I was reading an article about the TripAdvisor website, and this is an excerpt:
And just when I thought I'd found a hotel, after I'd digested dozens of [positive reviews], I would come across that one
review-the cockroach in the salad bar. Behavioral economists call this
the Volvo problem, after a thought experiment in which a prospective car
buyer, having read in bona fide sources like Consumer Reports
how great a car is, hears from a neighbor that his is always in the
shop. Suddenly, that aggregate of rational, emotionally distant
information is overwhelmed by a much more narratively powerful,
personally relevant source.
I guess no matter what data you put in front of some people, watching Pitt fail to score for a few minutes in a game is enough to make them discount everything else.
Inside the Mad, Mad World of TripAdvisor
And just when I thought I'd found a hotel, after I'd digested dozens of [positive reviews], I would come across that one
review-the cockroach in the salad bar. Behavioral economists call this
the Volvo problem, after a thought experiment in which a prospective car
buyer, having read in bona fide sources like Consumer Reports
how great a car is, hears from a neighbor that his is always in the
shop. Suddenly, that aggregate of rational, emotionally distant
information is overwhelmed by a much more narratively powerful,
personally relevant source.
I guess no matter what data you put in front of some people, watching Pitt fail to score for a few minutes in a game is enough to make them discount everything else.
Inside the Mad, Mad World of TripAdvisor
