Interview: David Robson, author of The Expectation Effect, on how beliefs shape behavior

In this episode we speak with David Robson, science journalist and author of The Expectation Effect. David explores how beliefs, attitudes and expectations shape our health, performance and daily experiences. He explains the fascinating science behind placebo effects, the power of mindset in influencing outcomes and the implications for behavior change messaging. 

Transcript

MichaelAaron Flicker: [00:00:00] Welcome back to Behavioral Science
For Brands, a podcast where we bridge the gap between academics and
marketing. Every week we sit down and go deep behind the science of
some of America's most successful brands. I'm Michael Aaron Slicker.
Richard Shotton: And I'm Richard Shotton.
MichaelAaron Flicker: And today, we're sitting with David Robson.
Award-winning science writer, author of three books, most notably the
Expectation Effect, which is won the British Psychological Society Book
Award. We're very excited to talk about that and much more, let's get
into it. So, David, welcome to Behavioral Science for Brands. As you
know, Richard and I are on this little mission to find the best applications
of behavioral science in the world, apply them to the world of marketing,
and we're super excited to have you today.
David Robson: Yeah, I can't wait for the conversation. Thank you for
inviting me.
MichaelAaron Flicker: Yes. Wonderful. So if you'll indulge me, let me
give our listeners a little background on [00:01:00] you and it's set the
stage before we get into our conversation. So David, you're an award-
winning science writer based in London specializing in medicine,
psychology, and neuroscience.
Your work has been featured. I'm sorry, you've, you've worked as a
features editor at The New Scientist and as a senior journalist at BBC,
and your writing has appeared in The Guardian, the Times, the Wall
Street Journal, the Atlantic, and much more. And you're author of three
different books, the Intelligence Trap, the Expectation Effect, and your
latest book, the Laws of Connection, coming out in paperback this June,
which we'll talk about later in this show as well.
And if that wasn't enough, you're extremely active on LinkedIn and
Twitter, where you regularly distill your own writing and complex
behavioral findings into actionable insights. We're thrilled to have you.
Welcome, welcome, welcome. So as we get into our conversation, our
listeners love [00:02:00] stories.

Maybe we can start with how did you get introduced to the world of
neuroscience of consumer psychology. Where does this story start for
you?
David Robson: Yeah, I mean, so I guess right from when I was a very
little kid, so about five or six years old. I was always super fascinated
with science. Especially I guess that was born from David
Attenborough's series, life on Earth.
Which I just found it was almost like a spiritual awakening in a way. I'm
kind of agnostic religiously, but I found that that just awoke so much awe
and wonder for me, and I've just been hooked on science ever since. But
at the same time, I just love writing and reading. So I always had kind of,
you know, little short stories or like I'd try to write like, you know,
children's novels when I was growing up.
And. Then, you know, I studied mathematics at Cambridge University
and once I [00:03:00] was about to graduate, you know, I really had this
kind of dilemma of what I wanted to do. And so science writing just
seemed a way to marry all of my interest. And it was while I was at New
Scientist Magazine that I just gravitated towards neuroscience and
psychology in particular because it felt so personally relevant.
You know, I'd be reading these journals and I'd be finding. All of these
discoveries that I could apply to myself to improve my own memory or
decision making. And I thought, well, I want to share what I've learned
with as many people as possible. And that's really the aim with each of
my books. You know, that answering deep questions that I wanted to
know selfishly, and then I thought, well, this is a really great story to tell
the rest of the world.
MichaelAaron Flicker: Could there be a more you know, romantic
vision of how you go deep on a topic than solving it for yourself and
feeling like you ha you've learned something to share. Has there been
something that's been surprising to you doing this multiple times?
Having come out with your [00:04:00] third book? Every time you do it,
you go into a, a meaningfully deep topic. Anything that surprised you as
you've gone kind of back to do this over and over again?
David Robson: Yeah. In the process, I guess I was kind of relieved to
find that it does become easier with time which I guess isn't guaranteed

actually. But yeah. What I do find fascinating is the first chapter's always
the hardest one to write.
It's almost like in the gap between books when I've been. You know,
doing the marketing and publicity for the previous one, I almost forget
how to write long form and so it takes a bit of time to warm up. But once
I've, and each book has a slightly different tone and slightly different
approach I guess.
So the first chapter's difficult to kind of, to shake that out and to work out
what my template is gonna be like, how I'm going to tell these stories.
And then once that's done, it becomes much simpler and it's, you know,
just a real pleasure. I know a lot of people complain about the writing
[00:05:00] process, but I just really love it.
I love. You know, synthesizing all of this research and just finding the
way through it, finding that narrative that's going to be the most
compelling and honest way of communicating it to as many people as I
can.
MichaelAaron Flicker: And as you've gone through all these different
topics, you are running up to things that affect consumer psychology or
marketing and advertising.
You've kind of run into these moments in, in, in your studies. We're
gonna, we, we, Richard and I have prepared a number of different things
that we'd love to chat about, but just to kind of more globally is there's
takeaways after doing all of this writing that you think about consumer
psychology or about product and marketing that come to mind to you
kind of more broadly?
David Robson: Yeah, definitely. So I, I think like the writing the
expectation effect no, the intelligence strap, sorry. My first book, hadn't
necessarily expected of that to realize how important intuition can be,
not [00:06:00] just in making consumer decisions, but actually in making
the right consumer decisions. And so that has always stuck with me, that
actually we, you know, we can make very good rational decisions,
deliberative decisions if we're considering relatively few number of
factors.
But actually if we're making decisions where we're have to having to
weigh out multiple different options. Multiple different qualities. Were

