Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much (27 page)

We ought to answer this question. Now that this book is done, we have plenty of time not to.

1     
If ants are such busy workers
:
This quote is attributed to Marie Dressler. See, for example, Marie Dressler—Biography. IMDb. Retrieved November 6, 2012, from
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0237597/bio
.

2     
“Illusion is the first of all pleasures”
:
T. Smollett and J. Morley, eds.,
The Works of Voltaire: The Maid of Orleans (La Pucelle d’Orléans)
, vol. 41 (New York: E. R. DuMont, 1901), 90.

4     
By scarcity, we mean
:
This definition of scarcity is inherently subjective. One person with a lot of wealth but many desires can in principle experience the same scarcity as another with less wealth (and fewer desires). This subjective definition of scarcity is essential for understanding the psychology. Of course the
consequences
depend on both the psychology and the material reality. We are taking this subjective approach only to understand the psychology. When we analyze problems—poverty, for example, in
chapter 7
—we will combine both the subjective and the objective.

4     
people having too few social bonds
:
In his seminal book, Robert Putnam showed across a diverse set of data a trend in Americans’ participation in civic institutions. See Robert D. Putnam,
Bowling
Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000). Since then, the field has been transformed by the influx of large amounts of data on social interaction. See Jim Giles, “Computational Social Science: Making the Links,”
Nature
488 (August 23, 2012): 448–50. Of course the importance of social capital—the inverse of social scarcity—by now is discussed in a wide variety of problems from economic development to the value of cities.

5     
the Allies realized they had a problem
:
Todd Tucker,
The Great Starvation Experiment: Ancel Keys and the Men Who Starved for Science
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008).

5     
a team at the University of Minnesota
:
A. Keys, J. Brožek, A. Henschel, O. Mickelson, and H. L. Taylor,
The Biology of Human Starvation
, 2 vols. (Oxford: University of Minnesota Press, 1950).

6     
The men became impatient waiting in line
:
S. A. Russell,
Hunger: An Unnatural History
(New York: Basic Books, 2006).

8     
One recent study asked subjects to come to a lab around lunchtime
:
R. Radel and C. Clement-Guillotin, “Evidence of Motivational Influences in Early Visual Perception: Hunger Modulates Conscious Access,”
Psychological Science 23
, no. 3 (2012): 232–34. doi:10.1177/0956797611427920.

8     
fast enough to remain beyond conscious control
:
B. Libet, C. A. Gleason, E. W. Wright, and D. K. Pearl, “Time of Conscious Intention to Act in Relation to Onset of Cerebral Activity (Readiness-Potential): The Unconscious Initiation of a Freely Voluntary Act,”
Brain
106, no. 3 (1983): 623–42.

9     
One study finds that when subjects are thirsty
:
H. Aarts, A. Dijksterhuis, and P. de Vries, “On the Psychology of Drinking: Being Thirsty and Perceptually Ready,”
British Journal of Psychology
92, no. 4 (2001): 631–42. doi:10.1348/000712601162383.

9     
the size of regular U.S. coins
:
P. Saugstad and P. Schioldborg, “Value Size and Perception,”
Scandinavian Journal of Psychology
7, no. 1 (1966): 102–14. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9450.1966. tb01344.x.

9     
The coins “looked” largest to the poorer children
:
In visual perception, a greater focus does not necessarily mean greater accuracy. Several studies have found that both motivation and attention
can penetrate and guide early visual processing. Psychophysical, neurophysiological, and behavioral evidence suggests that attention changes the strength of a stimulus by increasing its salience, and thus can enhance its perceptual representation, improving or impairing various aspects of visual performance. For example, observers report perceiving the attended stimulus as being higher in contrast than it really is. Marisa Carrasco, Sam Ling, and Sarah Read, “Attention Alters Appearance,”
Nature Neuroscience
7 (2004), 308–13; Yaffa Yeshurun and Marisa Carrasco, “Attention Improves or Impairs Visual Performance by Enhancing Spatial Resolution,”
Nature
396 (Nov. 5, 1998), 72–75; Rémi Radel and Corentin Clément Guillotin, “Evidence of Motivational Influences in Early Visual Perception: Hunger Modulates Conscious Access,”
Psychological Science
23, no. 3 (2012), 232–34.

