by Heidi Grant Halvorson, Ph.D. & Jonathan Halvorson, Ph.D.

Every marketer knows that people want more good things – good products, experiences, and ideas – and want to avoid bad ones.  What they may not realize, however, is something that research psychologists have known (and kept mostly to themselves) for over two decades: there are two fundamentally different kinds of good.  Tailor your message to match the kind of “good” you are selling, and you can increase consumer trust, message believability, engagement, and perceived value.  Mismatch, and your message falls flat.  So, what kinds of “good” do people want?

Some people tend to see their goals as opportunities for gain or advancement.  In other words, they are focused on all the great things that will happen for them when they succeed – the benefits and rewards. Psychologists call this promotion motivation, and research shows that promotion-minded people are more energized by optimism and praise, more likely to embrace risk, seize opportunities, and excel at creativity and innovation.

Others tend to see their goals as opportunities to avoid loss and to stay safe.  They don’t want to lose what they have worked hard to achieve, and they worry about all the terrible things that might happen if they make a mistake. Psychologists call this prevention motivation, and the prevention-minded are more driven by criticism and the looming possibility of failure than they are by applause and a sunny outlook. Prevention-focused people are more risk-averse, but their work is also more thorough, accurate, and carefully planned. 

It’s not just people who have different motivational focuses – products, activities, and ideas can have them too. Some are obvious: seat belts, home security systems, and mammograms are essentially about avoiding loss (prevention), while vacation homes, lottery tickets, and facelifts are about potential gains (promotion).  Others can be either promotion or prevention-focused, depending on how you talk about them.  When toothpaste is about a “whiter smile,” it’s a promotion product.  But when it’s about “avoiding cavities,” it’s all prevention.

You can more effectively market a product if you tailor your message to fit the motivational focus of the product or the audience you are aiming for.  There are several ways to achieve a motivational fit, but the one that has been most frequently studied is the use of gain versus loss framing.

Promotion motivation makes us more sensitive to, and influenced by, information about gains.  Studies show that people with a promotion focus (or people considering a promotion product or idea) are more deeply engaged when a product is described in terms of benefits.  The same holds true for prevention motivation when descriptions emphasize avoiding loss.

Engaged customers reliably ascribe more value to the product in question, as demonstrated by changes in attitude, behavior, product enjoyment, and spending.  In other words, people will pay more for a product – sometimes much more – if you describe their choice in a way that fits with their motivation.

The nuances in description can be subtle. If you are selling cars, you can choose to talk about “better mileage” (promotion) or “lower fuel costs” (prevention).  You can emphasize the “bonus” features customers get if they buy the Limited Edition, or what they’d be missing out on if they didn’t buy it.  If you are offering a loyalty program at your coffee shop, should you offer 10% off each cup, or tell them that after buying nine cups they get one free? What the customer gets in the end may be the same, but how they get there – through the promotion-focused strategy of seizing opportunities to gain (e.g., better mileage, bonus features, a free cup of coffee) or the prevention-focused strategy of avoiding losses (e.g., high fuel costs, an inferior product, having to pay full price for their morning joe), can be the difference between psychological night and day. 

Knowing which version will be more effective for your audience, for your particular message or product, is the key to finding fit. For example, when Welch’s Grape Juice was described in an advertisement as energy-enhancing (a promotion product), potential buyers rated the brand more positively when the ad was gain-framed (“Get Energized!”) than when it was loss-framed (“Don’t Miss Out On Getting Energized!”).  But when the juice was instead described as a source of antioxidants that prevent cancer and heart disease (a prevention product), the loss-framing (“Don’t Miss Out on Preventing Clogged Arteries!”) was more effective than gain-framing (“Prevent Clogged Arteries!”)

Similar results have been found for other products, including sunscreen, vitamin supplements, toothpaste, and gym memberships. Teen anti–smoking ads and messages advocating social policy issues (e.g, funding after–school programs) were more effective when they were designed with motivational fit.   In one study, people ate 20% more fruits and vegetables after reading about their benefits in messages framed to fit their dominant motivation. In another, promotion- and prevention-focused participants paid 50-70% more for a mug that was gain or loss-framed, respectively.

To create motivational fit, you always want to keep both the qualities of the product andthe motivation of your audience in mind, particularly when you are trying to position a particular product to a target population.  Age is one indicator of how someone is generally motivated (along with culture, occupation, and a number of other demographic variables.) Younger people are, on average, more promotion-minded, and are drawn to opportunity. They are more likely to value the possibility for growth, advancement, and creative expression.  They are also more comfortable with risk, and more likely to engage with a product or idea when it is gain-framed.

Older adults, on the other hand, tend to be more prevention-minded – they are looking for a safe bet.  They want reliability and security.  They want to protect what they’ve earned.  They are, on average, less comfortable with risk, and more likely to engage when you use loss-framing.

Motivational fit is a powerful, and largely overlooked, tool of influence.  When you tailor your message with promotion and prevention motivations in mind, your audience will like it more, and trust it more.  They will find your arguments more convincing, or your story more compelling.  And if you are selling something, they will value it more, and be willing to pay more for it.   Best of all, they will be more satisfied with their decision to endorse your idea or purchase your product – which makes motivational fit a tool you can feel genuinely good about using.

