Are There Really Wasps in Figs? Plus: People Like Round Numbers Even When They’re Bad
Curiosity Weekly
Warner Bros. Discovery
4.6 • 964 Ratings
🗓️ 20 August 2020
⏱️ 9 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Learn about why people prefer round numbers over precise ones, thanks to a principle behavioral economists call attribute framing; and whether there really are wasps inside figs.
People prefer round numbers even when the precise number is better news by Kelsey Donk
- Consumers Prefer Round Numbers Even When the Specific Number Is Better News. (2016). Rpi.edu. https://news.rpi.edu/content/2020/07/06/consumers-prefer-round-numbers-even-when-specific-number-better-news
- Jain, G., Gaeth, G. J., Nayakankuppam, D., & Levin, I. P. (2020). Revisiting attribute framing: The impact of number roundedness on framing. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 161, 109–119. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2020.04.006
Are there really wasps inside figs? by Cameron Duke
- Cook, J. M., & West, S. A. (2005). Figs and fig wasps. Current Biology, 15(24), R978–R980. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2005.11.057
- Futuyma, D. J., & Kirkpatrick, M. (2018). Evolution. Sinauer Associates.
- Herre, E. A. (1996). An Overview of Studies on a Community of Panamanian Figs. Journal of Biogeography, 23(4), 593–607. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2845802?seq=1
- Jordan, A. (2014, November 11). How mutualisms evolve in a world of selfish genes. Phys.Org; Phys.org. https://phys.org/news/2014-11-mutualisms-evolve-world-selfish-genes.html
- Vartan, S. (2016). Are There Really Dead Wasps in Your Figs? Treehugger. https://www.treehugger.com/are-there-really-wasps-your-figs-4868822
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, you're about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from Curiosity.com. |
| 0:06.0 | I'm Cody Goff, and I'm Ashley Hamer. |
| 0:08.0 | Today we're doing a deep dive into why people prefer round numbers over precise ones and whether there really are |
| 0:15.0 | wasps inside figs. Let's satisfy some curiosity. If I were to give you a choice |
| 0:21.2 | between a medication that's 90% effective and one that's 93.4% effective, |
| 0:28.3 | which one would you choose? |
| 0:30.3 | Well if you're like the participants of a recent study, you would want the 90% effective one, |
| 0:36.0 | even though the other medication is actually more effective. |
| 0:40.0 | This might be hard to believe, but it turns out that people prefer round numbers even when the precise number is better news. |
| 0:48.5 | This finding comes from researchers who study behavioral economics. |
| 0:52.0 | For years, economists have been studying the idea of attribute framing, |
| 0:57.2 | which deals with how the presentation of information influences how people make decisions. |
| 1:03.0 | Stuff like, which is worse, getting dumped or breaking up. |
| 1:07.1 | Would you rather buy a product that's 95% effective or one that has a 5% failure rate, which is scarier, global warming or climate change. |
| 1:17.0 | So for this study, scientists wanted to figure out if numbers themselves could change people's minds. |
| 1:24.0 | They asked 1,500 people questions like, |
| 1:26.9 | imagine your friend is coming over for dinner |
| 1:29.0 | and you're making their favorite lasagna. |
| 1:31.4 | The beef you use is 80% lean. What do you think of the beef? |
| 1:35.0 | Some participants got the round numbers, while others got numbers like 80.31%. |
| 1:41.0 | Still others got a negative framing. The beef was either 20 or 19.69% fat. In both cases, people perceived the beef described in exact numbers to be less healthy |
| 1:54.9 | than the beef described in round numbers. When people only heard the fat content |
... |
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