Irresistible

When given the opportunity for ease, many people avoid it. In one experiment, researchers gave students several minutes alone in a room and told them to try and have a pleasant experience. Researchers provided them with the opportunity to administer electric shocks to themselves. In most cases, students preferred to shock themselves to sitting alone with their thoughts. Researchers concluded that the students would rather do something than nothing, even if that something was unpleasant (169). A sense of hardship is an essential component of addictive experiences. The video game Tetris exemplifies this principle. Though the game at first is easy, it grows in difficulty the more you play it. As Alter explains, this escalation of difficulty is crucial to the game’s ability to keep players engaged.

In one study, students came into a lab where they either found a storage box waiting for them, or were asked to build the storage box themselves. When asked how much they would pay for the box, the students who had built the box themselves were willing to pay much more than the students who bid on a box that was already built. One conclusion is that people value what they create themselves more than what is made for them.