better to absorb all of that information. You know, it is good to do the
homework, but then let it incubate and then go back to that. And, and
I've let it just kind of pan out and trust your gut.
And often your gut is much better than if you try to do these laborious
kind of calculations to work it out. So that's always stuck with me. And I
just think the idea that, you know, sitting on something and then, and
then kind of leaving it to settle and, and letting. Maybe some factors that
you didn't expect to, to really count, to actually come to mind and and
then to make the [00:07:00] decision after that.
I think that's something I apply all the time now, especially with those big
decisions like, you know, buying a house or a car where you are making
a huge investment.
Richard Shotton: Yep. Yeah. That is well one of the phrasing that sticks
in my mind when we talk about the really big decisions, there was this
English economist called Ken Binmore.
Con's work was started to become a bit more popular. He said like all
these biases, you know, I'm sure they work when people are buying
ounces of crisps or cans of Coke, but they're all gonna work when
people have big purchases like a car or a house, because then they
have such a strong best interest to think things through more clearly.
But Richard Dana's response was, was amazing. He said, look, can you
get this completely the, the wrong way round? You know? When you are
buying a really small purchase, you do it really regularly. You learn your
preferences, you know what you like, but if you're doing something of a
massive scale, like buy a car or anything of, of huge expenditure,
[00:08:00] you do it so rarely.
You don't really know what, what you think. You don't, you know, that
you, you, so he said, you know, Taylor's argument and he called this the
binmore continuum, was that actually it's those huge purchases were
often the biases are of most passed. Whether it's social proof or, or
anger, and it's when we don't have our own experience to rely on, we
have to look at other rules of thumb to get by.
David Robson: Yeah, no, I totally agree. And I think anchoring
especially is so important for those huge pur purchases. And I, I think
sometimes if we, ironically, I think if we try to make a totally rational

deliberative decision with that we can allow the wrong things to so we
caught up on. Kind of state of the kitchen or the decoration or you know,
we're thinking about how much that might cost us to redecorate the
place, but we're completely ignoring the fact that the location might be
perfect for us, and that's much harder.
Find a suitable place in a suitable location, and that's gonna affect your
[00:09:00] quality of life for such a long time. I think intuitively we often
understand that, but when we we're trying to be smart about it, we often
miss that part.
MichaelAaron Flicker: Yeah. We were with another guest last week,
Roy Sutherland who's a vice chairman at Ogilvy uk.
And I don't know if this comes from a study or this is his own experience.
He said real estate agents, you all call them the state agents in the uk.
Yeah, we'll always show you a more expensive place first, like, like that
will always be your anchor, regardless of what you've said your price
range is. I don't know if there's data behind that, but it was very
interesting insight because it helps anchor even the choices of what
you're looking at.
And then of course, everything you said, David.
David Robson: No, I think that is true actually. It's just, I mean, you
know it's quite a sneaky trick, but it definitely does work because then
whatever you see next seems like a real bargain in comparison. Yeah,
yeah. There's certainly studies by
Richard Shotton: I think Margaret Neil and North [00:10:00] Craft
who've shown that anchoring does affect people's perception of what a
fair price to pay is when it comes to houses.
They showed people who were in market for a house first didn't houses,
asked 'em what they thought they were worth. And all they did was
randomize the asking price. And they showed that on buyers that asking
price acted as an anchor and there was a very big effect. But what was
really interesting, the did it on estate agents and the effect wasn't as
large in terms of its scale, but professionals were influenced by the bias
span room as well.

