Dollars and Sense

Yes, transparency helps us understand value, but, sadly, if we’re running a business, we typically don’t expect that explaining the effort behind our product or service will change the way customers evaluate it.

Yes, transparency helps us understand value, but, sadly, if we’re running a business, we typically don’t expect that explaining the effort behind our product or service will change the way customers evaluate it. But it does. . . .

Transparency, because it reveals effort and thus the appearance of fairness, can alter our perception of value in ways that have little to do with actual value.

if we take any couple, put them in separate rooms, and ask the wife and the husband to tell us how much of the total amount of housework they each do, the total always adds up to well over 100 percent. In other words, they each believe they’re putting in a great deal of effort, that their partner is doing less, and that, perhaps, that division of labor is not fair.

We always see the details of our own effort, but we don’t see the details of our partner’s effort.

We always see the details of our own effort, but we don’t see the details of our partner’s effort. We have a transparency asymmetry.

when a price seems unfair, we try to punish the price setter, and we often end up punishing ourselves

when a price seems unfair, we try to punish the price setter, and we often end up punishing ourselves by passing up an otherwise good value.

Language is not just describing the world around us; it influences what we pay attention to, what we end up enjoying and what we don’t.

Words shouldn’t make the seat more comfortable, the spices tastier, the meat more tender, or the company more pleasant. Objectively, it shouldn’t matter how an item is described

we’re willing to pay much more for a well-described wine.

while language doesn’t change the product, it does change the way we interact with it and the way we experience it.

Consumption vocabulary gets people to think, focus, and pay attention, to slow down and appreciate an experience in a different way and then experience the world in a different way.

When consumption vocabulary describes not only what we are about to consume but also the process of production, we appreciate the item even more

language offers a window into the effort we so crave to see, which signifies fairness and quality.

Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.

moment of drinking than we would without it. Two identical bottles of pinot noir, side by side—one poured into a coffee mug and the other into fine crystal, swirled, held to the light, dripped on the tongue, twirled in the mouth—which should Rick value more highly? For which would we pay more? The bottles and the wines inside them are the same. They should be valued identically. But they are not. We value ritualized wine more!

-hole while binge-watching must-see TV. We humans want to believe that our food is going to be delicious, our investments will pay off, we can find a great deal, we can become an instant millionaire, and that we’re about to eat an airplane.

Much like a company stock, our own valuations are affected by the expectations of our most trusted analyst: ourselves. If we expect something to be really, really fantastic, we will value

Much like a company stock, our own valuations are affected by the expectations of our most trusted analyst: ourselves. If we expect something to be really, really fantastic, we will value it more highly than if we expect it to stink.