But that’s not what happened.
Right after Gronk and Tide warned people not to eat them, Google searches for Tide Pods spiked to their highest level ever. Four days later they had more than doubled. Within a week they were up almost 700 percent.
Unfortunately, the traffic wasn’t from concerned parents trying to figure out why Tide had taken to Twitter to remind people of the obvious. Visits to poison control centers shot up as well.
In all of 2016, there had been only thirty-nine cases of teens ingesting, inhaling, or absorbing laundry packets. In a dozen days following the Tide announcement, there were twice that many. Within a few months the number had more than doubled that of the prior two years combined.
Tide’s efforts had backfired.
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The Tide Pod Challenge might seem unusual, but it’s actually an example of a much broader phenomenon.5 Instructing jurors to disregard inadmissible testimony can encourage them to weigh it more heavily. Alcohol prevention messages can lead college students to drink more. And trying to persuade people that smoking is bad for their health can actually make them more interested in smoking in the future.
In these and similar examples, warnings became recommendations. Just as telling a teenager not to date someone somehow makes that person more alluring, telling people not to do something has the opposite effect: it makes them more likely to do it.
The Need for Freedom and Autonomy
In the late 1970s, researchers from Harvard and Yale published a study that helps explain why warnings backfire.
Working with a local nursing home called the Arden House, they conducted a simple experiment.6 On one floor, residents were reminded of how much freedom and control they had over their lives. They could choose how they wanted their rooms to be arranged and whether they wanted the staff to help them rearrange the furniture. They could decide how they wanted to spend their time and whether they wanted to visit other residents or do something else. And they were reminded that if they had any complaints, they could provide feedback so that things would change.
To underscore their autonomy, these residents were given some additional choices. A box of houseplants was passed around, and residents were asked whether they wanted a plant to take care of, and, if so, which one. A movie was being shown two nights the following week, and residents were asked which night they wanted to go, if they wanted to go at all.
On another floor, residents received a similar speech but without the inclusion of freedom and control. They were reminded that the staff had set up their rooms to try to make them as happy as possible. They were handed houseplants and told the nurses would take care of them on their behalf. And they were reminded there was a movie the following week and told they would be assigned to watch it one day or the other.
After some time passed, researchers followed up to see how residents were doing and whether the reminders had any effect.
The results were striking. Residents who had been given more control were more cheerful, active, and alert.
But even more astonishing were the longer-term effects. Eighteen months later the researchers examined mortality rates across the two groups. On the floor that had been given more freedom and control, less than half as many residents had died. Feeling that they had more autonomy seemed to make people live longer.
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People have a need for freedom and autonomy. To feel that their lives and actions are within their personal control. That, rather than driven by randomness, or subject to the whims of others, they get to choose.
Consequently, people are loath to give up agency. In fact, choice is so important that people prefer it even when it makes them worse off. Even when having choice makes them less happy.
In one study,7 researchers asked people to imagine being the parents of Julie, a premature baby admitted to a hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit with a brain hemorrhage. Julie’s life was being sustained by a ventilator, but unfortunately, after three weeks of treatment, her health had not improved. Consequently, the doctors summoned Julie’s parents to explain the situation.
There were two options: stop the treatment, which meant Julie would die, or continue the treatment, although Julie might die anyway. Even if she survived, she would suffer crippling neurological impairment. Both options were far from ideal.
Participants were divided into two groups. One group was asked to make the choice themselves. Whether to stop treatment or continue it.
The other group was told that the doctors made the decision for them. They were told that the doctors had decided it was in Julie’s best interest to stop the treatment.
This is clearly a terrible situation to be in. Whether people made the choice themselves or the doctors made it for them, all participants felt nervous, upset, distressed—and guilty.
But researchers found that the choosers felt worse. Having to personally choose whether to pull the plug made the situation feel all the more awful.
That said, choosers still didn’t want to give up control. When asked, they said they preferred making the decision themselves rather than letting the doctor decide. Even though it made them feel worse, they still wanted to have control.
Reactance and the Anti-Persuasion Radar
The choice study and the nursing home study help explain what happened with Procter & Gamble and the Tide Pods. People like to feel they have control over their choices and actions. That they have the freedom to drive their own behavior.
When others threaten or restrict that freedom, people get upset. When told they can’t or shouldn’t do something, it interferes with their autonomy. Their ability to see their actions as driven by themselves. So they push back: Who are you to tell me I can’t text while driving or walk my dog on that pristine patch of grass? I can do whatever I want!
When people’s ability to make their own choices is taken away or even threatened, they react against the potential loss of control. And one way to reassert that sense of control—to feel autonomous—is to engage in the forbidden behavior: to text while driving, let the dog loose on the grass, or even chomp down on some Tide Pods. Doing the forbidden thing becomes an easy way to reassert their sense of being in the driver’s seat.8
While texting while driving might not have even been that attractive originally, threatening to restrict it makes it more desirable. The forbidden fruit tastes ever more sweet. And it tastes sweeter because eating it is a way to reclaim one’s autonomy.
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Restriction generates a psychological phenomenon called reactance. An unpleasant state that occurs when people feel their freedom is lost or threatened.
And reactance happens even when asking people to do something rather than telling them not to. Whether made to encourage people to buy a hybrid car or save money for retirement, any effort is often unintentionally seen as impinging on people’s freedom. It interferes with their ability to see their behavior as driven by themselves.
In the absence of persuasion, people think they are doing what they want. They see their actions as driven by their own thoughts and preferences. The only reason they’re interested in buying a hybrid car is because of these. They like helping the environment. They like the way the car looks.
Try to convince people, though, and things get more complex. Because now if they find themselves thinking of buying a hybrid, there is another explanation. In addition to their own inherent interest, now there is also a second possibility: maybe they’re thinking about buying a hybrid because someone told them they should. And that alternate explanation for their interest threatens their perceived freedom. If they’re considering buying a hybrid because someone told them they should, their behavior is not really being driven by themselves. They’re not really in the driver’s seat. Someone else is.