#32 Commitment Bias: Why you should shout it out loud
Ever stuck to your guns even though you knew deep down you were wrong? In this episode, Mel and Dan unpack the Commitment Bias and how to make sure your New Years resolution actually sticks this time.
Mel (00:17):
Hi, and welcome to Bad Decisions.
Dan (00:19):
The podcast that helps us understand why we choose what we choose.
Mel (00:22):
Why we think what we think.
Dan (00:23):
And how to exploit this stuff for fun and commercial gain.
Mel (00:26):
I'm Dr. Mel Weinberg, I'm a performance psychologist.
Dan (00:29):
You also normally say, "Ethically," at the end of that intro, but I guess you've thrown caution to the wind.
Mel (00:33):
I've given up.
Dan (00:35):
Hey, I'm Dan Monheit, co-founder of Hardhat, ethically.
Dan (00:46):
So, Mel?
Mel (00:47):
Yes? I'm so suspicious.
Dan (00:50):
So patronizing. So hey, I've been thinking, you're not meant to date the shows, but we're going to date this show and say, "Look, we're heading into the end of 2020, it's been quite the year."
Mel (01:01):
It's been a different year.
Dan (01:03):
Interesting, different. As I cast my mind to 2020, one of the things that I think about that might sit right in that sweet spot between psychology and commerce, is this weird phenomenon of people making all sorts of resolutions, and what they're going to do next year.
Mel (01:21):
Ah, the old New Year's resolution.
Dan (01:21):
Yeah, and you know the one thing that I know to be true about New Year's resolutions?
Mel (01:24):
What's that?
Dan (01:25):
That they apply for maybe the first three days of the New Year, and then they are basically just vapor.
Mel (01:31):
Yeah, I think that's a pretty common phenomenon, isn't it? That people will make a New Year's resolution on January one, and it's pretty well known that by the end of the month, at least if not sooner, they have absolutely gone out the window.
Dan (01:42):
Yeah, which sucks because we probably make these things with the best of intentions, and we just don't seem to have this staying power. I thought it might be a nice idea as our last show for the year, to maybe think about why we have so much trouble sticking to our New Year's resolutions, and if there's anything we can do to maybe help.
Mel (02:03):
You know, it's an interesting one because in fact, if we look at the research, there's a whole bunch of information that would suggest that we actually have a tendency to stick with and commit to a claim that we make, or a resolution. So yeah, it's really odd that we don't when it comes to New Year's resolutions.
Dan (02:19):
So wait, is there a [inaudible 00:02:21] around this?
Mel (02:22):
Would you believe, there is. It's called, "The commitment bias." It's sometimes called, "The escalation of commitment," but I think the commitment bias is probably what we'll go with.
Dan (02:36):
Nice. Hey, you know what? That really sounds like something I would like to learn more about.
Mel (02:40):
Well, why don't we talk about it for the next 15 minutes or so?
Dan (02:44):
Well, I said I was going to, so we should totally do it. Let's do it. How does this work?
Mel (02:47):
Now that we've committed. So, the commitment bias is the idea that individuals have a tendency to get locked into a course of action, and that we'll actually persist with that action even in the face of negative consequences. So once we've made a commitment to something, and particularly via a verbal or written declaration of our commitment, we're extremely likely to continue to act or behave in ways that are consistent with that.
Dan (03:12):
Yeah, I guess we could figure out this as almost the double down bias, right? It's like, "Look, if I said I'm going to do it, then I'm going to do it. If I said I'm going to do it in front of a whole bunch of people, then I'm seriously probably almost definitely likely to probably going to do it."
Mel (03:25):
Yeah. You know, how we've talked about some heuristics where it's called one thing and then a researcher comes along and calls it something else, I think there's a big space for us to come in here and rename this, "The double down effect." Because that's what it is.
Dan (03:38):
I like it. So much catchier.
Mel (03:39):
Yeah. Would you mind writing a research article on that?
Dan (03:42):
Yes, I would very much mind writing a research paper on this, but maybe you write the research paper and I'll make an ad to tell people how good the research paper was.
Mel (03:50):
I'm not going to make any verbal or written declarations as to what I may or may not do at this point, especially in the context of this episode, but it might be an idea for us to consider. For future Mel and future Dan to think about.
