I don’t feel like you’re giving a good marginal case—for example:
I go to the store looking for orange juice. The store is out of the brand I usually buy, but there are free samples of passion fruit juice being handed out nearby. I stop to try some, at the behest of the person pouring the little cups; partly because I want them to feel like they’re doing something worthwhile, partly because I’m thirsty.
Drinking it, I realize that passion fruit juice is the greatest tasting thing that I’ve ever encountered. I immediately buy ten gallons and update my favorite things on facebook.
Was this manipulative? What if the juice stand is on the side of the road instead of in a supermarket?
That seems like a blend between all three (you sought juice, but not this kind; you tried a sample and enjoyed it on the basis of approved criteria; a person beseeched you to take the sample). If wanting people to feel like they are doing something useful were a means by which you independently chose juices, there are probably better ways to optimize for it. The strength of your response to the taste of passion fruit juice in this example doesn’t seem like the kind of thing that the sample-pourer could have easily influenced, though, so I’m inclined to process it more like the goat cheese example.
(Incidentally, I learned to like interesting cheeses via a sample of goat cheese in a grocery store, and continue to spend significant amounts of money on interesting cheese years later. The sample table was attended but the person spreading cheese on little toasts was not very interested in making people eat the samples. I had to ask her where to find retail-sized amounts of it; she didn’t disclose the information unprompted.)
I don’t feel like you’re giving a good marginal case—for example:
I go to the store looking for orange juice. The store is out of the brand I usually buy, but there are free samples of passion fruit juice being handed out nearby. I stop to try some, at the behest of the person pouring the little cups; partly because I want them to feel like they’re doing something worthwhile, partly because I’m thirsty. Drinking it, I realize that passion fruit juice is the greatest tasting thing that I’ve ever encountered. I immediately buy ten gallons and update my favorite things on facebook.
Was this manipulative? What if the juice stand is on the side of the road instead of in a supermarket?
Even if it was manipulative, is it a bad thing?
That seems like a blend between all three (you sought juice, but not this kind; you tried a sample and enjoyed it on the basis of approved criteria; a person beseeched you to take the sample). If wanting people to feel like they are doing something useful were a means by which you independently chose juices, there are probably better ways to optimize for it. The strength of your response to the taste of passion fruit juice in this example doesn’t seem like the kind of thing that the sample-pourer could have easily influenced, though, so I’m inclined to process it more like the goat cheese example.
(Incidentally, I learned to like interesting cheeses via a sample of goat cheese in a grocery store, and continue to spend significant amounts of money on interesting cheese years later. The sample table was attended but the person spreading cheese on little toasts was not very interested in making people eat the samples. I had to ask her where to find retail-sized amounts of it; she didn’t disclose the information unprompted.)