It’s not easy to live up to your fullest potential.  There are so many obstacles that can get in the way:  bosses that don’t appreciate what you have to offer, tedious projects that take up too much of your time, economies where job opportunities are scarce, the difficulty of juggling career, family, and personal goals.  But smart, talented people rarely realize that one of the toughest hurdles they’ll have to overcome to be as successful as they might be lies within.   

People with above-average aptitudes – the ones we recognize as being especially clever, creative, insightful, or otherwise accomplished – often judge their abilities not only more harshly, but fundamentally differently, than others do (particularly in Western cultures).   Gifted children grow up to be more vulnerable, and less confident, even when they should be the most confident people in the room. Understanding why this happens is the first step to righting a tragic wrong.  And to do that, we need to take a step back in time.

Chances are good that if you are a successful professional today, you were a pretty bright fifth-grader.  You did well in several subjects (maybe every subject), and were frequently praised by your teachers and parents when you excelled.

When I was a graduate student at Columbia, my mentor Carol Dweck and another student, Claudia Mueller, conducted a study looking at the effects of different kinds of praise on fifth-graders.   Every student got a relatively easy first set of problems to solve and were praised for their performance.  Half of them were given praise that emphasized their high ability (“You did really well.  You must be really smart!”).  The other half were praised instead for their strong effort (“You did really well.  You must have worked really hard!”).

Next, each student was given a very difficult set of problems – so difficult, in fact, that few students got even one answer correct.     All were told that this time they had “done a lot worse.”  Finally, each student was given a third set of easy problems – as easy as the first set had been – in order to see how having a failure experience would affect their performance.

Dweck and Mueller found that children who were praised for their “smartness” did roughly 25% worse on the final set of problems compared to the first.  They were more likely to blame their poor performance on the difficult problems to a lack of ability, and consequently they enjoyed working on the problems less and gave up on them sooner.

Children praised for the effort, on the other hand, performed roughly 25% betteron the final set of problems compared to the first.   They blamed their difficulty on not having tried hard enough, persisted longer on the final set of problems, and enjoyed the experience more.

It’s important to remember that in Dweck and Mueller’s study, there were no mean differences in ability between the kids in the “smart” praise and “effort” praise groups, nor in past history of success – everyone did well on the first set, and everyone had difficulty on the second set.   The only difference was how the two groups interpreted difficulty – what it meant to them when the problems were hard to solve.  “Smart” praise kids were much quicker to doubt their ability, to lose confidence, and to become less effective performers as a result.

The kind of feedback we get from parents and teachers as young children has a major impact on the implicit beliefs we develop about our abilities – including whether we see them as innate and unchangeable, or as capable of developing through effort and practice.  When we do well in school and are told that we are “so smart,” “so clever, “ or “ such a good student,”  this kind of praise implies that traits like smartness, cleverness, and goodness are qualities you either have or you don’t. The net result: when learning something new is truly difficult, smart-praise kids take it as sign that they aren’t “good” and “smart,” rather than as a sign to pay attention and try harder.

[Incidentally, this is particularly true for women.   As young girls, they learn to self-regulate (i.e., sit still and pay attention) more quickly than boys.  Consequently they are more likely to be praised for “being good,” and more likely to infer that “goodness” and “smartness” are innate qualities.  In a studyDweck conducted in the 1980’s, for instance, she found that bright girls, when given something to learn that was particularly foreign or complex, were quick to give up compared to bright boys – and the higher the girls’ IQ, the more likely they were to throw in the towel.  In fact, the straight-A girls showed the most helpless responses. ]

We continue to carry these beliefs, often unconsciously, around with us throughout our lives.  And because bright kids are particularly likely to see their abilities as innate and unchangeable, they grow up to be adults who are far too hard on themselves – adults who will prematurely conclude that they don’t have what it takes to succeed in a particular arena, and give up way too soon. 

Even if every external disadvantage to an individual’s rising to the top of an organization is removed – every inequality of opportunity, every unfair stereotype, all the challenges we face balancing work and family – we would still have to deal with the fact that through our mistaken beliefs about our abilities, we may be our own worst enemy.

How often have you found yourself avoiding challenges and playing it safe, sticking to goals you knew would be easy for you to reach?  Are there things you decided long ago that you could never be good at?  Skills you believed you would never possess?  If the list is a long one, you were probably one of the bright kids  – and your belief that you are “stuck” being exactly as you are has done more to determine the course of your life than you probably ever imagined.  Which would be fine, if your abilities were innate and unchangeable.  Only they’re not.

No matter the ability – whether it’s intelligence, creativity, self-control, charm, or athleticism – studies show them to be profoundly malleable.  When it comes to mastering any skill, your experience, effort, and persistence matter a lot.    So if you were a bright kid, it’s time to toss out your (mistaken) belief about how ability works, embrace the fact that you can always improve, and reclaim the confidence to tackle any challenge that you lost so long ago.