Dan (04:00):
All right, well it's interesting that you're shirking your out loud commitments, given how prominent, out loud public commitments seem to be in our society. If I just think about people getting married or people being in court, or people joining strange cults. It seems like for anything momentous in life, we have almost ritualized this idea that you make a commitment, you write it down, you say it out loud, you hopefully get a bunch of witnesses there, so there must be some good psychological reasoning behind this, surely.
Mel (04:32):
Sure. There are some good reasons why we would engage in continued actions that reinforce our originally held beliefs. So once we've made a commitment to something, we're also then motivated to act in ways that support that. I mean, fundamentally, we all want to appear like rational people, and as good decision makers. So if I commit to doing something, and especially if other people know about that commitment, then yeah, I want to follow through with that. I want people to see that I can be trusted to do what I say, I will do, I want people to see that I'm predictable, that they can rely on me to do things. That's all going to serve me an advantage in a social system.
Mel (05:12):
You know what? The interesting thing is, and the thing about the commitment bias that I find really interesting, is the idea that even if my original commitment was not turning out well, according to the research, I'd be much more likely to escalate my commitment, to over commit, to double down even more so, even when things aren't working out so well. I'm so committed to looking like a trustworthy, reliable, predictable person, that I'll keep doing it even if it's not looking good.
Dan (05:44):
Okay, it's like being consistent is more important than being correct.
Mel (05:48):
100%.
Dan (05:49):
It's kind of weird.
Mel (05:49):
Yeah.
Dan (05:50):
So, you mentioned research. I can only imagine somebody, somewhere has done some sort of research to prove this beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Mel (05:58):
Well, of course they have or we wouldn't be here, right? I'll cite the original author of Escalation to Commitment, who I believe was Barry Staw back in 1976. However, I'm not going to talk about his actual research paper because it would probably take up the rest of the time that we actually have to talk about this topic as a whole. So what I'll do instead is let people know that we attribute this to Barry Staw, and his work in the late '70s and '80s, but I'll give you a more real life example of it.
Dan (06:34):
Yeah, I'm not going to lie, just the bit when I've got your back when we were prepping for this episode, Mel was trying to explain this piece of research to me, and the fourth time she tried explaining it to me I was like, "I just don't think we can do this on the show. It's past midnight now and I still don't understand what this guy did. I'm sure it was great, but have you got anything a little more contemporary?" So, what have we got?
Mel (06:53):
So, I'm going to give you an example, a much simpler example from the behavioral insights team in the UK. What they were doing was working with a Jobcentre organization who would look to support job seekers to find work.
Dan (07:08):
Hey, Mel?
Mel (07:09):
Yep.
Dan (07:09):
Sorry, it's worth noting, this is not your boring, stuffy, mothball, academic research. I think this is the first episode where we're talking about real, in the wild, in the field, live research, right? This is cool. This is good, this is mean, this is gritty.
Mel (07:25):
Yeah, personally I think that what you'd call ... what did you call it? Mothy and something else?
Dan (07:30):
Mothball.
Mel (07:30):
Academic research, I personally find that pretty cool, but you know, you and I are different and that's fine [crosstalk 00:07:35]-
Dan (07:35):
But this is real. Anyway, let's talk about the real world. What happened in Essex, hey? Oh God, that was terrible. [inaudible 00:07:41], please fix that in post-production.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
Booyakasha, check this out, yo.
Mel (07:51):
No, I think that needs to stay in there.
Dan (07:56):
In it.
Mel (07:57):
So, in the existing system that they had, what would happen is that advisors would ask the job seekers retrospectively to list three job search activities that they'd done in the previous fortnight. So in order to be eligible for the benefits, they'd need to report back on what they'd done over the last two weeks to try and find a job. What the behavioural insights team suggested is a little nudge involving the commitment bias, was that actually what they were going to do was that on the first day of that two week period when job seekers were eligible for the program, they actually had to lay out what they were going to do over the next two weeks to find a job. So it had to be quite specific and verbally declare what their actions would be in order to try and find a job over the next fortnight.
Mel (08:49):
What they found was that the job seekers who had to make that commitment at the start of the two week period were 15 to 20% more likely than those in the original condition, to be off the benefits 13 weeks after signing on. So they were able to get people actually back into work and out of the job seeker program, much more quickly just by making them commit verbally at the start of the period, as opposed to retrospectively.
Dan (09:17):
That is so much more exciting than getting an academic paper published, I've just got to say. I just want to make sure I get this, because you know, I'm a little bit slow. I just want to make sure I've got. So, the first condition is; you're unemployed, you go to the job seekers center and they're like, "Okay, it's been two weeks, if you want to get paid you need to say that you've applied for at least three jobs. Did you apply for at least three jobs?"
