any Information Technology firm being traded on Wall Street was
grossly overvalued. Eventually, the bubble bust and it caused substantial financial damage.
2. Framing
Choices can be worded in a way that highlights the positive or negative aspects of the same
decision, leading to changes in their relative attractiveness. Different types of framing
approaches have been identified (Levin, Schneider, & Gaeth, 1998, p. 150):
1. First one is risky choice framing. In this type of framing, the outcomes of a potential
choice involving options differing in level of risk are described in different ways.
Example for this could be - risk of losing 4 out of 10 pencils vs opportunity to save 6
out of 10 pencils.
2. Second form of framing is what we call attribute framing, in which some
characteristic of an object or event serves as the focus of the framing manipulation.
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Example for this is having to choose between buying 1.5% fat milk or buying 3.5%
fat milk.
3. Third type of manipulation is goal framing, in which the goal of an action or behavior
is framed. Example for this could be motivating people to quit smoking in public by
offering $10 reward or imposing $5 penalty.
Through framing, it is possible to change peoples behavior for the better by simply
modifying the contextual elements.
Let us consider the below example (Kamenica, 2012, p. 3):
Weve all stood behind someone at a photocopier and wanted to push in. Obviously, some
psychology experimenters felt the same and tested different phrases for effectiveness. The
photocopier is called Xerox Machine in this example. Here are the frames:
Frame 1: "Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine?
Frame 2: "Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I have to
make some copies?
You can see that the second frame had extra, seemingly redundant, information. However, in
the second frame the addition of the word 'because followed by a reason forces the decision
through a different frame (at least for some people).
Result: In frame 1 about half (60% of people) said okay. In the altered version almost
everyone (93% of people) said yes.
3. Anchoring
As mentioned in Chapter 1, section 1.2, Anchoring is defined as a particular form of priming
effect whereby initial exposure to a number serves as a reference point and influences
subsequent judgments about value (Samson, 2015, p. 28). Consumers are bombarded with
prices and marketers are often trying to find the right balance between overpricing and
underpricing an article.
In order to understand Anchoring, its also important to note the following:
Imagine your 11:00 am flight is cancelled and you need to be in Destination A tomorrow
morning. And when the customer care offers you two flights, one at 7:00 am next morning
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and 9:00 pm on the same day, the customer care is creating a mental anchor through the less
desirable option, there by making the best alternative seem more acceptable. This technique
of experience engineering is an example of anchoring (Dixon & Toman, 2010)
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Chapter 4: Conclusion
The implications of Behavioral Economics are far-reaching, and its concepts can be applied
in any sphere of activity such as finance, health, marketing, public policies. Because of its
multi-disciplinary, it can be applied most notably in social media networks which will
dominate the economic paradigms in future as more and more consumers interact with each
other over these channels. There is substantial research qualitative and quantitative to
suggest incorporating social networks into economics will become increasingly necessary.
Behavioral Economics is not a replacement for traditional economics but an additional tool
which applies psychological aspects such as emotions, feelings, actual behavior to tackle
practical issues and cultivate a culture of psychological analysis in any branch of science
among governments and corporations alike. The challenges for Behavioral Economics
include influencing free will of consumers in decision making through psychological
processes as well the wider context of marketing ethics. The questions that need to be asked
are
1. How can a behavioral scientist steer consumer towards a particular direction without
affecting their sense of free will?
2. Furthermore, will people have sufficient control over their choices and be able to
arrive at a decision without conceding their self-interest in a consumer environment
Behavioral Economics is a radical new concept for marketers in which it expands their
existing marketing tool kit while allowing them to understand human behavior more
systematically. Understanding exactly how minute changes to details of an offer can
psychologically influence the way people react is crucial to optimizing core principles of
economics and consumerism at a low cost.
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Affidavit
I herewith declare that the following work I have prepared is my own without the use
of materials other than those cited.
Signature
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