I think often there's this bit of a miss in the realm of behavioral science
Now, lots of martyrs now accept behavioral science affects consumer
good purchasing. There's evidence that it affects professionals as well. I
think that's something that's under exploited, under under tap. Well,
interesting.
MichaelAaron Flicker: So David, you you, in the, in your opening, you
started to talk about the expectation effect. Maybe you could tell us a
little bit more about the expectation [00:11:00] effect and we can learn
from you about that.
David Robson: Yeah. So the expectation effect as a phenomenon quite
simply is that our beliefs can become self-fulfilling prophecies, and it can
happen through various mechanisms, which can be perceptual
behavioral, but also physiological.
So our expectations often do change objective measures of what our
body's doing. Things like inflammation, blood pressure you know.
Activity in the areas of the brain that are involved in pleasure or pain all
of these things. Yeah. And it's very powerful. I mean, it can, in the book I
kind of explore, you know, obviously how this has been studied
extensively in medicine with the placebo effect, but it can also influence
how we respond to exercise, how we respond to diet to different food
substances and how that can affect, how easy it is to go on a diet and
lose weight, and it can even affect your aging. So people with positive
views of [00:12:00] aging tend to live about seven years longer than
people with negative views.
MichaelAaron Flicker: Can you connect that for us a little deeper? How
does this expectation effect affect views of exercise or dieting?
That would be helpful to have you explain and then maybe we can
connect it to what brands might do with this as well. That'd be helpful.
David Robson: Yeah, sure. So so with exercise, for example, we all
have this kind of sense of how fit we are compared to other people and
whether we're naturally good at exercise or whether we're, you know,
just not sporty, whether we're naturally count potatoes.
There's might be an objective component to that, but I guess with all of
the expectation effect, but I'm trying to say is our beliefs are formed of an
objective component and also a totally subjective component. Like it

could just be you had a really bad experience in gym class at school, but
actually there's nothing.
Wrong with your body. Nothing to mean that you can't get fitter. You
know, everyone can improve with regular training. [00:13:00] Now what
the research shows is that that can change those views, can change
both our perception of the exercise, so how hard we feel that we've been
working, how tired we feel, even after a short amount of time on the
treadmill.
But that it can also change things physiologically too. So, the gas
exchange of it within the lungs, like how much oxygen you are
transferring within your lungs and how much carbon dioxide you're
expelling that can be influenced by your beliefs about your fitness. So
there's this great study from Stanford University that looked at this and I
just gave people a genetic test and then gave them sham feedback
about what that test showed and people who were told they had.
Sporty genes tended to have, you know, more efficient gas exchange in
the lungs than people who were told they had the negative genes. And
in that case it was, the effect was actually bigger than the effect of the
genes [00:14:00] themselves. So just believing you had the good genes
was better than actually having the good gene.
Richard Shotton: We, we've found that people are skeptical of
behavioral science and psychology. You know, they've heard about one
or two studies that don't replicate and then, you know, they're cynical
about all of them. If you were trying to persuade a died in the wall, cynic
about the power of the expectation effect, is there one study that you
think is most powerful persuading the doubters?
What's the, what's the gonna single most solid bit of evidence for the
expectation folk?
David Robson: Hmm. Yeah, I mean, that's a great question. So first of
all, I'd say, well, convinced me was not the single any single study, but
more the wealth of evidence. And I think what I especially appreciated
was the fact that you had converging evidence from lots of different
types of studies.
So you'd have the longitudinal studies that would be tracking people
over time, and you could see a temporal pattern there. So the beliefs

would [00:15:00] often proceed the physiological effects that you saw,
for example. We've had the mechanistic studies, so you know, where
you are kind of changing someone's belief in the way that I described
straight away and you know, in a single laboratory session and then
you're seeing, say, a hormonal change immediately after.
You know, it's those kinds of things that we understand the
mechanisms, we can see the long-term effects on the effects that
convinced me. I do think the strongest argument for the power of
expectations is just the sheer amount of. Times we've observed the
placebo effect and it's opposite the Nobo effect in medicine.
You know, it's, you get a very few people who owed term placebo
deniers who say that that's a statistical artifact. But actually even then
you've had further studies that have interrogated that and have shown
that actually, you know, even when you, [00:16:00] even when you
compare someone taking a placebo. To someone taking no treatment,
someone taking the treatment.
You can see the differential effect of, of the strength of the expectations
on the physical responses. And that's especially true of something like
pain relief, for example. And, you know, further evidence for the power of
placebos with pain is the mechanism has been tested so thoroughly in
that we know that when you take a placebo painkiller your brain.
Produces these chemicals called endogenous opioids. So its own kind
of opioid system. It starts producing those chemicals and you can then,
you can surreptitiously give someone a chemical that blocks the effects
of opioids. And what you see is that the placebo effect then disappears.
People will take the placebo, but they don't report any pain relief.
And I think that's just impossible to explain. Ready? Right, unless
there's some physiological mechanism. 'cause these [00:17:00] people
obviously, if it was just some kind of purely subjective report or they
were just trying to please the researchers by saying by telling them what
they thought they wanted to say, then it shouldn't make a difference.
But giving that opioid blocker really does make a difference. So yeah, I
think it's studies like that that have convinced me it's,
MichaelAaron Flicker: it's such a great point, David, because we have
talked more broadly on the podcast about. The biases of research. And

