The Power of FREE
A few weeks ago a club here in New York had an event with free tattoos. (I can’t figure out which, but it mayyy have been this event at 3rd Ward.) Dan Ariely, a professor of psychology and behavioral economics, sent a research assistant to observe.
In the 5 hours the researcher was there, from 9pm to 2am, she observed 76 people, ages 18 to 47 with an average age of 26, sign up for a free tattoo. Of those 76 people, 68% would not get the tattoo if it were not free. That kind of astonishes me!
He writes about it on his blog saying,
The results indicate that the power of “free” is surprisingly influential. When we face a decision about a tattoo, one would hope that the long term permanency of the decision, coupled with the risks of getting different types of infections would cause people to pay little attention to price, and certainly not to be swayed one way or another by the power of free.
Check out the whole piece.
