One weekend night, you want to subscribe to a magazine on a whim. You find that you need 400 yuan to order the electronic version and 750 yuan to order the printed version. The electronic version is cheap and the printed version has good texture. You always like the texture of your publications, but you can spend some delicious meals in 350 yuan. What would you do?
A third party acting as bait
Although many people understand that rational thinking is crucial to making the right decision, unfortunately, rationality does not always prevail. When you are still hesitating about which version to order, you see the option of "Subscribe to the gift package" next to you-subscribe to both the printed version and the electronic version, and only 750 yuan! At this time, you are likely to order the gift package directly, holding the idea that this is equivalent to the electronic version for free!
You won't realize your success until you send money happily-people won't ask for a separate printed version at all (but maybe some fools will). This case is a typical decoyeffect: in this case, the rejected print edition is just a "bait" to stimulate people to choose, and people are more inclined to buy gift packages. In this way, naive consumers were turned on the "irrational" switch by cunning businessmen.
Outside the mall, I'm afraid our irrational behavior is more often reflected in love. In the view of human beings who call themselves higher animals, love is not only for reproduction, but also for rationality and prudence. The story of "Who didn't fall in love with a few scum when he was young" is of course commonplace in Sikong.
Bait effect, other animals also took the bait.
Animals that breed in outer space are different. In the existing theory of sexual selection, people think that animal mate selection should conform to the rational choice model-who is more attractive can be selected-which is intuitive, right? However, a study in the latest issue of Science magazine found that animals are also troubled by irrational mate selection, and "wrong love" is not such a good object.
This time, Amandan. Lea of the University of Texas and her colleagues took aim at an animal called Physalaemuspustulosus. In short, they changed the way to attract female toads.
In the toad population of South America, in order to reproduce. Males must attract females by singing. Female toads choose their "Mr. Right" according to their preference for male calls. The "aesthetic" of this call is quite consistent among South American toads: generally speaking, female toads like deep and soothing tones and sing faster. It sounds like they are describing the horn played by 200bpm, but in fact, their voices are like this:
More like a laser gun, right?
Based on this peculiar preference, researchers began to design an effective scheme to lure female toads. They designed three courtship sounds: a, the timbre is average and the speed is medium; B, poor timbre and fast speed; C, the timbre is the best, but the speed is the lowest. Forty women Buchan then participated in The Sound of Buchan as a judge-they heard two courtship voices at the same time and made a choice. It turns out that courtship sound B is more popular with females than A and C, and A is more popular than C. ..
So, how about feeling the pursuit of ABC III at the same time? Unexpectedly, the female toad prefers the gentle A sound. In the follow-up experiment, the number of female Bubufonis in the test doubled to 80, and the speakers playing C sound were moved to the ceiling to ensure that they could only choose between A and B. It stands to reason that females should prefer the sound of B in the alternative.
The result is still unexpected: A sound is obviously not as attractive as B sound, but more popular.
Yes, maybe you have thought that in this case, C that nobody appreciates becomes the bait that can't be sold. These female toads, who listen to sounds to identify objects, also have bait effect and make irrational mate selection judgments.
Biological roots of irrationality
Unlike people buying clothes, the mating behavior of animals is an important part of the genetic survival of individuals and populations. Every female frog hopes to carry and transmit her genes through healthy and high-quality individuals as much as possible. Because of this huge difference, scientists are very confused about toad's performance: why did toad make an irrational choice on such an important choice?
One possible explanation for this is that rational decision-making is a time-consuming and laborious scheme in the complex courtship scene of listening to frogs: the female toad faces the risk of "my boyfriend was killed first" and "the bat came to eat me". Although this standard of mate selection influenced by the scene is not in line with economic rationality, it may be more suitable for their living environment.
Although the evolutionary significance of this "imperfect" decision-making mechanism remains to be revealed, there is no doubt that the wrong choice of fever is not a patent of human beings-the irrational roots of biology may be deeper than we thought. Next time it's time to regret, you can consider comforting yourself with this amphibian-inspired excuse.