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Cognitive lock-in

By thescian on June 5, 2007.

Fascinating news I read at ScienceDaily.

An important new study from the Journal of Consumer Research demonstrates how this "cognitive lock-in" can cause us to remain loyal to a product, even if objectively better alternatives exist.

"We find that consumers typically are not aware that this mechanism is a powerful determinant of the choices they make," write Kyle B. Murray (University of Western Ontario) and Gerald Häubl (University of Alberta).

Murray and Häubl examine a theory of cognitive lock-in centered around the notion of skill-based habits of use, that is, how using or purchasing a product becomes easier with repetition. In a series of experiments, they find that people are more influenced by their perceptions of ease-of-use rather than how objectively easy a product is to use.

Remember the moments when you are well aware of a new road that could take you home quicker but still go down the same old rotten road because you can't change your habitual instincts...

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I love it.

Brand Loyalty sounds all fuzzy and warm and happy. Cognitive Lock-In sounds like a mental condition. Of course, the latter covers a wider range of behaviors than the former, but the former is fully explained by the latter.

I even can sit here and justify some of the "brand loyalty" (or cognitive lock-in) I've displayed in the past and probably continue to display. Now I have to wonder if my justifications are nothing but the product of cognitive dissonance....

-Rob

It's extremely old news in Economics. Textbooks 2 or 3 decades old trot out Betamax versus VHS, Microsoft versus Apple, and other examples. But it is always MUCH more complicated when you analyze the competition in detail. And yes, it can be called a cognitive issue, because the companies, products, and marketplace do not exist in a vacuum, but involve real people, who are not robotically making Adam Smith optimal decisions, but something "irrational" with satisficing.

Hey, don't you know plenty of couples who are manifestly wrong for each other, yet stay together, hating each other, out of habit?

For those of us with food or other allergies, there's a very good reason for brand loyalty: We know we don't react to that brand. There's also an extreme feeling of disgust and betrayal if that brand changes its formula. And a single bad reaction will make us swear off a brand for good.

For those of us with food or other allergies, there's a very good reason for brand loyalty: We know we don't react to that brand.

Until that brand fiddles with the ingredients. Or switches to equipment that is also used to process peanuts. I do not know anyone with a food allergy who has not been forced to vacate a 'safe' brand due to an unexpected change in ingredients. Brand loyalty gets you some stability, but not a lot.