Contrast Effect
Leave your SuperModel Friends at home
The difficulty with absolute judgements
We don’t notice small gradual changes - The Story of Boiling Frog
We judge something to be beautiful, expensive or large if we have something ugly, cheap or small in front of us. We have difficulty with absolute judgements.
The contrast effect is a common misconception.
Without the contrast effect the discount business would be completely untenable.
When we encounter contrasts, we react like birds to a gunshot: we jump up and get moving. Our weak spot: we don’t notice small, gradual changes.
Similarly we fail to notice how our money disappears. It constantly loses its value, but we dont notice because inflation happens over time.
The contrast effect can ruin your whole life.
See also
- Availability Bias
- Endowment Effect
- Halo Effect
- Social Comparison Bias
- Regression to Mean
- Scarcity Error
- Framing