Scientists all over the world are working hard to thoroughly explore the issue of motivation and the process of replacing one behavior with another. Today I would like to talk about motivation from a slightly different angle – the arguments and dialogue we have with others and with ourselves trying to change our behavior for the better or change something in our lives.

In many of these situations, virtually all of us use one strategy. Take a moment to think about the words you use when you want to stop snacking on sweets or when you want to explain to your child that they shouldn’t be doing something.

In the case of sweets, we threaten with obesity. When we smoke cigarettes, we threaten with cancer. When we want someone to change their behavior and bad habits, we first try to use fear as an argument. But unfortunately in most cases…

Fear doesn’t work!

Although trying to arouse fear is a fairly common tactic, not only in the process of raising children, but also in social campaigns, the effects of such an approach are far from expected.

Take, for example, cigarette packs with drastic pictures placed on them to deter smokers from damaging their health. Of course, the message awe Latest Mailing Database arend reasoning of the creators can be fully understood. Unfortunately, research has shown that these types of warnings have little effect on changing the behavior of smokers. Not only that, it turned out that after watching these images, quitting smoking became a much lesser priority for many people.

The authors of the report ” Updating Beliefs Under Perceived Threat ” likened this situation to the animal world. When they encounter a threat or fear, they freeze or run away. They rarely fight.

It’s the same with people. When someone tries to scare us, we try to eliminate negative feelings. We then begin to rationalize our previous behavior. For example, we might say, “My grandfather smoked and lived to be 90 years old. I have good genes and I’ll be fine.”

In this case, not only do you not react to the pictures that are supposed to scare you away from smoking, but you become even more resistant to switching than before.

We put off until it’s too late

Repressing negative information is not only about our health. Such n also negatively affect our finances. Note the graph below from the report .

The chart shows the relationship between the situation on the S&P 500 market and the frequency of logging into brokerage accounts by users. When the market situation is good, users logged in more often – good information made them feel better.

They logged in not to make new trades, but only to watch the good results of their previous choices.

When the market slowed down, the number of er Sale Lead to logins fell. People subconsciously avoided negative information and did not want to spoil their mood. The situation changed in 2008, when the economic crisis began. People started logging in in a panic, but by then it was too late to carry out an operation that would have minimized the losses.