Have you ever wondered what goes in
to creating your favourite products? If so, you aren't alone.
According to a study produced by George Loewenstein, a
professor of economics and psychology at
Carnegie Mellon University,
curiosity has been "consistently recognized as a critical motivate
that influences human behaviour in both positive and negative ways
at all stages of the life cycle."
One of the theories presented by
Loewenstein was something called, "tickling the information gap."
In this theory, he believes that curiosity happens in two basic
steps:
1. A situation reveals a painful
gap in our knowledge and;
2. We feel an urge to fill this gap
and ease that pain
When these two circumstances
exist, we are naturally compelled to dig deeper into the material
as we have a psychological need to fill what is "missing."
A great example of a company that
uses the concept of tickling the "information gap" well is
Upworthy.com. Upworthy is rather infamous for its headlines that
they use to title their blog posts and their headlines execute this
piece of Loewenstein's theory perfectly. Love them or hate them,
they work.
Here is a recent example of a headline from Upworthy:
"Try to See If You
Recognize Your State on This Map. I Bet Ya
Don't."
The headline becomes the reveal of the painful gap in our
knowledge and the click to the article is us fulfilling the urge to
fill the gap and ease our pain. Curiosity results in higher page
views.
Now, if you aren't writing articles you may not be as
interested in writing headlines for page views but the idea of
curiosity is still a great one to explore and can be used in
multiple ways to increase engagement and thus, increase
sales.
A 2004 study, produced by Todd B. Kashdan, Paul Rose and Frank
D. Fincham for the Department of Psychology at the State University
of New York, focused on three factors correlated with curiosity:
autonomy, competence, and relatedness. The one of interest, in this
particular context, is relatedness.
Relatedness. Feelings of
relatedness-feeling connected to others, and believing your
emotional experiences are acknowledged-also appear to increase
curiosity. In particular, relatedness has been shown to improve
both curiosity and performance in athletic, academic and work
contexts. Feeling comfortable and safe also encourages
curiosity.
So, what does this all have to do with Destiny, creating
behind-the-scenes moments and your business?
Disrupting your target audience
with curiosity, and inviting them to fill the gap in their
knowledge, is a perfect way to create an emotional response and get
them invested.
Behind-the-scenes photos and
videos, insight from upper level management, revealing details
about your company's current outlook and humanizing the people and
the process that exist in your company are great ways to fill your
customer's knowledge gap.
Think about what your customer
base may not know about your company, its products and services,
the way you make what you're selling and then think of ways that
you can bridge that gap, get them curious and forge an emotional
bond with them.
CHAPTER SIX SUMMARY
(TL;DR)
People are naturally curious. In fact, there are studies done
that state that we, as human beings, are curious at all stages of
the life cycle. By understanding the ways in which you can pique
curiosity in your customer base, you can elicit more engagement,
more emotional response and deeper commitment from the people in
your demographic.