How does the brain react to offers?

Although the field of the economy is usually analyzed by looking at numbers, that does not mean at all that this is a part of reality that is based on rationality and logic. In fact, the human nature of the economy has meant that this field of knowledge is closely related to the behavioral sciences; After all, those behind the movement of money are people of flesh and blood, with their particular emotions and motivations.

This phenomenon has meant that the promotion of products and services is not limited to being a way of communicating technical information, but adopts a series of strategies to persuade consumers or clients potentials. In fact, marketers know a series of mental "shortcuts" that lead human beings to perceive things not as they are, but as they are. presented, and that is why, taking advantage of these peculiarities of the psyche, they take advantage of the existence of those processes that take place in our brain in a way usual. Its objective? Capture people's attention and present what you offer in the most attractive way possible.

In this sense, a good part of these "mental shortcuts" are exploited through promotions based on special offers and discounts. That's why, in this article we will talk about how the human brain reacts to offers.

• Related article: ""Heuristics": the mental shortcuts of human thought"

Why does the human brain skew our perception of things?

Let's start with the key question to understand the way in which the brain reacts to the offers: is it normal that we have a biased view of things, instead of a realistic and totally objective? The answer is yes, it is totally normal; in fact, the strange thing would be that our brain was a kind of machine capable of offering us representations of reality that are totally faithful to what surrounds us.

This is due to the fact that as animals that we are, our organism is full of limitations, and we do not have the information processing capacity necessary to see things as they are (and also, in real time, second by second).

For this reason, the human body has to work with what it has, and this implies operating a brain that, on the one hand, does not offer us a totally erroneous perception of reality and leads us to make serious mistakes, and that, on the other hand, does not constantly collapse due to who does not have the necessary resources to capture all the elements of our environment and analyze their implications and meaning all the time a while. In balance is virtue, but that means that the human mind must work on a series of mental shortcuts that allow it to “fill in the gaps” of ignorance we have to face, so that we can think fluently instead of constantly wandering without arriving at any concrete conclusion when we try to understand what we are seeing, what decision we should make, what we can expect from the future etc

So, these shortcuts and predispositions to interpret things and think in an imperfect way is not in itself a bad thing, since it is more important than having certainties. constant all the time is to optimize the resources of the human mind, so that we can keep moving and not be paralyzed by uncertainty. That is why our brain works assuming the existence of certain biases that are a lesser evil.

• You may be interested in: "9 keys to Psychology applied to Marketing and Advertising"

The biases of the human brain before the offers

Let's focus now on the world of marketing. What is the objective of promotional and advertising campaigns for products and services? Drive people towards the act of buying, fundamentally, or at the very least convince people to lobby for someone to buy something (for example, in the case of children who ask their parents for things parents). And what is the main function of the brain? Above all, help him survive by adapting to very different circumstances. Note that in neither of the two cases is it important to have an accurate image of reality, but rather to lead people to go through a chain of actions. A being who knows everything constantly remains static, immobile, while those who are moved by emotions and motivations move precisely because they experiment with the environment, they never reach a point where they have a fully faithful experience of the environment. reality.

Curiosity and the desire to reach certain goals are a force behind marketing and also behind the functioning of the human brain, for which he cannot allow himself the luxury of being blocked due to the lack of certainties, and in In this sense, offers are a very good "unblocker" of actions, because they activate a series of biases.

1. scarcity bias

Scarcity bias makes us feel that, if something is in short supply, it is because it is worth more than it would be if it were not in such high demand. This leaves many businesses deliberately creating the image that it is difficult to get hold of what you they offer, something that they take advantage of above all in campaigns to launch new products or in marketing campaigns. Christmas.

• Related article: "Principle of scarcity: a trick to encourage us to buy"

2. Availability heuristics

This kind of mental shortcut leads us to assume that if we remember something (that is, if a piece of information is easily available in our memory) is because that is important and tells us about something that has worth. This is taken advantage of by companies using all kinds of visual and sound resources. so that your product comes to mind easily (for example, a short musical tune that appears at the same time as the logo in television commercials). In the same way, the offers lead us to remember the end date of the advertising campaigns. discount, making something as simple as looking at our agenda lead us to remember that product or service.

3. Loss aversion and negativity bias

These two phenomena are very similar.: Loss aversion is a phenomenon whereby we feel more motivated to avoid a loss than to explore the opportunity to make a profit, and the Negativity bias leads us to feel that it is more important to focus attention on the possible negative consequences of our actions than on the negative ones. positive. In the case of offers, this can be taken advantage of by using persuasion techniques so that potential consumers will Imagine having already purchased that product or service, so that the option of not taking advantage of that opportunity is perceived as a loss.

• Related article: "Loss aversion: what is this psychological phenomenon?"

4. Zero risk bias

Zero risk bias makes us prefer undergo a process in which one of its parts is totally free of risk, to one in which the overall risk is lower but equally distributed throughout. For example, this can be taken advantage of in services that offer a first month of free trial before make an annual payment, instead of not offering the trial month but offering the opportunity to make payments monthly.

5. drag effect

The drag effect makes us feel that if many people around us are doing certain types of actions, it is probably because it is worth it, and we should do the same. This, for example, makes us view sales times with more interest, perceiving that everyone is going to the most commercial areas of the city to spend more than is usual during the rest of months.

6. anchor bias

The anchoring bias leads us to value certain options based on the first relevant information we have received about this. For example, it is widely used when stating the discounted price of products: first, what it would cost under normal circumstances is stated, and then the price is given after the discount is applied.

The importance of training to know how the brain works

Summer and winter sales, Cyber ​​Monday, Singles Day, Black Friday, Mid Season Sales... there are more and more periods or specific days of the year in which businesses carry out promotions. As we have just seen, it has been shown that, when faced with a product on sale, our brain is more predisposed to buy so as not to lose the opportunity to get it at a lower price.

The Mediterranean School of Psychology This year it has also joined the Black Friday promotions with a 20% discount on all its programs. In this way, the school gives the opportunity to all those who want to continue learning more about the psyche of enrolling in a master's, postgraduate or course at a much lower price than what their formations.

The most requested training courses in the last year have been in very diverse areas of psychology. More and more psychologists are choosing to specialize in the world of business and Human Resources, which is reflected in the fact that two of the programs with the most enrolled in the Mediterranean School of Psychology are the Master's Degree in Coaching, NLP, Team Leadership and decision-making or the Higher Course in Team Management Job.

On the other hand, related to clinical psychology, one of the programs with the most enrollment is the Postgraduate in Clinical Neuropsychology, followed by the Master in Mental Health or the Master in Psychology in Childhood and Adolescence.