Anchor Points

In chapter two of the book Predictably Irrational, Ariely discusses price point anchors. A price point anchor is the price you are expecting to pay for an item based on the first price you saw that item marked at. For example, I go to the store to buy bread and the first loaf of bread I see costs five dollars I having never bought bread before think okay this is what it costs to buy bread. The five dollars is now my anchor so next time when I go to a bigger store that has many different options and price points of bread I am shocked to see that I can get two loaves for only four dollars at this new store. Because my anchor was so high before, this price is amazing to me and will keep me coming back. So his real point is that all prices are relative, we don’t really know how many dollars a loaf of bread should cost until we see the available prices at other stores. However, the first price we see for any given product becomes our anchor point and that is often what we compare all the other prices we encounter to. I found this to be a very interesting chapter because it happens to me very often. I never noticed this before, so I started to wonder if there is anything else that might be affected by anchor points in life.

What hit me after thinking about this subject was my daily productivity. What I mean by this is how I start my day. I’ve noticed recently that when I start my day off by watching Netflix or YouTube videos, playing video games, or even spending the morning looking over social media, my tendency is to want to continue those activities and I never get a lot done. However, if I were to start my day off by reading a chapter in a book or reading the news, even if it’s for only 15 to 20 minutes, I seem to be much more willing to do my homework and be overall more productive in the day. It’s as though the way I start my day serves as the anchor point for the rest of my day - just as I expect all prices to be similar to the first one I see.

Contrary to the price point anchors though, I’ve noticed my productivity anchor is not as fixed as price anchors are. In the book, Ariely mentions that it takes a long time for people’s price point anchors to change, but with my productivity, I could start the day off lazy and when I come back from class as long as I begin my afternoon doing something productive it will be much easier for me to accomplish all my other tasks. The opposite rings true for me as well though. If I get back from class and watch an hour or two of Netflix, I’m a lot less likely to get much done for the rest of the night.

I have no real proof that this is true for every person, but it certainly is for me. If you are reading this and you are skeptical, the next time you have a big day ahead of you, get up and read the news or a little out of a book instead of spending time on social media or some other time wasting activity. Then continue on with your day and see if it makes a difference for you.

Sugar

I watched a Documentary on Netflix the other day titled Fed Up that was very thought provoking. The documentary was about the problem of obesity in America. This is a much bigger problem than I ever knew it to be. Today in America there are over 50,000 adolescence (under the age of 18) that have type two diabetes.  That number was at 0 a mere 30 years ago. This is the first time that the newest generation is predicted to have a lower life expectancy that the generation that came before it. So with all the advances in modern technology and medical treatment you might ask how this could be possible.

For the past thirty years there have been various scientific findings that show sugar is a leading cause of the obesity problem in America, but every time one of these articles is published or the government attempts to change something in the health standards huge companies like Coca-Cola, Pepsi, or Kellogg will step in and fund scientists to perform research that finds evidence to the contrary of says that there isn’t enough proof. They also make promises that they will make their products healthier or that they will release new products that are healthier for us. So they go out and produce products that are low fat or less calories. But the sugar content is ether kept the same or even higher than it was before.

An interesting point was brought up in the documentary that the last time we so actively and supportively advertised and consumed a product that was so unhealthy was with cigarettes. It took over 50 years after the first research showed cigarettes to be unhealthy for the public to become aware of the dangers. How long will it take for people to realize how damaging the ridiculous number of sugars we consume is to our health?

A study was performed in Harvard that proved sugar was more addictive than cocaine. So with all these products being marketed to children that contain high amounts of sugar these companies are acquiring customers for life because they hook these kids at a young age and they will most likely continue to buy these products for the rest of their lives.

The documentary ends without giving a definitive solutions to this problem to me it seems that every time the government tries to step in and make a change the huge companies That are making their profits off of sugar step in and create a new way to ether distract or deter the government from actually fixing the real problem. So one answer I came up with is that somehow these scientists that know sugar is such a big problem need to find ways just like this documentary to educate the public and especially the parents of our society and from there hopefully they can lead their kids in the right direction.

If you found what I was talking about interesting I highly recommend watching the documentary Fed Up on Netflix it does a much better job than I of explaining this problem.