Who Am I? PRESENTED BY: RESOURCES You are permitted to photocopy and/or distribute this study for your own group’s use only. To distribute beyond that is a violation of the terms of purchase. © 2015 White Horse Inn whitehorseinn.org | 800.890.7556 LESSON 1 | resource one “Market vs. Christian Values Contrasted” Chart by Shane Rosenthal MARKET VALUES CHRISTIAN VALUES Felt needs Real needs (Rev. 3:17) Unbridled freedom Personal restraint (Titus 2:12) Buying / Consuming Believing / Obeying (John 3:36) Eros: love of pleasure Agape: Unselfish love (Rom. 5:8) The customer is king God is sovereign (1 Tim. 6:15) Instant gratification / Theology of glory Delayed gratification / Theology of the cross (Matt. 4:1–11) That which pleases the eye Faith comes by hearing (Rom. 10:17) Comfort Patience, even through suffering (Rom. 5:3) Momentary experience Lifelong discipleship (2 Cor. 6:4) Mass appeal (never offend) The offense of the cross (Gal. 5:11) Passing fads Issues of eternal significance (Phil. 4:8) Youthful and energetic Churches led by elders (1 Tim. 5:17) Beautiful people Beware of the seductive adulteress (Prov. 6 & 7) Pride Humility (1 Pet. 5:5) “You owe it to yourself” Focus on God and neighbor (Matt. 22:37–40) Personal liberation Submission (James 4:7) “The easy way is always best” Sloth is a vice, not a virtue (Prov. 15:19) That which works (pragmatism) That which is true (1 Cor. 15:12–19) Manipulative sales pitches Beware of smooth talk and flattery (Rom. 1:18) Exaltation of human will & choice Bondage of the will / Exaltation of grace (2 Tim. 2:25–26) Emphasis on the individual Emphasis on the believing community (1 Cor. 12:13–27) Fun & exciting (amusement) Perseverance produces character (Rom. 5:4) Spin & deception The truth will set you free (John 8:32) New & improved Tried and tested / Ancient paths (Jer. 6:16) LESSON 1 | resource two “How Stores Manipulate Your Senses So You Spend More Money” by Thorin Klosowski MODERN REFORMATION VOL. 24, NO. 5 (SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2015) “Stores manipulate your sight so you see more products that you might want and also an entire lifestyle you want to live in.” When you walk into almost any store, you’re immediately overloaded with sights, sounds, smells, and various things to touch. This barrage on your senses is hand-picked for one goal: to make you spend more. Here’s what’s going on. No matter what type of store you walk into—from the Apple store to Wal-Mart—you’ll find all types of carefully engineered tricks that get you to fork over cash. From the scent of coconut in the summer clothes section to the end caps filled with junk you don’t want, stores are carefully organized in ways you may never notice. To get an idea of how this all works, I spoke with Dr. Kit Yarrow, consumer psychologist at Golden Gate University and co-author of Gen BuY: How Tweens, Teens, and Twenty- Somethings Are Revolutionizing Retail. How Stores Tap into Your Sense of Sight to Get You to Spend More It shouldn’t be surprising that the main sense that retail stores go after is your sense of sight. What is surprising are the subtle cues they leave around to get us to spend more. These are small symbolic cues that have a big impact on what we decide to buy, and how long we’re willing to stay in a store. For example, color has a big impact on our shopping choices. Each color often evokes or represents a feeling, and retailers use that to their advantage.1 Yarrow explains: It could be the color of the product, or if they’re displayed in groups of colors that tend to have a big emotional impact. Colors have different associations and those things tend to get people going. So, for example, red is almost always the color associated with sales because it inspires people to take action and it’s a stimulating sort of color. If Target’s logo was blue, it wouldn’t be perceived as a place where things are reasonably priced. I think value-oriented stores tend to have logos with red, but it could also be orange. Black is almost always associated with higher prices and luxury. Colors have all sorts of impact on how we spend. The Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research recently published a study that indicates that waitresses who wear red tend to get bigger tips, and red even makes us spend more online.2 It’s not just color, though. Retailers also tap into your unconscious by creating simple navigation roadblocks. For example, people often go to a grocery store just to pick up a single item like milk, but milk is in the back of the store. You’re forced to walk through and see everything before grabbing your one item. Chances are, unless you put the blinders on when you’re walking through, that you’ll grab another item or two. LESSON 1 | resource two Retailers want you to get lost in the store so you see more of their products. Take Ikea, for example. The store is structured in a way that you’re bound to get turned around and lost. This causes you to see more than you need to, and in turn you end up with a couple more items in your hand. If you’re going to Ikea, you could always walk in the exit doors to avoid getting lost when you’re grabbing one item, but you don’t have that option at every store.3 Stores like Apple and Ikea also want to create a lifestyle image: A lot of this is about a brand image. It’s to get you to feel a particular way. One of the things I’ve found works really well is when you create a theme or a lifestyle, and people can see themselves living in this lifestyle. That causes them to want to buy those things—that’s why Ikea sets up those rooms—you go to buy a lamp, and suddenly you want to buy that couch too. Pottery Barn is really good at this—they’ll create a theme of a room or a party, and people kind of slip into that and they want to buy it. It’s not just big budget items. Stores do this all the time with little add-on purchases. They’ll include a complementary pair of shoes next to some new jeans, or a cell phone case that happens to match a skirt right next to it. They want you to see yourself using or wearing what they’re offering, so they present it all in a way that your brain makes those connections without you realizing it. The idea here is that stores manipulate your sight so you see more products that you might want and also an entire lifestyle you want to live in. Unfortunately, it’s one of those things that typically works so well that the only thing you can really do to avoid spending more money is to recognize what’s happening and try not to fall for it. Why Touching Products Makes You Want to Buy Them All those carefully designed stores aren’t structured just to assault your eyeballs with shiny objects. They’re also about forcing you to touch more things. Why? Because touching tends to lead to purchasing for most of us. Yarrow explains: [Environmental psychologist] Paco Underhill talked about stores that create roadblocks so that when you walk in you’re forced to stop. He suggested that when you touch something, you’re more likely to buy it. It turns out that we now know he was right. Research shows that when people touch things they’re more likely to buy them. So, you want to place things where people are more likely to pick them up. That means not-perfect displays—where things are a little off-kilter—because people are more comfortable picking things up that way. I know that’s true for me; if I go into one of those jean stores where everything is folded and organized, I don’t want to try and find my size because I know I’ll just mess it up. Essentially, the more time an item spends in your hand, the more likely you are to purchase it. That means stores are structured so you’re always picking things up. That might mean an end cap filled with items, or even a cluttered looking shelf that you have to sift through. It’s not just random shelves either. Even where an item is on a shelf makes you more likely to notice it and pick it up: Shelf placement is really interesting and it’s a newer concept. People really tend to gravitate to the center of displays. We seem to have this sort of homing instinct and there’s research that shows people are more likely to buy something that’s in the center of a display. LESSON 1 | resource two If you’ve ever walked out of a stuffy store where you weren’t comfortable picking up items, you know how important the idea of touching a product is. That same sense can also be used against us though, causing us to pick up items we don’t really want. Why the Perfect Scent Makes You More Willing to Spend Money You might not even notice it, but what you smell when you’re shopping can impact the choices you make to a strange degree.