Naked Science Forum
Life Sciences => Physiology & Medicine => Topic started by: neilep on 12/11/2012 21:35:46
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Dearest Demographicologists,
As a sheepy I am of course fascinated by demographics....demography is all I think about from the very minute I wake up, throughout the course of the day to the very moment I fall asleep. Demo-graphs occupy my every thinking moment .
So, ewe can imagine my surprise when I noticed this in Waitrose.
Those of ewe unaware, Waitrose is a supermarket store that supports the local community. It does this by making donations. The quantity of the donation is determined by their customers placing a green coin obtained after their shopping trip and placed within their chosen charity. The mopre coins a charity has the more it receives.
Now this one time (in band camp*) I perchance entered in one entrance but left via another. Both of these exntrances/exits had the same boxes as below.
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The Same Charity Box Coin Thingy In Waitrose Earlier Today
Nice eh ?
Anyway, the charities were in the same order but the differences in quantity of coins collected between the two boxes per each charity were obvious !...I mean blatantly obvious !
Why is that ?... Why would two identical boxes with the same charities depicted, in the same order collect coins in such different quantities ?
Do ewe think there is a demograph factor here ? Is the location of each exit/entrance a factor ? One leads to a main road..the other to a car park !
whajafink ?
hugs and shmishes
mwah mwah mwah
neil
xxxxxx
* Kwik Kwiz...what's da film ?
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I vote for a psychological rather than demographic explanation for the conspicuous variation in token collection at the different exits.
I think that the boxes are transparent is the cause of the inconsistency between the collection points, when combined with people’s tendency to vote with the majority.
Most of people who pass by the boxes couldn’t give a monkeys about the charities, and don’t want to take time reading up on their comparative merits: they simply want to get rid of their plastic tokens quickly on their way out of the supermarket.
Once one of the the charities has developed a lead, ( the reason for this initial lead could be quite random ), the uninterested passers-by, who are the majority, will cast their vote for the charity which is in the lead, as it apparently is the most worthy cause, thus giving it a landslide victory: a positive feedback (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_feedback) scenario.
If the boxes were opaque I think there would not be such a difference between the collections at the different exits as then people could not tell which charity appeared to be the most worthy and a positive feedback loop couldn't occur.
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Thanks RD .
I do see peeps make considered choices...I know I do when choosing a charity.......I'm not saying I disagree just citing that in my capacity of Waitrose-charity-coin fun I do notice that (for the duration of my observations) most people tend to read then choose.
I really like the idea of making them opaque but I guess it was a decision made to reveal the innards.
Hmmm !!
I have to say, that I tend to go for the most needy one !......that is...the ones with the least coins in !
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Having looked at the charities (http://www.waitrose.com/content/waitrose/en/home/inspiration/community_matters.html), you could be right about demographics being the explanation : one of the charities is going to be particularly appealing to those who are wealthy enough to have their own boat. ( If the supermarket customer doesn't have a car then they probably won't have a boat).
But are the exit demographics sufficiently different to have different winners at each exit, each winner with more votes than the other two charities combined ?. ( I'm sticking with my early-lead-amplified-by-positive-feedback hypothesis ).