if you can give yourself behavioral research where they don't know what
you're looking for, they can't affect the, the person being researched
doesn't understand what they're being asked, and you observe the
behavior and not the direct answers to the questions.
It gives you so much more insight. So this is a great example of that
where, you know, if you block the opioids that are being produced. I had
no idea whether that was happening or not. It's really a great example.
David Robson: Yeah, exactly. I mean, another example again with pain
relief, placebo pain relief is [00:18:00] that you can see a real difference
in the amount of pain relief people experience by whether they receive
their, so this is using the real drug, but you can see there is a placebo
effect even with the real drug.
People get more pain relief from morphine if their doctor tells them that
they're receiving it than if it's given surreptitiously through a drip. Again,
if. If the placebo effect didn't exist, we just wouldn't expect that to
happen. It should be the same throughout.
Richard Shotton: Yeah.
MichaelAaron Flicker: Very interesting, very compelling.
Let's take this conversation and apply it to product marketing,
advertising, building brands, which is most of our listeners are in. Are
either responsible for brands or responsible for growing products. What
exper, what evidence have you seen that this bias affects the way
people experience products?
David Robson: So I mean, if we stick with pain relief we can see that
the branding around [00:19:00] painkillers can really influence the
amount of. Pain relief that people experience from those. Again, I think
this is evidence for the existence of the placebo effect in general, but
then I think specifically it's relevant to marketing and it shows how
creating that very consistent message can, you know, not just influence
who's buying your products, but then the experience that they're having
of those products.
And so, so what we see with these painkillers is that if you give someone
a kind of specific brand such as Nien, they have more pain relief than if
you give them a generic brand or a supermarket brand, for example,

something less prestigious. And you can see with something like Nien,
that's really the, you know, through, you know, years of advertising, it's
really created this expectation that they're powerful. Now, everything
about the, the packaging, the wording that's used, it tells you that you're
getting something that's going to bring you relief. [00:20:00] And so
that's much more likely to happen when you take that compared to
something generic, which is a lot plainer, lot less interesting that doesn't
have this history.
You don't have the. Memories of when of it working in the past, which
could be then self-reinforcing. So all of those factors, I think, contribute
to this, this effect of branding in the placebo.
MichaelAaron Flicker: You know, the literal application of this to me,
like pops into mind. You go and buy in America, Advil or Tylenol and it
says, you know 33% more effective than store brands.
But it, and, and, but there's also this like lateral effect of that. We talked
in a previous episode about Listerine and you know, it tastes so strong.
It must work mean like it, I'm forgetting, I don't remember the exact line,
but you got it, Richard.
Richard Shotton: The taste you hate twice a day. So really
emphasizing it's got a horrendous taste and people have an [00:21:00]
expectation that, well, if it tastes bad, it's gonna be potent.
So emphasizing the, an illness of the taste. Create those positive
expectations, which is, I think you'll say, David, they become self-
fulfilling.
David Robson: Yep. Yeah, absolutely. And I think though, I think I've
seen research that I can't remember how reliable it is that, you know,
bitter tasting pills do seem to have a bigger effect than stuff that's sweet
because we do have that kind of intuition I think that we've grown up with
that if something pays bad, it's good for you.
Yeah.
MichaelAaron Flicker: Do you have any insight of whether or not. The
brand telling you this thing, the longevity of the advertising, like you
called out for the brand name versus Morgan or any, any physi, a

physical experience like a bitter pill. Do you have a sense in which of
those is more impactful or which of those more effects?
Expectations or, or altogether they just add up. [00:22:00]
David Robson: Yeah, I haven't seen a direct comparison, but I do think
it is the, the sum of them that's more powerful than any particular
element. Actually. I think when you get the right combination, that's that's
what really produces the biggest effects. I would say also we have seen
some really interesting case studies where this has kind of backfired
when companies, for example, have changed the slight, they've slightly
changed the recipe for their pills so that they've changed like a different
color, even though the active ingredients remain the same. And what
you see is that you have a huge increase in the reports for things like
side effects as a result of that, because you've lost the trust of the
consumer when you do that.
I think the change in color, an example I'm, I'm thinking of, I can't
remember what drug it it was now, but it was it might have been a, a
thyroid medication and the [00:23:00] change happened in New Zealand
and I was change, you know, from being white to off-white. It really
wasn't that important, but it became kind of self-perpetuating because
then the media got hold of this story and then the more media coverage
that this attracted, the more that those fears were being reinforced.
And so you saw, you know, a thousand fold increase in the. Number of
side effects that were being reported and the number of people who
were deciding not to take the medication as a result.
MichaelAaron Flicker: Fascinating. Fascinating. do you think that in
that example, or more broadly, there was things that a brand could have
done to be aware of that to be aware or to guard against that type of
change, but sometimes you have to change a color of a pill or
sometimes there will be things that need to happen.
Any guidance that you have on how brands can protect themselves from
ending up in an unfortunate situation where it becomes self
perpetuating?
David Robson: Yeah. I mean, [00:24:00] so I can't remember the details
of this, but I think it was, they had changed the manufacturing site and
for some reason that also demanded a slight change in the recipe.

