Psychology- Deal or No Deal

We are often confronted by biases and heuristics that drive us when making choices. One type of bias that the contestant used to make the final decision is anchoring bias. People with anchoring bias tend to make decisions based on the first information they receive. For the contestant’s case, his sisters and brothers told him to take no deal at the first instance. Then his mother followed to tell him to take the deal (Jackson, 2019). Despite his mother explaining and telling him to avoid being greedy, he considered the first information he received from the sisters and brother of taking no deal. Another one is the bandwagon effect, where the mass swayed him to take no deal.

One type of conditioning that the participant displays is positive reinforcement. It involves the addition of a stimulus to behavior with the belief that it will occur again (Cherry, 2011). In this case, the participant could have observed that taking the deal resulted in failure and opted for taking no-deal because when past contestants took no deal, they won. He also manifests classical conditioning, whereby the his brother reminds him about their family hating the month of November due to cases of their father and grandmother. The month of November is conditioned with fate, making him automatically reject the deal. Lastly, he displays negative reinforcement where he opts to take no deal to avoid negative reinforcement, in this case, going home with $.

The first persuasion element that the host employed is he himself, the source factor. The communicator is credible and can be trusted. This makes the contestant trust him. Besides, attractiveness is used, where a beautiful lady holds the other alternative of the deal. The lady smiles to attract the contestant, and at the same time, the host pressers him to take action. Lastly, the face-to-face interaction channel persuades the contestant, making him believe more in the deal. The audiences are also included to arouse emotions in the contestant.

References

Cherry, K. (2011, April 18). Positive reinforcement can help favorable behaviors. Verywell Mind. https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-positive-reinforcement-2795412#:~:text=

Jackson, M. (2019, January 14). Deal or no deal biggest fail 1 dollar *loses 1 million* [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/O13cjtMSiq4