The Psychology of 9.99, 10 and 1200

People think an item is way cheaper when priced at $9.99 rather than $10.

Photo from Photoxpress

Price tags ending with .99 rule the stores. They are prevalent wherever you shift your view. Ever wonder why retailers do that? And you can expect certain category of products and services with price ending in 0, like $10 or $400. Even the emission of the comma in 1200 is a result of pricing studies.

9.99s

9 has a pricing power. Any item that ends with .99 speaks out “great value”, “sale” and “discount”. Buyers think that it’s the lowest price it could ever have.

People round $9.99 as $9 instead of $10. Researchers call this the left-digit effect. Everybody that has a brain is susceptible to think that way because that’s just how human minds work. And we are more led to round prices on the left digit because we see .99 innumerable times.

William Poundstone on his book Priceless analyzed eight different studies on .99 prices and found that sales increase by 24% on .99 prices compared to the 10s. Kenneth J. Wisniewski from the University of Chicago conducted another study at a local grocery chain:  sales of margarine increased by 65% when price was dropped from 89 cents to 71 cents; but it increased by 222% when dropped to 69 cents!

People buy more when the price ends with 9. That’s why we see a lot of .99s.

10s

A tipped polo from Neiman Marcus is priced at $150, while a Dolce & Gabbana leopard print bag is priced at 3,425.00. Both prices are ending with 0, and both products are high end. An item whose price ends with 0 communicates premium quality.

People get satisfaction on owning an expensive product. People are convinced that prices ending with 0s are upscaled; and prestige brands love it that way. Companies wanted to keep the reputation on their products so not all can buy it and those who can buy it will love buying it.

1200s

How they write it affects how you buy it. The longer the price appears, the more expensive we perceive. This is the reason why restaurants minimize the price on their menu with 29 rather than $29.99.

Commas and cents make the price longer; hence, increasing the magnitude of the price (at least according to our brain). 1200 seemed to appear cheaper than 1,200.00. There are less words in “twelve hundred” than in “one thousand two hundred”, so we think of 1200 as less.

Did .99s lured you?

Sources:
The Psychology Behind The Sweet Spots Of Pricing; Fast Company
Pricing Psychology: 7 Sneaky Retail Tricks; CBSNews
5 Psychological Studies on Pricing That You Absolutely MUST Read; Kiss Metrics
Party Like It’s 19.99: The Psychology of Pricing; Wise Bread
An Easy Way to Make Your Prices Seem Lower; Neuromarketing

10% Brain Usage: is it True?

Humans only use 10% of their brain, so they say.

Photo from David Goehring’s flickr

The 10% brain usage is definitely a myth for the scientific community. Every region of the brain is performing, whether it is from the back’s occipital lobe that controls our vision or the frontal lobe that’s responsible for our cognitive functioning. Every region of the brain is almost working constantly to accommodate our activities; even those that we don’t have to think of doing, like breathing, are under the brain’s supervision.

100% of our brain is working hard; that’s why it demands so much energy to operate. Our brain “represents three percent of the body’s weight and uses 20 percent of the body’s energy”, said Johns Hopkins’ neurologist Barry Gordon.

Where the myth came from?

It may have started from William James’ words in The Energies of Men (1908), “we are making use of only a small part of our possible mental and physical resources”. Later on, Karl Lashley studied the brains of rats where he removed portions of cerebral cortex and the rats can perform specific tasks like nothing happened. So people would be thinking, we won’t need most of it.

The more interesting claim is human’s potential psychic abilities. It is indulging to believe that there’s even more we could do, perhaps have a super memory or heroic capabilities.

The more appropriate claim is we only know 10% of our brain. That 10% are neurons, and the rest of the brain is supporting glial cells. There is still a broad spread of exploration to know what glial cells are for.

But the science community is not backing off to know more. In a way, you could buy Einstein’s brain via an iPad app. $9.99 gives anyone access to images of the genius’ brain cut into 350 slides, hoping to spark another knowledge to his brain apart from knowing that his parietal lobe (processing of mathematics, language, and spatial understanding) is wider than normal.

Is this too much to take from the man who already contributed so much to our comprehension? The man who wished for his body to be cremated?

As long as the person is dead, it seems, his voice will not matter. Jacopo Annese of the University of California “predicts that there will be another Einstein, and when that individual dies, we’ll be prepared (we’re hanging on for that 3D-mapped interactive specimen)” (Wired UK).

Do you believe that nothing should hamper the search for knowledge?

Sources:
Do People Only Use 10 Percent Of Their Brains?; Scientific American
Do We Use Only 10% of Our Brains?; Washington.edu
Einstein’s Brain Goes Digital With iPad App; Wired UK

Genetically Modified Humans Are Created

The genetically modified organisms (GMO) are corn, tomato, soy, cow.. and the latest addition was human.

Photo from NASA

There is a “drug” that will cure a rare fat production disrupting disease by modifying a damaged gene; and 1 or 2 people in a million will get the treatment. You may think that it’s not that bad, at most there could be two people per million to be modified. That’s not the only story.

30 genetically modified babies are already created in the US. The cover reason behind this is parents having problems conceiving. 2 of those babies have gene combinations from 3 different parents. Now these parents will have a more favorable life, as the geneticists state, “this genetic modification method may one day be used to create genetically modified babies ‘with extra, desired characteristics such as strength or high intelligence’” (Gucciardi, 2012).

There are no policies guiding genetic modifications of humans, and powerhouse countries are taking advantage of it. Human stem cells are implanted on goats in China; human brain cells are embedded on mice in the US; 150 human-animal hybrids are grown in the labs of UK.

We don’t know what these monsters are for. Maybe for research to treat diseases, maybe something else. What we know is the government funds scientists and biotech companies to achieve “a much larger feat – genetically modified humans in the form of ‘super soldiers’” (Waking Times, 2012).

