Why we hate surge pricing – but love happy hour

A Dominican and a Jesuit were chain smokers. Both were eager to be allowed to smoke while performing their devotions, but needed to gain permission from a higher authority. ‘I tried asking the Prior, but he was dead against it,’ said the Dominican.

‘What did you ask, precisely?’ enquired the Jesuit.

‘Well, I asked him whether it was acceptable to smoke while I was praying.’

‘Wrong question,’ replied the Jesuit. ‘I asked my Abbot whether I could pray while I was smoking. Permission granted.’

This is called a framing effect and is one of the best attested findings in the psychological sciences. Quite simply it reveals that the way information is presented has a potent and ineluctable effect on how we respond to it.

The fact that we react differently to information according to context is perhaps an evolutionary necessity: our emotional response to the rearward sound of approaching footsteps needs to be heightened in a dark alley compared with a crowded street in daytime.