Mel (09:35):
Yeah, of course, yeah.
Dan (09:35):
Well, you know, people probably said yes. "Yeah." And then the second way it's like, "Okay, in two weeks time you need to have shown us that you've applied for at least three jobs, let's make a plan about how we're going to do it, and are you really going to do it?" And people said yes. Turns out, the first group didn't do as well at actually getting jobs, as the second group who made the commitment.
Mel (09:54):
Correct.
Dan (09:54):
Proactively, not retrospectively.
Mel (09:56):
That's it.
Dan (09:57):
Yeah. This proactive-ness as retrospective commitment is something that has just been bubbling around in my head for a long time. When I started thinking about it was in ... you know at the end of every year we have to fill out our tax forms?
Mel (10:09):
Yeah.
Dan (10:09):
Which I will just first of all go on the record and say, "My tax forms are squeaky clean, ATO don't look here, there is seriously nothing to see, keep rolling." But what I did think, as the curious individual that I am, is that what's kind of peculiar is that you go through this whole tax form situation where you fill in your income and all of your expenses and your deductions, and how much you used your car and all that other stuff. Then right at the end it's like, "Oh, and by the way, was all of this stuff true?" And you're like, "Yeah, of course it was true, and also there's no way I'm going back to re-read all of this and double check it. But I know it's true, because I've just wrote it."
Dan (10:43):
It just seems odd to me that they don't put the question at the start. At the start, if they said to you, "All right, you're about to start your 2021 tax lodgement, can you just confirm that everything you're about to tell us is going to be true?" I can't help but think, based on what we're about to learn about the commitment bias, that that would have a far better impact than asking people at the end when it's already all said and done.
Mel (11:06):
Well that's what it's all about really, right? Making people have that public declaration up front that says, "I'm going to do this," because people are highly motivated to then do what they said they were going to do. So yeah, intuitively makes a lot more sense.
Mel (11:21):
I think it's interesting to think about this idea that we persist with a course of action just because we're locked into it, even when things are telling us that it's not really the right thing to do. It makes me think of a popular psychological concept that you and I have talked about off the podcast, of grit. Right? This idea of grit and the idea that we should persevere and be persistent, despite whatever happens, just keep going and eventually the idea is that you will reach your goal.
Mel (11:54):
You and I have talked about how sometimes it actually might be more beneficial to actually cut your losses in the context of things like a sunk cost or in this case, the commitment bias, where doing so may actually be leading you towards making bad decisions, rather than a better option that might be to actually choose an alternate course of action that could be more favourable.
Dan (12:16):
Hey, so, what seems weird to me is that we do have this inherent bias, we have this wiring that means if we've made a commitment to something, we're more likely to do it. But we still seem to not be very good at keeping a lot of the commitments that we make. So maybe what we have is some problems in the environment, or some challenges in the environment that we could set up a different way to make people more likely to come good on the commitments that they desperately want to come good anyway.
Mel (12:43):
Yeah, well I guess one of the things that makes people a lot more likely to stick through with a commitment, is when they feel personally responsible for it, right? So if I'm entirely responsible for the thing that I'm committing to, then I'm more likely to stick with it and keep acting in pursuit of it than if it's somebody else's decision. This is where it's all about me as an individual, trying to save face, right? What we said before, that I'd rather be consistent, necessarily, than be right.
Mel (13:10):
That I want to persist with an action because I have said, I have committed, I'm a rational person and I don't actually want anybody to think of me, that I'm maybe not true to my word. That's an undesirable social trait, so if I'm responsible for it, I'm going to stick with it. Usually no matter what, and because I'm stubborn as hell.
Speaker 4 (13:28):
Big pharma ran millions of dollars of negative advertisements against me during the campaign, which I won, by the way, but you know, we'll find that out.
Dan (13:37):
I mean, it's interesting because you figure out in a business sense where you just realise at some point in your career that shared accountability is terrible. When you have a group of people responsible for delivering an outcome, it is far less likely that it's going to get delivered than if one person's head is on the chopping block, and it's going to live or die with them.
Mel (13:54):
Yeah, that leads us to another psychological concept that has to do with the diffusion of responsibility, right? Where nobody actually takes responsibility. When somebody does, things will get done.