9     
the coins captured the focus of poor children
:
In this study, the poor children value the coins more than the rich children. Of course many other features vary between poor and rich children. More recent work has experimentally induced value, rather than taking population level differences in value. For a recent paper using this approach see Brian A. Anderson, Patryk A. Laurent, and Steven Yantis, “Value-driven Attentional Capture,”
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
108, no. 25 (2011): 10367–71.

9     
“subjective expansion of time”
:
P. U. Tse, J. Intriligator, J. Rivest, and P. Cavanagh, “Attention and the Subjective Expansion of Time,”
Attention, Perception, and Psychophysics
66, no. 7 (2004): 1171–89.

9     
flashed pictures of faces for one second
:
W. L. Gardner, Valerie Pickett, and Megan Knowles, “On the Outside Looking In: Loneliness and Social Monitoring,”
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
31, no. 11 (2005): 1549–60. doi:10.1177/0146167205277208.

10   
their loneliness might imply social ineptitude or inexperience
:
This is not to say that the lonely have greater social skills all around. Quite the opposite. We must be very precise about what we mean by “social skills.” This study measures capacity to decode social cues. On the other hand, numerous studies have shown the lonely do show a lower capacity to regulate behavior in social settings. In
chapter 6
, we will argue that this diminished performance in
regulating their behavior in social settings is also a predictable consequence of scarcity. A wonderful book explores these ideas in much greater detail: John T. Cacioppo and William Patrick,
Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection
(New York: W. W. Norton, 2008).

10   
One study asked people to read from someone’s diary
:
See W. L. Gardner, C. L. Pickett, and M. B. Brewer, “Social Exclusion and Selective Memory: How the Need to Belong Influences Memory for Social Events,”
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
26, no. 4 (2000): 486–96. doi:10.1177/0146167200266007.

10   
Suddenly, Bradley cannot escape noticing connections
:
W. L. Gardner, Valerie Pickett, and Megan Knowles, “On the Outside Looking In: Loneliness and Social Monitoring,”
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
31, no. 11 (2005): 1549–60.

11   
European paleontologists in nineteenth-century China
:
K. Vitasek, M. Ledyard, and K. Manrodt,
Vested Outsourcing: Five Rules That Will Transform Outsourcing
(New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010).

12   
the feeling of scarcity depends
:
A. F. Bennett, “Structural and Functional Determinates of Metabolic Rate,”
American Zoologist
28, no. 2 (1988): 699–708.

12   
we are unhappy
:
The word
scarcity
is also used to describe a different effect in psychology. The
scarcity principle
, as it is often called, captures the idea that when there is less of something people want more of it. Marketers use this idea extensively, for example, with limited-time offers, by making sure the shelves are only partly stocked for online offers that say “only 3 left.” See
chapter 7
of this book for a nice description of the scarcity principle: Robert B. Cialdini,
Influence: Science and Practice
, vol. 4 (Boston, Mass.: Allyn and Bacon, 2001).

12   
Scarcity leads to dissatisfaction and struggle
:
In economics, this is the principle of increasing utility. Having more of a resource provides greater utility or well-being. In the vast majority of economic analyses—as in our work—these preferences, the utility functions, so to speak, are also taken as given.

12   
mindsets created by particular instances of scarcity
:
One study on dieting and mood is Peter J. Rogers, “A Healthy Body, a Healthy Mind: Long-Term Impact of Diet on Mood and Cognitive Function,”
Proceedings—Nutrition Society of London
60, no. 1 (CABI Publishing, 1999, 2001). A more recent study has examined the
physiological pathways: Doris Stangl and Sandrine Thruet, “Impact of Diet on Adult Hippocampal Neurogenesis,”
Genes and Nutrition
4, no. 4 (2009): 271–82. For a discussion of culture and poverty, see the recent collection of articles in David J. Harding, Michèle Lamont, and Mario Luis Small, eds.,
The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
629 (May 2010).

