How A Flight Attendant Hijacked Our Attention

There are few things I enjoy more than observing human behavior in people-watching settings and seeking to understand the forces at play. The latest example of this was on an airplane.

As we were taxing away from the gate, the flight attendant said over the intercom “Before we get started, did someone drop this?” Every passenger stopped what they were doing and looked up. She then continued to say, “Now that I’ve got your attention, let me tell you about the safety features on this Boeing 737 aircraft.”

People started laughing know that they’d been had, caught in a joke, and manipulated in a playful way. When that wore off they largely returned to not paying attention.

It was remarkable how effective the tactic was and I concluded there had to be some seriously powerful psychology at play.

One of the main factors that goes into whether we decide to do something or not is an implicit and unconscious evaluation where we ask if it’s worth it. The greater the payoff (or potential payoff) of taking action, the more leveraged the action becomes and the more inclined we feel to do it.

This is because the two great motivating forces in life that drive behavior are the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain. If doing something will give us something really good or keep us from experiencing something really bad, we’re way more likely to do it.

In this example, the simple act of looking up was a means of avoiding the potential pain of losing something. Unconsciously in each person’s mind they asked the question “Did I drop my phone? Did I lose my earbuds? Did I forget my bag?” The potential payoff of fixing a costly mistake or avoiding losing something valuable was worth the energy to take the action. So we did.

Just like the flight attendant took advantage of our underlying psychology to produce a certain behavior, we can leverage the same and put ourselves in conditions that make positive actions much more likely.  This is the heart of environmental design and your sense of motivation is just one of the many fixtures that make up your environment!

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