Scope Insensitivity
Feelings and willingness to pay barely change with the size of a problem — saving 2,000 birds or 200,000 elicits similar donations — because people respond to the prototype, not the quantity.
An everyday example
Being equally moved by a pitch to help 'a village' and 'a region', and paying about the same.
What it can cost you
Pricing and prioritising by emotional prototype rather than by magnitude; sellers who describe the prototype and hide the scale. Merged: neglect of scale.
Warning signs
- Ten times bigger did not feel ten times more.
- I reacted to the picture, not the count.
One thing to do
Force the number into view and divide: cost per unit of outcome, before deciding.
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