persuasion The Threat of Potential Loss Anytime someone feels their freedom-to choose, think, or act-is being restricted, they "experience psychological reactance and attempt to restore their freedom."'' With this restriction on freedom we are driven to latch on to that thing which we fear will be restricted even more. Instead of standing by and saying, "Okay, I'll give that up," we take the opposite approach. Suddenly, that restricted item is even more important to us. Researchers call this tendency "reactance."4 An intensely motivational state, reactance causes us to be emotional, singleminded, or even irrational. We hate feeling restricted, so we are highly motivated to resolve anything that creates that feeling. It is due to reactance that we act, and that we want it now. A study involving a group of male toddlers illustrates just how powerful the Law of Scarcity is, even in very small children. In the study, the toddlers were brought into a room that held two equally exciting and appealing toys. A Plexiglas barrier was set up so that one of the toys sat next to it, while the other sat behind. The barrier wasn't very tall, so some of the toddlers could simply reach over the top and grab for the toy. For others, though, the barrier was still too high to reach over, so they could only reach that particular toy if they went around and behind the Plexiglas. The researchers wanted to see if the obstructed toy, being more "scarce," would draw more attention and be more desirable. The boys who could easily reach over the top showed no preference toward the obstructed or the unobstructed toy; the unobstructed toy was approached just as frequently and just as quickly. For the boys who could not reach over the top, however, the obstructed toy was clearly the more desirable of the two-in fact, the boys made contact with it three times faster than with the unobstructed toy!5 Even in toddlers, there was an urge to defy restriction of choice! You Can't Have It In another study involving children, researchers told the children they could select from a wide array of candy bars. They then pointed out a particular candy bar and told them they should not choose that one, but any of the others would be fine. The children reacted to the threat to their freedom of choice by choosing the bar they'd been told not to select. In doing so, they felt they had preserved their freedom to select whatever bar they wanted." It makes you wonder if that is also why Adam and Eve, who had the entire Garden of Eden to play in, couldn't stay away from the forbidden fruit. The Law of Scarcity works because it makes people feel like they will lose their opportunity to act and choose if they don't do so immediately. The threat of such loss creates urgency in our decision making. Have you ever noticed how people tend to be more motivated when faced with potentialb losing something than when they might take steps of their own accord and gain something of equal value? Studies have verified that this is a common and consistent phenomenon. persuasion