The Matching Law

“Stated simply, the Matching Law suggests that an animal's response rate to a scenario will be proportionate to the amount or the duration of positive reinforcement delivered.”

Initial research to support this law was done with pigeons, where two buttons would dispense food at different rates as the birds pecked them. Over time, the pigeons would peck more frequently on the button that dispensed more food. In fact, over several tests, the numerical analysis led to a mathematical relationship between the amount of food dispensed and the relative frequency that the more lucrative button would be pressed.

In 1970, one of the founders of this law, Herrnstein paraphrased the importance of this principle by stating: “choice is nothing but behavior set into the context of other behavior” which has since been extrapolated to mean that behaviors can be predicted…and thereby challenges the concept of free will.

In social marketing, we’d love to be able to predict behaviors.

But whereas this law defines a principle that applies reliably in non-human subjects, humans tend to be an anomaly. We don’t always act in a way that is mathematically based upon any objective measure of increased benefit to ourselves.

Perhaps it is that concept of free will that explains why humans—especially in our society of individual rights—do not respond reliably: we desperately want to apply free will to our every action. As a result, we respond to scenarios irrationally, at least according to the Matching Law.

To explain our inefficient response to the natural trend towards maximizing benefit, perhaps we should turn to Dr. Robert Deutsch. He is a cognitive anthropologist and one of the leading strategists on how the mind creates beliefs and how beliefs can be influenced. He is known for saying, ‘Data or attributes are not the issue. The mind evolved to act, not to think.’"

In effect, humans develop a response to new information by both rational logic, and emotion. This may seem self evident, but it is important to recognize that emotion and intangible factors—not information—is what makes us respond in unpredictable ways.

The field of Behavioral Economics, which debates the reasons for economic choices made by humans, is closely related to this discussion. Just as in social choices, humans often make economic decisions that are not rational. Is a brand name dish soap really more effective at cleaning? Is business class really that different? We develop irrational perceptions that there is a difference based upon intangible factors.

In social choices, we also act irrationally, or perhaps we cloud our thinking by applying extra (often unrelated) information or feelings: Fear? Inertia? Laziness? Lack of trust? Group association? Peer pressure? Does it matter to me right now?

Social marketers must not disregard the science behind the Matching Law, but work to understand the influence of emotion and intangible (irrational) factors that truly guide our audiences’choices and behaviors. In a world where social communications from social causes are replete with facts, we almost need to forget about communicating the FACTS and focus on communicating with emotion.

Biologically speaking, facts should elicit a rational change in behavior, but now we know that facts are wantonly insufficient: emotional response is the key to effective behavior change.