I'd say, you know, before this was studied, I think that particular
company probably just. Came as a complete surprise because it hadn't
been seen before. But I think now we do know this there probably were
steps that could have been taken. So warning people in advance and
kind of preempting those responses I think can be very powerful.
You know, we see this also just in combating fake news or
misinformation in general, is that actually that kind of inoculation can,
can help to. Lay people's doubts and fears before they've even had a
chance to embed within the mind. So yeah, that's what I would say.
Think very carefully about how you're communicating those painters and
reassuring people upfront.
MichaelAaron Flicker: Very helpful.
Richard Shotton: I find the, the the [00:25:00] studies around branded
painkillers versus non-branded painkillers, one of the most interesting
experiments that you, you, you covered in the book. The question there,
I suppose comes in Britain at least. It's becoming increasingly well
known that Neurofen and ibuprofen are pharmacologically almost
identical.
Does that knowledge then reduce the impact to the expectation effect? If
I know Neurofen is chemically the same as ibuprofen, does the
expectation effect disappear?
David Robson: I would expect it to, so I'd be how, I'd love to see a study
that tested that. But yeah, I would expect to, because. This is one of the
things that I love about the expectation effect is that normally educating
people about what's happening can work to their advantage.
You know, people absorb that information, especially if you explain it
clearly, you give the evidence, then people tend to you know, change
their mindsets by themselves. So I I absolutely would think that.
[00:26:00] And conversely, so when we're talking about expectations
creating these side effects, we do know that if you educate people about
that possibility than they do, they're much less susceptible to, to that
phenomenon, which we call the Nocebo effect.
So yeah, I would, I would imagine that that knowledge is helpful and
also, you know, then people can start using the placebo effect to their
advantage. So there've been lots of studies looking at open label

placebos where you actually tell people. You're taking a placebo, but you
know, you say you're taking this an uphill, but don't worry, it will have an
effect because of the mind body connection, because of all, all of the
things that we've discussed.
And what you see is that people actually do experience significant pain
relief, like clinically significant pain relief, but chronic conditions as a
result of, so so that knowledge really can be power. And I, I would
imagine then, you know, if you empower people by educating them
about the fact that even one [00:27:00] of these generic painkillers can
be just as powerful as the expensive brands that they've been buying,
then I imagine they can change their mindset in a similar way to get the
most relief from that pill.
MichaelAaron Flicker: How does we talking about brand name
painkillers versus store brand painkillers, how does price affect
expectation? How does the, the, the price you pay change the way you
feel ?
David Robson: The Yeah, I mean this study that comes to mind look to
people's appreciation of wine and we could see a very clear correlation
between, the price and what people reported, how much they imported
enjoying the wine, the words they used to describe it. Also the brain
scans showed, you know, greater responses in the areas associated
with rewards. So it really does make a difference. You know, we assume
that we're paying more for something, we're guessing higher quality,
[00:28:00] and we appreciate that more.
I also think we're probably just focusing our attention more. We're
savoring it more 'cause we know. How much of our time has gone into
earning that money that we spent on the products that we bought?
Richard Shotton: That's such an interesting study.
David Robson: Hmm.
Richard Shotton: Yeah. I was just gonna say it, it's it, it poses a
conundrum for business owners and marketers because one of the most
regularly used tactics to increase demand is to put your product on
promotion that reduce the price.

The danger is that work quote from Bahir, I think, is that if you repeatedly
reduce the price, you're essentially training your potential consumer to
have a negative set of expectations about your product. And they will not
just create negative images, they'll actually create a negative, potentially
more negative experience.
About the, the product consumption. So I think people have gotta be
really careful about excessive discounting or at least be aware that it can
affect the actual taste of the wine in this case.
David Robson: [00:29:00] Yeah, I think you're right. I, I think that one
way around that is just to make the original price very salient.
So people are remembering how much it should have cost even if they
got the bargain. And I think that. That could make the all the difference
actually. But like you say, if it's repeated, if they become to just expect
the price to be that and they, you know, maybe come to be suspicious
that the original price is even the correct price, then I think you're right.
Then that could have a negative effect on the experience, the perception
of what they're consuming.
MichaelAaron Flicker: So we've talked about painkillers. Are there
other. Categories that are more prone to the expectation effect. Are
there certain types of people or consumers that would be more prone to
the expectation effect?
David Robson: Yeah, I mean, so let's say food's another one. So we've
spoken about wine. You know, there's so many ways that the
expectation effect can change [00:30:00] perceptions of food. I mean,
just in terms of the, you know, the taste of it. The words that we use can
lead people to savor the experience more. So one of my favorite studies
looked at consumer's responses to chocolate cake.
And I found this really interesting also from a dieting perspective, that
you, by having these really sumptuous descriptions of the chocolate
cake of people, you know, queued up to get their sliced. People were
happier to have a smaller slice when it had this really sensuous label
because they realized that they would get as much pleasure from a
smaller portion and that they probably didn't need the big portion to get
the pleasure that they were craving.

