How the Option to Do Nothing Can Help You Get Things Done
As makers of our own destiny, we
like to think that our choices are endless. And if we stay on track, we believe
we should accomplish our goals. However, the way we frame our choices can make
a huge impact on how persistent we are on our chosen path.
Wharton marketing professor Rom Y. Schrift and
Jeffrey R. Parker, a marketing professor at Georgia State University, figured
out that introducing the option of doing absolutely nothing into a choice set
will actually help us persevere to reach our objective. Their observations on
the nuances of choice architecture are outlined in the forthcoming paper,
“Staying the Course: The Option of Doing Nothing and Its Impact on Postchoice
Persistence,” to be published in the journal Psychological Science.
“Individuals regularly face
adversity in the pursuit of goals that require ongoing commitment,” the authors
write. “Whether or not individuals persist in the face of adversity greatly
affects the likelihood that they will achieve their goals. We argue that a
seemingly minor change in the individual’s original choice set,” specifically,
the addition of a no-choice or “do-nothing” alternative, will make people more
tenacious about accomplishing their goals.
For example, let’s say someone is
thinking about joining a gym. If the person is given the choice of joining Gym
A or Gym B, he or she may pick Gym A as a preference, try it out and aim not to
quit. But the researchers say if people were given the choice of Gym A, Gym B
or not joining a gym at all, they may pick Gym A and be more likely to keep
going simply because they were presented with an option of not joining at all.
Knowing that you really wanted to join Gym A over not signing up for a
membership anywhere makes you less likely to quit, they note.
Having the choice of not
doing something can actually transform people’s likelihood of accomplishing
their goals.
Though it may sound like a small
change, Schrift and Parker’s studies proved that given an additional option of
doing absolutely nothing can make all the difference in the world. Having the
choice of not doing something can actually transform people’s likelihood
of accomplishing their goals.
“It sounds counterintuitive because
we assume that the option of doing nothing reduces persistence,” Schrift points
out. “However, if I choose something, I learn about my preferences. Just
knowing that fact helps us persist longer when there’s adversity or hardship.”
According to the researchers, the
paper shows that there is a technique to how choices can be presented in order
to induce a desirable outcome. Whether it is workplace management, the health
care arena or parenting, a subtle addition of a seemingly innocuous option can
actually make someone want to do something even more. “The intuition is we
don’t want to give them the option,” Parker notes. “‘Not doing whatever’ may
sound like giving up. But what people decide for themselves is, ‘I didn’t have
to do it and I decided to do it, so I’ll stick with it for a longer period of
time. ‘”
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This finding feeds into
self-perception theory. According to Schrift, “Self-perception theory states
that we learn about ourselves, our attitudes and behavior from the actual
behaviors we engage in.”
Schrift cites the example of soda
preference. “If I choose Coke over Sprite, I decide I like Coke better,” he
says. “I learned from my choices what my attitude and preferences are. If I had
a choice between Coke, Sprite or nothing, I would still choose Coke, but I’m
learning another thing about myself: I really like Coke because I didn’t have
to choose anything. That’s the fundamental mechanism of the effect we’re
reporting on in this paper.”
Uma Thurman or Rudolf Nureyev?
To test their theory, the
researchers set up three studies. Their first experiment involved participants
tackling a word-search puzzle in a performance-based incentive system. The
participants were randomly selected for three potential scenarios. In the first
condition, people were asked to find the names of famous actors or capital
cities. This is called a forced-choice condition, where participants are asked
to pick between choice A or choice B. In the second scenario, people were asked
to find the names of famous actors or capital cities or neither. This is called
the rejectable-choice condition, where people can pick from choice A, choice B
or nothing.
In order to test whether a third,
possibly unappealing, option would change the persistence level, a choice C was
added where people could search for the names of ballet dancers. People were
still more tenacious when they had the choice to do nothing, the researchers
write.
“To increase persistence, one should
directly vet their chosen path against the no-choice option of doing nothing.”
In the second study, subjects were
asked to calculate a point value for words, much like a Scrabble game. After
each word, people were asked if they wanted to go for the next word or quit.
Again, they were randomly selected for three conditions. The first two were
like the ones in study 1: Participants could choose between choice A and choice
B, or choose between choice A, choice B or doing nothing. The last scenario
asked people whether they wanted to participate or not, and, if they did, asked
them to select between choice A or choice B. Interestingly, presenting the
option of doing nothing before the choice between A and B did not make
participants perform better, the researchers note.
“To increase persistence, one should
directly vet [his or her] chosen path against the no-choice option of doing
nothing,” Schrift says. “Just the fact that it was there meant they completed
more tasks, they were more accurate and [they] increased their monetary gains.”
The third study once again involved
participants in three conditions. This time, the experiment was centered on a
“find-the-differences-in-the-pictures” game that included a dummy task and a
target task. Subjects weren’t told how many differences there were in the
pictures in the target task. The researchers found persistence only affected
the target task, not the dummy one. In addition, the scenario with a do-nothing
option won out in terms of persistence and performance. “We wanted to show that
a no-choice option helps persistence in only the specific tasks,” Schrift
notes.
Crossing the Rubicon
What is so novel about this finding,
Schrift says, is that people can learn to bolster goal attainment simply by
considering the option of not doing it at all. It’s nuanced and a bit
counterintuitive, he adds, but the research presents a powerful learning
mechanism that can be applied in all sorts of realms.
“The highest attrition rate from the
gym occurs in the first month of enrollment. A no-choice option can help
individuals ‘cross the Rubicon.’”
“Sticking to a diet, completing drug
regimens, regularly visiting the gym and working through personal or
professional challenges are all instances in which persisting is beneficial and
important,” the authors write. “Using the right incentive structures, one can
drastically reduce or eliminate the tendency of opting out, while maintaining
the positive impact that affording no-choice options has on
persistence.” Schrift and Parker add that the do-nothing option must be
presented alongside the other possible choices up-front in order for the
salient persistence to take effect.
The authors suggest that, to keep
people on target to achieve their goals, managers or policymakers could send
out reminders along the lines of, “Hey, you wanted to do this in the first
place when you could have done nothing at all.” In terms of getting people to
the point where a particular behavior becomes ingrained, it might help to
remind them that the path they are currently taking was something they chose,
the researchers note.
According to Schrift, statistics
show that “the highest rate of attrition for Gym attendance occurs in the first
month of enrollment. A no-choice option can help them ‘cross the Rubicon,’” he
says. “Once they cross that point, then it becomes habitual and they keep
going.”
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/option-nothing-can-help-get-things-done/
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