Probably every professional poker player—whom we commonly refer to as “regulars”—understands that poker isn’t just about luck. Poker is about probability, statistics, cold calculation, and emotional detachment. Emotions are an essential part of being human. On one hand, they’re a vital component of life that helps us survive and make quick decisions when necessary. You wouldn’t stop to think about what to do if a furious man with a knife suddenly charged at you on the street, would you? If you haven’t trained yourself for such a situation, you won’t even have time to think—a mix of fear and panic will make you turn and run. According to Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman, the decision was made for you by what’s known as System 1. System 1 helps you pull your hand away if you touch a hot object; when you brush your teeth, zip up your favorite jacket, or play your favorite chords on the guitar—you don’t think about it or focus on the process.
In the other corner of the ring is System 2. Its operation requires a great deal of resources. And the human brain is wired such that, for the sake of conservation—in the context of evolutionary survival—not everyone likes to engage System 2. For example, when you’re learning to code, figuring out the rules of a new board game that the weird guy with greasy hair (but who, for some reason, is friends with your best friend) brought to the party, or watching a documentary about how a nuclear reactor works—System 2 is at work. System 2 is slow, conscious, analytical, and resource-intensive. It kicks in when you need to solve a complex problem, check logic, or suppress an impulse from System 1. Here’s a simple example illustrating when System 2 is active and when System 1 is active, using basic mathematical operations:
- 2 x 2
- 48 x 23
In the first case, you simply need to glance at this simple mathematical equation to come up with the answer 5 (just kidding, 4). In the second case, you need to break the equation down into its simplest components in your head. First, you’ll mentally multiply 48 x 20 separately, and then add the result to the result of the expression 48 x 3. It’s complicated, isn’t it? And if you were chewing gum or listening to music in the background at the same time, you’d stop chewing and wouldn’t be able to make out the sounds of the music.
Unfortunately, salespeople and marketers have adopted Kahneman’s work for manipulative purposes. The thing is, System 1 very often fails. Unscrupulous salespeople take advantage of this. Here are a few examples. The first price you see becomes the anchor against which you’ll evaluate the purchase. Displaying an old or inflated price next to the new one makes the discount seem very tempting. An expensive item in the window makes all the other prices seem more affordable. Or, for example, let me share a story from my own life. A long time ago, about 10 years back, when my belly was smaller, the grass was greener, and ice cream tasted better, I got my driver’s license and saved up for a car for about two years. So there I was at the dealership, on a friend’s recommendation, to buy a brand-new car, but one registered from the previous year. It was technically the end of the year, and in a couple of weeks, that car would be two years old on paper. That’s exactly why the dealership was offering a great discount. While I was finalizing the paperwork and drafting the sales contract, my personal sales representative’s colleague walked up to him and asked, loudly and pointedly: “Are you selling that last black Honda Civic right now? Because I already have customers here to buy it.” My first reaction was panic, and five minutes later I had already put a deposit down at the dealership’s cashier. A week later, when the car transporter delivered my car, the price had naturally gone up, and this purchase went from being a super-profitable deal to just a regular one. But what if I’d had time to read the deposit agreement and had time to make a decision? Most likely, I would have looked at offers from other dealerships and, quite possibly, bought it somewhere else.