So I think that's, you know, very useful if we're trying to cut down on our
calorie [00:31:00] intake to just focus on those. Sensations, but also they
were willing to pay more for a smaller slice too. So it changed the way
that they were that, you know, the kind of cost benefit analysis that they
were performing.
So, you know, that's, that's one thing that we should bear in mind, I think,
for all foods. But then what's especially important is that then you can
see some effect on the satiety. So how much, how full people feel. After
they've eaten again, that might be a perceptual, purely perceptual
expectation effect because essentially the signals we're getting from the
gut are pretty messy, actually.
Like, you know, that we do have sensors in the gut's walls that can
measure the stretch as we've eaten, but it's really not accurate. So the
brain is using all of its other knowledge, you know, such as the site of
the food or the descriptions. To work [00:32:00] out, you know, has it
had enough nutrition essentially, and that can shape your cravings later
on.
But what really shocked me was that it can also then change the way
the body is responding hormonally to the food that you are eating. So we
saw this with this experiment looking at how people responded
physiologically to a milkshake. They came into the lab on two separate
occasions. They drank exactly the same milkshake on V vacations.
There was nothing different in the way it was composed or produced. It
was only the labeling that was different. One instance, it was presented
as this really luxurious treat. The labeling described all of the kind of full
fat ingredients that had gone into it. The ice cream, the chocolate, the,
the other one the other time the labeling presented it as this sensible
health shake. So it was something that was meant to just keep you
[00:33:00] full up, but not give you much pleasure. And it not only did it
have quite a very, of a very bland branding, but also in the nutritional
information, it, it emphasized how little fat, it had, how little sugar.
And it gave a lower calorie rating for the for the content. What the
researchers did in each case was they measured levels of the hormone
ghrelin before, during, and after the participants ate these milkshakes.
So ghrelin is called the hunger hormone. The higher it is, the more
hungry we feel. Normally if we're eating a big meal, you'd expect ghrelin
to spike very quickly.

Just as you're about to eat because you've seen this delicious plate in
front of you. You know, it's telling you to make the most of that
opportunity. And then it, it dips dramatically because you're full up. You
don't need to eat more food. You can conserve your energy, digest that
food without seeking more food.
Now that's exactly what you saw [00:34:00] when the milkshake was
labeled as this decadent, luxurious snack when it was labeled as this
very bland health shape with barely any. Any flavor or any calories. The
grilling just didn't really change at all. It just stayed at this plateau. That's,
you know, if you are dieting, that's the last thing you want your food to do
because you want to make sure that each calorie you consume reduces
your cravings later on. And that just was not happening when these
people ate that food labeled a whole shake.
Richard Shotton: For me, that was one of the most interesting sections
of the, the book. Where you are quite scathing about many
manufacturers of healthy or diet foods, how they misuse the
expectations. It, you've talked about some of the kind of problems of
labeling something as healthy.
What could those manufacturers do, do, do differently? How could they
make sure the expectations that their packaging or their [00:35:00]
advertising create are as, as positive as possible?
David Robson: Yeah, I mean, so it does depend on culture. So that's
worth emphasizing that they've actually looked at our associations
across different countries.
And so in France, if you label something as healthy people associate
that with it also being delicious and pleasurable, that's not the case in
the UK or the US or some other nor Northern European countries. So
the word healthy for some people can just be in itself, it can be quite
offputting. But I think we can get around that we can emphasize, you
know, even if something's healthy, I think you can still make a lot about
all of the health giving properties of that food.
That does seem to also help people too. It helps to curb their cravings
later on because even if it's not, emphasizing how delicious it is. I think
telling people, you know, it's got this much protein, it's got the, all these
vitamins, you know, that's telling them that they're getting something

that's important and useful for their [00:36:00] body and that does seem
to help.
But I think also, you know, these healthy meals, they probably have
been designed to be rich in flavors and we should just be emphasizing
that, directing people's attention to the things that they could be
appreciating about those products that go beyond the health benefits.
So, you know, why should.
Low calorie drinks still feel like a treat. Like what, what are you trying to,
how have you created this product to make it feel like a celebration and,
'cause that's what I think we should be doing with dieting. The best diets
are still going to make food. The core part of your day is still going to be
some, one of the things that you can afford to, you can get comfort from,
that you can celebrate.
And so I think marketers can really hold that top of their mind as they're
designing their branding.
Richard Shotton: So if you have a healthy food, emphasize it's
tastiness. That seems to be the key message. But what was something
else that you said there? That if people emphasize what a health food
adds, like more protein, more [00:37:00] vitamins, that tends to not
create the negative perceptions.
Whereas if you say what you are missing, you get this negative
expectations. But is that, is that fair? Is that what you were, you were
saying?
David Robson: Yeah, exactly. So I think a lot of the experiments had
looked at labeling that had. Created this mindset of deprivation. So it's all
about the kind of, how it's low, in fact, low in sugar, but it's not really
saying what it's adding.
Instead, like, like you said, it's not, whereas if you say it's, you know, full
of all of these crucial vitamins, it's full of this protein that's gonna help
you to grow your muscles and maintain your tissue, you know,
emphasizing that fact it, it doesn't create the same sense that you are
missing out.
Whereas I think a lot of health foods do, are focused too much on just
being like low calorie for example. That's the salient information that

