Think you made that decision?

Imagine speeding down a motorway in Germany, doing speeds that would put you in jail in Australia.

It’s time for a rest stop, so you pull into a petrol station to refuel and use the toilets.

On your way out of the bathroom, you diligently leave some money as thanks, vowing once you’re back in your home country to never take a free toilet for granted again. 

So, what influenced you to pay? If no one was standing witness, why bother?

It was because you’re an honest person, right?

Surely it didn’t have anything to do with that weird sign you glanced at on the wall.

I mean, you couldn’t even read what it said.

In an experiment on priming – how exposure to one stimuli can increase sensitivity to another – researchers tested whether signs in motorway bathrooms would encourage people to be more honest and contribute more money.

But here’s the thing.

The signs were mirrored, so the words could not be explicitly read.

For example, over the course of six days, bathroom visitors “saw” one of these signs.

Now let’s remove the mirroring to see that the words were “honest”, “dIshonest”, and a nonsense word “crehun”.

Again, people couldn’t consciously read what the word was.

But here’s the remarkable thing.

Those primed with the word “honest” paid more (36.64 per 1,000) than those who experienced “dishonest” (33.26) or “crehun” (26.94).

While the consistency, extent and ethics of priming remains contentious, this is a yet another example of how our brains process much more that we realise.

That’s why reactions I sometimes receive about what I share, whether I’m “overthinking it” or “it’s not important”, completely miss the point.

Behavioural influence isn’t obvious. It’s not a blunt instrument. It’s rarely intellectual. 

“It” may not make sense, but your brain sure does. 

Ref: Schorn, Robert & Maurhart, B.. (2009). Influencing willingness to pay by supraliminally priming the concept of honesty. Advances in Consumer Research. 36. 463-466.