Dan (14:05):
So, I guess what you're saying is; if you are a person who wants to be better at sticking to their commitments, making it out loud, writing it down is a good place to start. But being solely responsible for the outcome is going to make you stick to it whether you want to or not.
Mel (14:22):
Yeah, and you can think of this in terms of goal setting, a lot of the research that goes towards goal setting, and especially in the area I work in, in sports psychology, setting goals is a key factor that contributes to positive outcomes. One of the things that they make sure that you do when it comes to goal setting is that you write it down. According to commitment bias, you can make a verbal or written declaration but most of the time, at least when it comes to goal setting, a written declaration that is then put up somewhere where everybody can see it.
Mel (14:54):
So in sports teams they might put everybody's goals up on the wall in the changing room, somewhere where it's frequently seen, means that people are more likely to abide by it and to act consistently in pursuit of their goals.
Dan (15:08):
That's super interesting in a corporate sense, if people have development plans and they're writing goals as part of them, that often those goals are secret or maybe just between a person and their manager, and maybe there's something to be said for a sports club style wall of goals, unless your goal is to get rid of that bitch in finance or something similar, you probably don't want them to know that that's what you're scheming for. There's no bitches in finance, I'm sure they're all wonderful. But I'm just saying that you could have a goal that is not in line with what other people would like to see. But by and large, it might be good to have some sort of shared visibility over each other's goals, because then you feel the pressure of not just lying to yourself, but lying to everyone.
Mel (15:47):
You could put it that way. How is this going to help brands?
Dan (15:50):
Well there are so many ways that this can help brands, because really, as any brand, business, product, service, at the end of the day, the main thing we're asking for is some sort of a commitment from a person to exchange some time, money, effort for what we've got to offer. So there's a few different ways in on this, and some of them almost seem contradictory, but just roll with me on this.
Dan (16:11):
So the first thing you can do from a commitment bias perspective, is you can charge exorbitantly high prices. Now, this sounds weird. Let's say you sell pens, and you sell a pen for 50 cents, right? And that pen kind of sucks. It is way easier for somebody to say, "This 50 cent pen is actually a piece of crap, I never should have bought it." Than it is for them to say, "This $150 pen that I bought is a piece of crap, I never should have bought it." So it's like, by over paying for something, you're almost making yourself have to like it, compared to if you hadn't paid much for it at all.
Dan (16:47):
As a cyclist, I certainly see this, myself and all of my friends spend way too much money on overpriced cycling kit, and the fact that is expensive means we have to tell everybody else that it's really good, otherwise we're just big idiots. Which we're not, we're being very discerning consumers. So, charging lots of money is great.
Mel (17:04):
Oh, but as a marketer, basically what you're saying to the consumer is that, "Yeah, just price high because better for the brand." Is that what you're saying?
Dan (17:13):
No, what I'm saying is, if people have paid more for the product or service, they will be more inclined to believe that it was good, than if they have not paid very much for it. So if you have the opportunity to charge a lot for your overpriced cycling kit, which I do love a lot, just do it and I'll tell myself it was worth it. That's all I'm saying.
Mel (17:28):
Okay. So you're the consumer on this side.
Dan (17:31):
Just go with me. Anyway, moving on, we're moving on, we're moving on, we're moving on. Now, on the other side of the fence, there's also a really good argument to price cheaply. Not maybe [inaudible 00:17:43], but the idea of giving people really cheap, really easy ways to start getting involved with your brand. So, in the app world we might see this as freemium offerings, we have an ad supported version which you then grow to love and then you want to get the paid one.
Dan (17:59):
But we also see this with luxury goods, where they might do what we call, a diffusion line. So you've got the $7000 handbag which you probably can't buy right now, but there's $150 perfume, or a $110 phone case, or a key ring, which lets you get in, be part of the brand, tell yourself that you're a Louis Vuitton kind of person, or a Gucci kind of person or whatever it is, knowing that when you get a little bit more money to spend, because you're moving up the chain or you've got a bonus or whatever it is, you're already aligned with that brand and maybe when you want to buy your next piece of luggage, that's where you're going to end up.
Mel (18:35):
Right. So you're talking about essentially setting the scene for people to make that initial commitment, knowing that once they've actually made a commitment, the commitment bias means that they're much more likely to stick with it and continue to behave in ways, like purchase more goods associated with that initial commitment.