people take away. And you don't want that to be, that can be part of it,
you know, that can be maybe why they choose it, but you don't want that
to be what they're thinking about as they're consuming the food, as
they're as they're trying to get [00:38:00] pleasure out of what they're
eating.
Richard Shotton: I think the, maybe the worst culprits here in the world
of healthier products who perhaps non-alcoholic beers. I mean, even the
phrase non alcoholic beers, they're very much stressing what's absent
there. I've seen a couple of people who have tried to do what you are
suggesting, which is focus more on the kind of upsides rather than the
deprivation.
So one which didn't take off, which I think was more about the quality,
the products than the marketing. Budweiser used to harass prohibition
brew, which I thought gave it this wonderful mystique of kind of
naughtiness and stretch. And then the other one was, there's a brand
called Infinite Session.
So emphasizing you can have more fun with your friends, you can stay
longer, you can keep on over the pub for, for much more time. So I think
that they are those brands were both trying to apply some of those
principles that you're talking about.
David Robson: Yeah, I think that's a great example actually. Yeah.
Which actually just it's a bit of a tangent, but it does remind me of not
[00:39:00] one of my favorite experiments on. And I think this shows how
with taste, in particular, how expectations are powerful. There was
researchers at MIT in the us they were looking at they kind of created
these beers that it sounds pretty disgusting when you hear what went in
it.
So they just put some, they added vinegar to a bunch of beers. Yes.
Yeah. Right. It doesn't sound appetizing, but I mean, I've tasted it and it
is actually. Pretty nice. But what they found was that if they labeled that
as special, MIT brew and it seemed kind of high tech, you know, maybe
they'd use some kind of new scientific technique to create the beer
people.
And they didn't tell them about the vinegar. People really loved it. They
preferred it to their normal, like bud buys or or whatever else they'd be

consuming. If you told them just up front, you know, we've got. We've
added vinegar to this beer. They hated it. You know, really it [00:40:00]
was very polarizing based just on the labeling.
And so, yeah, I think, you know, like when you talk about non-alcoholic
beers, you know, what you really want, like you said, is to conjure up
something that feels special. It feels like a treat, you know? And I think
you're right, like calling it Infinite Session is a great way to do that
because it's showing you how much more fun you might be able to have,
like how you can extend your night out, if you drink that beer. Yeah,
Richard Shotton: I think that's a super powerful study. 'cause I think
they had another version where they told people the beer had vinegar in,
but only after they'd tasted it. And then they asked them what they, they
thought, and they found that if you revealed the negative information
after an experience, it still reduced perceptions versus not being told
about the negative ingredient.
But not by very much. It was much better. To tell people after the event
about the vinegar added rather than telling them about the vinegar being
added before they tried it. Now, that I think has got loads of implications
of brands. 'cause what you could think [00:41:00] is, well, if we've got a
non beer, if we've got a fat free yogurt, let's get people to taste it first and
then remove, reveal what's being removed.
Let people. Sample it without those negative sets of expectations that
come with healthiness. So I I I, I agree with you. I think it's a wonderful
study that lots of listeners could, could think about flying when they,
when they're sold new products.
David Robson: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I totally agree. Yeah. So I hadn't, I
had never thought of it that way actually, how that part could be
practically applied.
I think you're right. 'cause when you've lived through an expectation
effect, it can, it does become self-reinforcing. So, yeah, I think it's getting
people to. You know, have an open mind before they try something new
is essential.
MichaelAaron Flicker: Yeah. We have a episode that listeners can call
back on on Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, and they change their they
change the, the way they make Kraft MA and Cheese to remove some