Rats that ate genetically modified corn either became ill or died (Mestel, 2012). Let’s say we take away ethics, GMO’s safety is still not guaranteed. But the bigger issue here is invasion of GMOs. When you put a genetically modified plant in a field, it could potentially affect the other plants by sucking all the nutrients from the land. Via survival of the fittest, the GMO plant will persist and reproduce until the rest of the field is full of GMOs.

Now that we have genetically modified humans, are we breeding a new class in the society, a group called the “superior race”? How long can us, the normal race, will last? At the time the GMO babies reproduce, the spread will start.

Now that scientists are claiming that they could trace the “criminal gene”, it may not be too long to produce another drug to isolate that gene; and thus, controlling humanity. People started thinking that we could correct the disordered genes. When will they stop? Until they produced the perfect human? Perfect is not characteristic of human at all.

Are you scared of the genetically modified people living with us?

Sources:
Study points to health problems with genetically modified foods; LA Times
Genetically Modified Babies ‘Created’ in US – The World’s First; Natural Society
Genetically Modified Humans? New Gene-Altering Drug Paves Way for Mass Modification; Waking Times
150 human animal hybrids grown in UK labs: Embryos have been produced secretively for the past three years; Dailymail UK

Oxytocin Gives

When we feel good, we have loads of oxytocin in our body. Can it be an energy drink?

Photo from photoXpress

Oxytocin is a happy hormone. It is associated with caring, bonding and intimacy (dubbed as “love molecule”). It helps rebuild a wounded relationship. Having more of it will reduce anxiety and social fears. A nasal spray of it can cure shyness and improve social proficiency.

We also know that Oxytocin will make us more generous. In the study of Dr. Paul Zak and his colleagues, 8 OUT OF 10 are more generous when infused with oxytocin compared to those who received a placebo. The more we have this, the more empathetic we feel towards co-humans.

The amount of oxytocin in us can also predict who will donate more. Oxytocin and generosity are directly related where the more oxytocin is released, the more amount of money we will hand out. This means that altering our brain chemistry will change our behaviors.  It’s scary to think that we can be manipulated to give.

The idea of drinking oxytocin has insidious and expedient potentials. It can passively coerce someone to do charity; and it can be prescribed to people who really needed it. If you do not have a health concern in which oxytocin can help, you can’t get it in a non-natural way.

Probably the easiest way to have an oxytocin flowing in you is hugging someone. It’s cheap too.

Do you think it’s okay to make oxytocin more accessible?

Sources:
Oxytocin Increases Generosity in Humans; Plos One
10 Reasons Why Oxytocin Is The Most Amazing Molecule In The World; io9
Oxytocin – the love hormone – could cure shyness; The Telegraph
Oxytocin: energy drink of the future?; beeblu’s blog

What If.. The Internet had an “Off” Switch

More and more people around the world are allowing the forever-developing World Wide Web to make their lives that little bit easier.

Photo from modernmilkblog.blogspot.com

Business, social networking and communication are being advanced in what can only be described as the technological age that we are currently living in.

What would you do, however, if the internet as we know it was completely switched off via a single switch without any warning?

Fortunately, Sir Tim Berners-Lee has stated that there is no such thing as a single “Off” Switch because the world is decentralised and split up into hundreds of countries, there is no central “Off Switch”.

The only way it could be switched off is if the governments of the world come together and agree to change it from a decentralised system to a centralised one.

But what if everything were to revert to the way it was prior to 1990?

Photo from viralblog.com

A number of businesses relying entirely or partially on the internet would be severely damaged.

Also all people who make a living through pod-casting, hyperlocal news and those selling products on the internet would all consequently lose their jobs.

Photo from turbo.fortytwotimes.com

With nearly one billion users connecting with friends and family nearby or abroad, the death of Facebook would probably result in the majority of people just not trying to stay in touch any more.

If the internet has made people lazy enough to stay at home to communicate with friends rather than meet in person; will people really put in the extra effort?

Photo from mamamia.com.au

Yep, you would probably regain a large portion of your brain capacity to resolve difficult problems; which would previously have been looked up on the internet.

People would have to rely on books again and reading more has frequently been linked with increased intelligence.

Photo from thedrum.com

The newspaper industry has been taking a nosedive in sales ever since the introduction of the internet. With no more “instant” news through websites and social media such as Twitter; the flow of information will travel much slower.

Does this mean more people would revert to reading newspapers for information? As well as more traditional methods of news gathering? More than likely.

Photo from net-security.org

Without the internet, corporations and government will find it much more difficult to publish information to the public – therefore encouraging the emergence of more Quangos.

Quangos are not affiliated to the government, yet rely on government funding and have been heavily criticised for a true lack or transparency.

Photo from richardtimothy.com

As opposed to working from home or teleworking. More and more companies have turned to outsourcing, resulting in a lot of money being saved – but without the internet this could prove difficult.

This will result in many people hopping into their cars and driving to work before…

Photo from greenasathistle.com

Although GPS systems would still operate, but this would prove difficult without a constant flow of internet-based updates.

The loss of Google Maps and other map based technology on the internet would result in people being unable to print off a direct list of instructions and ultimately getting lost. And finally…

Photo from topdrawersoccer.com

And you wouldn’t be reading this post. Nor would you be reading any of my other posts or the posts of thousands of other bloggers across the globe.

Just a concept I know, our lives in many respects would probably benefit socially and personally but at the same time be ridden with economic decline in a world without internet.

Would the world be better without internet?

Daniel Mayes is a recent Journalism graduate with an upper-second. He has experience working at BBC World Service, Sky News Online and has worked on projects in Europe and Africa.