Freedoms once granted will not be relinquished without a fight.
The lesson applies as well to the politics of family as country. The parent who grants privileges or enforces rules erratically invites rebelliousness by unwittingly establishing freedoms for the child. The parent who only sometimes prohibits between-meal sweets may create for the child the freedom to have such snacks. At that point, enforcing the rule becomes a much more difficult and explosive matter because the child is no longer merely lacking a never-possessed right but is losing an established one. As we have seen in the case of political freedoms and (especially pertinent to the present discussion) chocolate-chip cookies, people see a thing as more desirable when it has recently become less available than when it has been scarce all along. We should not be surprised, then, when research shows that parents who enforce discipline inconsistently produce generally rebellious children.
Let's look back to the cookie study for another insight into the way we react to scarcity. We've already seen from the results of that study that scarce cookies were rated higher than abundant cookies and that newly scarce cookies were rated higher still. Staying with the newly scarce cookies now, there was a certain cookie that was the highest rated of all: those that became less available because of a demand for them.
Remember that in the experiment the participants who experienced new scarcity had been given a jar of ten cookies that was then replaced with a jar of only two cookies. Actually, the researchers did this in one of two ways. To certain participants, it was explained that some of their cookies had to be given away to other raters to supply the demand for cookies in the study. To another set of participants, it was explained that their number of cookies had to be reduced because the researcher had simply made a mistake and given them the wrong jar initially. The results showed that those whose cookies became scarce through the process of social demand liked them significantly more than those whose cookies became scarce by mistake. In fact, the cookies made less available through social demand were rated the most desirable of any in the study.
This finding highlights the importance of competition in the pursuit of limited resources. Not only do we want the same item more when it is scarce, we want it most when we are in competition for it. Advertisers often try to exploit this tendency in us. In their ads, we learn that 'popular demand' for an item is so great that we must 'hurry to buy,' or we see a crowd pressing against the doors of a store before the start of a sale, or we watch a flock of hands quickly deplete a supermarket shelf of a product. There is more to such images than the idea of ordinary social proof. The message is not just that the product is good because other people think so, but also that we are in direct competition with those people for it.
The feeling of being in competition for scarce resources has powerfully motivating properties. The ardor of an indifferent lover surges with the appearance of a rival. It is often for reasons of strategy, therefore, that romantic partners reveal (or invent) the attentions of a new admirer. Salespeople are taught to play the same game with indecisive customers. For example, a realtor who is trying to sell a house to a 'fence-sitting' prospect will sometimes call the prospect with news of another potential buyer who has seen the house, liked it, and is scheduled to return the following day to talk about terms. When wholly fabricated, the new bidder is commonly described as an outsider with plenty of money: 'an out-of-state investor buying for tax purposes' and 'a physician and his wife moving into town' are favorites. The tactic, called in some circles 'goosing 'em off the fence,' can work devastatingly well. The thought of losing out to a rival frequently turns a buyer from hesitant to zealous.
There is something almost physical about the desire to have a contested item. Shoppers at big close-out or bargain sales report being caught up emotionally in the event. Charged by the crush of competitors, they swarm and struggle to claim merchandise they would otherwise disdain. Such behavior brings to mind the 'feeding frenzy' of wild, indiscriminate eating among animal groups. Commercial fishermen exploit this phenomenon by throwing a quantity of loose bait to large schools of certain fish. Soon the water is a roiling expanse of thrashing fins and snapping mouths competing for the food. At this point, the fishermen save time and money by dropping unbaited lines into the water, since the crazed fish will bite ferociously at anything now, including bare metal hooks.
There is a noticeable parallel between the ways that commercial fishermen and department stores generate a competitive fury in those they wish to hook. To attract and arouse the catch, fishermen scatter some loose bait called chum. For similar reasons, department stores holding a bargain sale toss out a few especially good deals on prominently advertised items called loss leaders. If the bait, of either form, has done its job, a large and eager crowd forms to snap it up. Soon, in the rush to score, the group becomes agitated, nearly blinded, by the adversarial nature of the situation. Humans and fish alike lose perspective on what they want and begin striking at whatever is being contested. One wonders whether the tuna flapping on a dry deck with only a bare hook in its mouth shares the what-hit-me bewilderment of the shopper arriving home with only a load of department-store bilge.
Lest we believe that the competition-for-limited-resources-fever occurs only in such unsophisticated forms of life as tuna and bargain-basement shoppers, we should examine the story behind a remarkable purchase decision made in 1973 by Barry Diller, who was then vice president for prime-time programming at the American Broadcasting Company, but who has since been labeled the 'miracle mogul' by
How could an astute and experienced businessman like Diller go for a deal that would produce an expected loss of a million dollars? The answer may lie in a second noteworthy aspect of the sale: It was the first time that a motion picture had been offered to the networks in an open-bid auction. Never before had the three major commercial networks been forced to battle for a scarce resource in quite this way. The novel idea of a competitive auction was the brainchild of the movie's flamboyant showman-producer, Irwin Allen, and a 20th Century Fox vice president, William Self, who must have been ecstatic about the outcome. But how can we be sure that it was the auction format that generated the spectacular sales price rather than the blockbuster quality of the movie itself?
Some comments from the auction participants provide impressive evidence. First came a statement from the victor, Barry Diller, intended to set future policy for his network. In language sounding as if it could have escaped only from between clenched teeth, he said, 'ABC has decided regarding its policy for the future that it would never again enter into an auction situation.' Even more instructive are the remarks of Diller's rival, Robert Wood, then president of CBS Television, who nearly lost his head and outbid his competitors at ABC and NBC:
We were very rational at the start. We priced the movie out, in terms of what it could bring in for us, then allowed a certain value on top of that for exploitation.
But then the bidding started. ABC opened with two million. I came back with two point four. ABC went to two point eight. And the fever of the thing caught us. Like a guy who had lost his mind, I kept bidding. Finally, I went to three point two; and there came a moment when I said to myself, 'Good grief, if I get it, what the heck am I going to do with it?' When ABC finally topped me, my main feeling was relief.
It's been very educational.
According to interviewer Bob MacKenzie, when Wood made his 'It's been very educational' statement, he was smiling. We can be sure that when ABC's Diller made his 'never again' announcement, he was not. Both men had clearly learned something from the 'Great
HOW TO SAY NO
It is easy enough to feel properly warned against scarcity pressures; but it is substantially more difficult to act on that warning. Part of the problem is that our typical reaction to scarcity hinders our ability to think. When we watch something we want become less available, a physical agitation sets in. Especially in those cases involving
