The Art of Thinking Clearly: Better Thinking, Better Decisions

partners are at our disposal. It has been proven that the stress caused by this
mind-boggling variety is so large that the male brain reduces the decision to one
single criterion: physical attractiveness. The consequences of this selection
process you already know – perhaps even from personal experience.
Finally, large selection leads to discontent. How can you be sure you are
making the right choice when 200 options surround and confound you? The
answer is: you cannot. The more choice you have, the more unsure and therefore
dissatisfied you are afterward.
So, what can you do? Think carefully about what you want before you inspect
existing offers. Write down these criteria and stick to them rigidly. Also, realise
that you can never make a perfect decision. Aiming for this, given the flood of
possibilities, is a form of irrational perfectionism. Instead, learn to love a ‘good’
choice. Yes, even in terms of life partners. Only the best will do? In this age of
unlimited variety, rather the opposite is true: ‘good enough’ is the new optimum
(except, of course, for you and me).
See also Decision Fatigue (ch. 53); Alternative Blindness (ch. 71); Default Effect (ch. 81)

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22
YOU LIKE ME, YOU REALLY REALLY LIKE ME
Liking Bias
Kevin has just bought two boxes of fine Margaux. He rarely drinks wine – not
even Bordeaux – but the sales assistant was so nice, not fake or pushy, just really
likeable. So he bought them.
Joe Girard is considered the most successful car salesman in the world. His tip
for success: ‘There’s nothing more effective in selling anything than getting the
customer to believe, really believe, that you like him and care about him.’ Girard
doesn’t just talk the talk: his secret weapon is sending a card to his customers
each month. Just one sentence salutes them: ‘I like you.’
The 
liking bias
is startlingly simple to understand and yet we continually fall
prey to it. It means this: the more we like someone, the more inclined we are to
buy from or help that person. Still, the question remains: what does ‘likeable’
even mean? According to research, we see people as pleasant if A) they are
outwardly attractive, B) they are similar to us in terms of origin, personality or
interests, and C) they like us. Consequently, advertising is full of attractive
people. Ugly people seem unfriendly and don’t even make it into the background
(see A). In addition to engaging super-attractive types, advertising also employs
‘people like you and me’ (see B) – those who are similar in appearance, accent or
background. In short, the more similar the better. Mirroring is a standard technique
in sales to get exactly this effect. Here, the salesperson tries to copy the gestures,
language, and facial expressions of his prospective client. If the buyer speaks
very slowly and quietly, often scratching his head, it makes sense for the seller to
speak slowly and quietly, and to scratch his head now and then too. That makes
him likeable in the eyes of the buyer, and thus a business deal is more likely.
Finally, it’s not unheard of for advertisers to pay us compliments: how many times
have you bought something ‘because you’re worth it’? Here factor C comes into
play: we find people appealing if they like us. Compliments work wonders, even if
they ring hollow as a drum.
So-called multilevel marketing (selling through personal networks) works solely
because of the 
liking bias
. Though there are excellent plastic containers in the

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supermarket for a quarter of the price, Tupperware generates an annual turnover
of two billion dollars. Why? The friends who hold the Tupperware parties meet
the second and third congeniality standard perfectly.
Aid agencies employ the 
liking bias
to great effect. Their campaigns use
beaming children or women almost exclusively. Never will you see a stone-faced,
wounded guerrilla fighter staring at you from billboards – even though he also
needs your support. Conservation organisations also carefully select who gets
the starring role in their advertisements. Have you ever seen a World Wildlife
Fund brochure filled with spiders, worms, algae or bacteria? They are perhaps
just as endangered as pandas, gorillas, koalas and seals – and even more
important for the ecosystem. But we feel nothing for them. The more human a
creature acts, the more similar it is to us, the more we like it. The bone skipper fly
is extinct? Too bad.
Politicians, too, are maestros of the 
liking bias
. Depending on the make-up and
interests of an audience, they emphasise different topics, such as residential
area, social background or economic issues. And they flatter us: Each potential
voter is made to feel like an indispensable member of the team: ‘Your vote
counts!’ Of course your vote counts, but only by the tiniest of fractions, bordering
on the irrelevant.
A friend who deals in oil pumps told me how he once closed an eight-figure
deal for a pipeline in Russia. ‘Bribery?’ I inquired. He shook his head. ‘We were
chatting, and suddenly we got on to the topic of sailing. It turned out that both of
us – the buyer and me – were die-hard 470 dinghy fans. From that moment on, he
liked me; I was a friend. So the deal was sealed. Amiability works better than
bribery.’
So, if you are a salesperson, make buyers think you like them, even if this
means outright flattery. And if you are a consumer, always judge a product
independent of who is selling it. Banish the salespeople from your mind, or rather,
pretend you don’t like them.