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Comment by JoshMcguigan | Hacker News Reader

I could see this data being used by Facebook to argue that they are providing $n per week of value to each user, based on that being the price users demand in exchange for not using Facebook.

Of course loss aversion being what it is, humans will ask for more money in exchange for losing access to something than they ever would have paid to gain access to that thing.

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Is it just me or does it really boil down to the simple fact that the vast majority of people are likely to choose the largest amount of money? If I thought I was going to get paid for doing practically anything, even if it was a small chance, and I was presented with similar options, of course I would choose the largest amount. This is especially true of doing something as easy as not using Facebook.

As an aside, I haven’t used Facebook in years and I haven’t used any other mainstream social sites in months. I don’t really miss them. I wish I could ditch LinkedIn, but it’s proven to be a valuable job search tool more than once and frankly, the recruiter messages keep my mood up to some degree.

This is likely why they say the option you choose will not impact how much money you are given. If you choose $50/week, and are then offered $5/week and take it, they know you were overestimating. The study wants to learn empirically the relationship between perceived and actual willingness to abstain from Facebook at various price points.

Offering options anchors the range. Most people will choose the middle of the range, because choosing the low end makes you look foolish, and choosing the high end makes you look greedy. The choice they make has very little to do with the actual value they would accept, more with how they think they will be perceived. The correct way to do it is to just offer an input field, not a multiple choice, because then there is no anchoring.

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