The Florida Effect

 3 minute read

 Priming is a consumer psychology trick commonly used by marketers to improve willingness to buy and willingness to pay for potential customers. It is such a strong behavioural lever that it’s impact isn’t just restricted to psychological behaviours but also extends to modifying our physical behaviour as well. Imagine a mind-trick which can influence the body. Recently we read a study highlighting the “Florida Effect” and truth be told we were stunned at the strength of the priming at play.

 The psychologist John Bargh performed an experiment on a set of students where they were “Primed” by asking them to form completed four-word sentences from incoherent five-word sentences (Example: Some I Dog the walk -> I walk the dog).

The students were divided into two groups. The first group was asked to unjumble words usually associated with old age, such as gray, balding, Florida (A popular retirement state in the US) etc. The other group was given random words. After the students completed the task of unjumbling the words, they were asked to go to another room at the far end of a long corridor. Unbeknownst to the students, the researchers were measuring the time each student took to travel the long corridor to reach the other room.

Surprisingly, the researchers found that the students who were specifically primed with the words associated with old age took longer on an average to travel the corridor compared to students who were not primed on old age. A fascinating case of psychological priming having a bearing on physical actions of a group of people.

 What was even more fascinating was that the reverse effect was also witnessed, i.e people who were instructed to slow their pace of walking to 1/3 of their usual pace were more successful in recognizing/unjumbling words associated with old age.

Now just imagine what smart marketers can do with this knowledge. Or even more scary, what a smart master manipulator may be able to accomplish with this knowledge.