profile

Nudge Newsletter

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

Published over 1 year 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.

Read more from Nudge Newsletter

Negativity Bias Read online You'd be forgiven for thinking this ad is nonsensical. I've always liked it. The reverse psychology makes it stick in my mind. But recently I read a study which explains why it works. Negative framing. In 2025, researchers Wallach, Blair and Tanenbaum published a paper titled 'This Article Is Not for Everyone'. For the study, participants were shown one of the following slogans for a new dark roast coffee. Half saw positive framing: 'This is the coffee for you if...

6 days ago • 1 min read

The Halo Effect Read online The World Cup is here, and England's kit looks a bit naff. Cole Palmer wearing a shirt that looks 2x too big. The kit seems ill-fitting; it looks far too baggy around the shoulders, and the neck is too wide. If Nike surveyed my opinion for their market research, I'd give it a 1/5. But my opinion could change very soon. Success shifts perception. In 2019, researcher Gerd Nufer¹ asked 3,178 football fans to rank the quality of their club's kits. For the study, six...

13 days ago • 1 min read

Specific Number Bias Read online I stumbled across this Reddit post a few weeks back. Everest surveyors added two feet to their measurement to appear accurate. Rather than listing the exact measurement of 29,000, the British Royal Geographical Society declared Mount Everest's elevation at 29,002. Clearly, the surveyors thought that rounded numbers seem less believable. Something that numerous studies have since proven. Can You Spare 17 Cents? In 1994, Santos, Leve and Pratkanis asked three...

20 days ago • 2 min read