undesirable coloring, undesirable [00:42:00] elements because they
don't tell anybody.
And the campaign they run six months after the food has been on the
shelves, the new formula's been out, is you've been part of the line, the
largest blind taste test in the world. Like, and, and then they reveal it to
the point of not revealing the change until after the, the experiences
occurred, until after they've tasted it.
And we talked about that in that episode, and I think it's all about the
same concept of how do you, if you're going to make a change, how can
you use that expectation to your advantage? Or how can you reveal it
after they have had a positive experience? So I think that it's all related.
It's very exciting.
Richard Shotton: With, with all these studies, I see so much value to
food marketers. So why do you think more brands, especially let's stick
in the world of maybe health to to where the, where the, where the
applications are, are, are, are most obvious? Why do you think more
brands aren't applying the expectation, or why do you think they're
[00:43:00] misapplying it so regularly?
David Robson: Hmm. I mean, I, I, I feel like this might just be the lag
that you have between academic research meeting the industry. I mean,
I have given talks to different brands, including like a pasta brand about
these results. And I think, you know, hopefully it will be feeding into what
they're doing. But I feel like one of the.
The reasons they haven't applied it so far is that it, it doesn't feel very
intuitive actually, that these things are gonna make a difference. And,
you know, you are, you're producing something with, with a very specific
purpose for a very specific market. People who want to lose weight you
know, it seems to make sense to emphasize the, the kind of primary
thing that they will be looking for in their foods.
That's why I still think it should be a part of that. Like we do need to let
people know the calorie content so they can make these decisions and
so that they can know how much they're consuming each day. It's more
a [00:44:00] question of balance. I think that's the thing that's maybe
been lacking. You don't want that to be the only thing that they're
thinking about.

So I do hope that we will see change in the future as more people
become aware of this,
MichaelAaron Flicker: and it connects to a point that we make often,
which is learning about this. Part of the listening to this podcast is one
thing, designing an experiment with your own brand where you can trial
run it, test run it out in the real world and see the reactions you get.
See, the feedback you get is a way to baby step your way towards,
towards implementing these insights more fully. You don't have to
convince the entire board or your leadership team that you should just
change all the messaging all at once. Where can you find a small test
that you can. More balance the message, David, to your point, and then
see how that performs short term.
But also, I would argue qualitatively, do people react to your product
differently? Even if it doesn't drive more sales immediately, how does it
change the [00:45:00] reaction? That can be a leading indicator of it
being a good idea to do more of
David Robson: for, yeah, I think that's key as well, because I do wonder
if making these changes wouldn't necessarily have an influence on the
immediate sales because it might not be more appealing when people
are in the supermarket making their choices. What you might find is that
then people will come back to your products more loyally, because once
they've had that great experience of having this site food that actually
leaves them feeling very full up and satisfied and that they've had a, a
great experience, then you know, they'll stick to their diets for longer.
They'll be relying on those products for longer.
MichaelAaron Flicker: This is a great, this, we've covered a number of
different topics across a number of different industries. Really appreciate
the conversation today, David. Really it's been, it's been a great, a great
talk. We always ask the wrap up question and we were wondering is
there an example of behavioral science being [00:46:00] applied today?
These insights that you see in the real world that really is exciting to you,
that you think is being done well? We always like to bring it to action. So
not anything we talked about today or anything through your work where
you have an example of it really working in the real world that you might
wanna share with us.

David Robson: Yeah, that's a good question. Cause you know,
obviously it's something that's always top of my mind. I mean, I, I do
think the marketing of painkillers has been obviously very successful. It's
been proven to change people's experience. I feel I would add one
caveat to that, which is that it might well be having a long-term effect on
the size of the placebo effect that we see.
In all trials now, all clinical trials in the us. So there's evidence though,
over the last few decades that placebo effect has been steadily
increasing painkillers. And there's one theory that this is because
[00:47:00] people it may well partly be because of the advertising around
painkillers and just that people come to have higher expectations of what
those.
Drugs can do which is slowly increasing the placebo effect, but also the
more people understand about the power of the mind body connection,
it's almost becoming its brand. The placebos are becoming their brand in
their own way. So when you have these clinical trials comparing
placebos to pills in the past there was always this kind of fear in the
people in the trials that they might be, they were worried that they might
be taking the placebo pill, and so that could be producing negative
expectations.
Now because people know that even the placebo can be helpful,
potentially they have higher expectations of pain relief regardless. So
that could be another explanation for the increase. You know, something
that I would really love to see you do can now see placebo pills that are
available commercially.
[00:48:00] I'd love to see in the future more opportunities for and more
companies kind of getting creative with how they can use the placebo,
how they can help people to. Use of the mind body connection
themselves. So yeah, that's what I would like.
MichaelAaron Flicker: David, thank you so much. And as we always
do, the discussions we've had today, the studies that we've talked about,
Richard and I will collect them and put them in the show notes so folks
can read more about our conversation, get the full transcripts of today,
and thanks again for joining us.
Really appreciate it.

David Robson: It's been a real pleasure. Thank you.
MichaelAaron Flicker: Until next time you can find us at the consumer
behavior lab.com or search for behavioral science. For brands,
anywhere you listen to podcasts, happy listening.
Advertisement: Behavioral Science for Brands is brought to you by
Method One, [00:49:00] recognized as one of the fastest growing
companies in America for the third year in a row. Featured on Ink's,
5,000 list. Method One is a proudly independent, creative, and media
agency grounded in behavioral science. They exist to make brands
irresistible, helping people discover products, services, and experiences
that bring moments of joy to their lives As behavior change experts
Method one creates emotional connections that drive true brand value
for their clients.
Focusing primarily with indulgence brands in the CPG space. Find out
more@methodone.com.