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Over 1,000 people will ignore this email | Nudge Newsletter 🧠

Published 6 months ago • 1 min read

Well Done! You don't follow the crowd.

Thank you for opening today’s email.

Because psychology suggests you wouldn’t.

There’s a psychological principle known as negative social proof.

Definition = if you make an unwanted behaviour seem commonplace, more people will perform the unwanted behaviour.

Few examples:

  • “Visitors steal 5 tons a year” increased wood theft at an Arizona park (Cialdini, 1984)
  • “Many miss their NHS appointments” increased no-shows (Martin, 2024)
  • “Over 1,000 people will ignore this email” should harm open rates (*ongoing study Agnew, 2024)

In 2022, BBC published an article which shouldn’t surprise you

“The Met Police practice of posting photographs of seized knives on social media could be encouraging knife-carrying, according to a new study.
​
The University of Strathclyde research also found that sharing such images risked creating ‘a culture of fear’ and ‘perpetuating negative stereotypes’”

With all the best intentions, communicators repeatedly make this mistake.

Even organisations that should be aware of consumer behaviour fail.

Take Wikipedia’s notoriously bad attempt to encourage readers to donate.

No prizes for identifying what’s wrong with this message.

So, if you’re trying to deter a certain behaviour, never make the unwanted behaviour seem commonplace.

Cheers!

Phill

Nudge Newsletter

Phill Agnew

I spend 18 hours each week turning marketing psychology into readable newsletters.

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