14   
The structure of human memory
:
E. R. Kandel,
In Search of Memory: The Emergence of a New Science of Mind
(New York: W. W. Norton, 2007).

19   
Do you have an idea for your story yet?
: MOOD—Calvin and Hobbes—Full Story. Retrieved from
http://web.mit.edu/manoli/mood/www/calvin-full.html
.

19   
all the reviewers raved about
:
Dirtcandy.
Retrieved from
http://www.dirtcandynyc.com/?p=731
.

20   
“The Crispy Tofu that’s on the menu”
:
Dirtcandy.
Retrieved from
http://www.dirtcandynyc.com/?p=2508
. One might think that Amanda Cohen had put this dish on her menu simply to capitalize on her
Iron Chef
celebrity: people come in wanting to taste the dish from the show. But she had the dish on her menu well before the show even aired. This was more than a marketing gimmick.

20   
months and years of prior experience and hard work
:
The relationship between creativity and time pressure is significantly more complicated than this story implies. In many cases time pressure can inhibit creativity. Here’s an intuition that has worked for us. When the task requires fanning out—the generation of new ideas—time pressure is an impediment. When the task requires fanning in—synthesizing a large set of ideas into one (as in Cohen’s case)—time pressure can be helpful. A very nice article that reviews these ideas and their original extensive research is Teresa M. Amabile, Constance N. Hadley, and Steven J. Kramer, “Creativity Under the Gun,”
Harvard Business Review
(August 1, 2002).

21   
has made a living out of studying them
:
Though there has been follow-up work, the original article on this topic remains a good first read: Connie J. Gersick, “Time and Transition in Work Teams: Toward a New Model of Group Development,”
Academy of Management Journal
31, no. 1 (1988): 9–41. In this original research, she
sat through every group meeting of eight groups. Though we simplify and talk about one meeting, the process she studied takes place over several meetings. Ruth Wageman, Colin M. Fisher, and J. Richard Hackman, in “Leading Teams When the Time Is Right” (
Organizational Dynamics
38, no. 3 [2009] 192–203), discuss how these insights can be used by leaders. At the midpoint transition, the group will be particularly primed for a change, one that leaders can use.

22   
undergraduates were paid to proofread three essays
:
D. Ariely and K. Wertenbroch, “Procrastination, Deadlines, and Performance: Self-Control by Precommitment,”
Psychological Science
13, no. 3 (2002): 219–24. An earlier study found that college students were more likely to return an optional worksheet for pay when they had only one week to complete it compared to when they had three weeks; A. Tversky and E. Shafir, “Choice under Conflict: The Dynamics of Deferred Decision,”
Psychological Science
3, no. 6 (1992): 358–61. Economists have theorized about the power of deadlines using a different framework—hyperbolic discounting—our tendency to disproportionately weigh the present over the future. See Shane Frederick, George Loewenstein, and Ted O’Donoghue, “Time Discounting: A Critical Review,”
Journal of Economic Literature
(2002) for an overview. Intermediate deadlines make us more effective, in this view, by translating distant future rewards into immediate present ones.

23   
A study by the psychologist Jaime Kurtz
:
J. L. Kurtz, “Looking to the Future to Appreciate the Present: The Benefits of Perceived Temporal Scarcity,”
Psychological Science
19, no. 12 (2008): 1238–41. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02231.x.

23   
some customers are mailed a coupon
:
J. J. Inman and L. McAlister, “Do Coupon Expiration Dates Affect Consumer Behavior?”
Journal of Marketing Research
(1994): 423–28; A. Krishna and Z. J. Zhang, “Short or Long-Duration Coupons: The Effect of the Expiration Date on the Profitability of Coupon Promotions,”
Management Science
45, no. 8 (1999): 1041–56.

23   
salespeople work hardest
:
An example of a paper documenting this effect is Paul Oyer, “Fiscal Year Ends and Nonlinear Incentive Contracts: The Effect on Business Seasonality,”
The Quarterly Journal of Economics
113, no. 1 (1998): 149–85. His interpretation is less psychological than ours—attributing it to substitution of effort over time.