Dan (18:51):
Yeah, exactly. That's why you see weird things happen on eBay, why you see a [inaudible 00:18:57] that's clearly worth $1000, start on a 99 cent no reserve auction, because the person selling that thing knows if they can get people involved, bidding, making small commitments, that even when that item gets to a price that is probably above what that person was willing to pay, they feel like they've committed to it and if they didn't really want the item, why would they have just wasted all of this time bidding on it up until now? So they might as well keep going.
Mel (19:19):
Right.
Dan (19:20):
Another example of this getting small commitments early, is maybe relevant for charities where, it might seem like a pain in the arse to be getting really small donations from lots and lots of people, and there's an administrative overhead to that, but if you can get people ... especially early on in their career, to get in the habit of donating to your charity organisation, there is a good chance that as they progress in their careers and they start making more money, and they start giving bigger donations, that they're going to want to be consistent with what they've supported up until now and there might be a better pay off in the long run if you can let them buy in early.
Mel (19:50):
Good. Have you got any more examples?
Dan (19:52):
Yeah, so that's two, price high, price low, you basically can't go wrong, just don't price in the middle, right? The other two, I really quickly want to give you. One is from a personal experience, working with a university client a couple of years ago, and the way we really tried leading into this which was quite successful was ... I say this, it sounds dodgy but it's really not dodgy. It's the idea of trying to help people realize that the thing we're asking them to do is the thing they always wanted.
Dan (20:17):
So, if we're trying to promote a nursing course, and so one thing you can do is you can run advertising to tell people to choose nursing. Another thing you can do is you can run ads to remind people that nursing has already chosen them. To basically help them recall their memories of the school playground, where they were always the kid that ran to the hurt kid. They were always the person that was going for help, and being a nurse or being a teacher, or being a whatever vocation you're trying to promote, had always been within them, and coming and starting this course at this institution was just meeting a commitment that they'd already made for themselves at a time when they hadn't even realise that that's what they were doing.
Mel (20:56):
Right. So you're trying to draw out a subconscious commitment, or a subconscious way of behaving that is then consistent with further learning in that way.
Dan (21:05):
Exactly, you've always told yourself, this is the year you were going to get fit. You always told yourself, this was the year you were going to learn Spanish. So, this is the perfect time to do our Spanish-based fitness course, for example.
Mel (21:17):
You know, sometimes people say to me, "I don't like psychologists, they're deceptive or they're sneaky." But you marketers, you're worse.
Dan (21:30):
No, well we just put it out there, and if you didn't always think you were going to be a nurse, then you'll just ignore us like you ignore the other 10,000 ads you see a day. But if something in you as a 12 year old was like, "I really like helping sick people." We're going to wake it up and make sure you come and enroll with us. So, one is price high, one is price low, one is help people realize that the thing that you want them to do is the thing they always wanted to do anyway, and we're just really here to help you achieve all that you can be as marketers, that's all I [inaudible 00:21:55].
Mel (21:55):
Just helping people reach their potential.
Dan (21:57):
Exactly, through a hand picked mix of products and services sold by my clients.
Dan (22:04):
With the last one on this, is something called, "The Yes Set." This is a pretty well worn technique from sales people, a lot of agencies use this as well. It's the idea of getting people to say yes a whole bunch of times, to get incremental yeses as you lead up to the real thing you actually want them to say yes to. So, in a very B to C sense, if you walk into a store to buy a new TV, the person working there, before they take you to the TVs they might have a little chat, they might say things to you like, "It's always nice to be able to sit down and relax and enjoy a good movie from time to time." Right?
Mel (22:40):
Yes.
Dan (22:41):
I though so. And when you enjoy a movie, the thing that really makes a difference is you want a big screen and you want really vibrant colour, right? Because that's what makes it an outstanding experience, right?
Mel (22:53):
Oh yeah.
Dan (22:55):
Exactly. And you know what? While the vision is really important, the thing that really steps it up to a cinema level experience, we've got to have the pumping sound, right?
Mel (23:05):
Yes.
Dan (23:06):
Yeah, exactly. So you know what? I've got some TVs to show you. Guess what features those TVs are going to have? They're going to be big and they're going to be colorful, and they're going to have integrated sound because you've already just said yes to all this stuff, and it's very hard for you to now say, "Actually no, I don't want that. I want the small TV with the shitty color and no sound."
Mel (23:22):
Yes, give me the biggest, most brightest, loudest TV in the store.
Dan (23:26):
Exactly.
Mel (23:26):
Got me.
Dan (23:28):
One funny little technique that I've just found in my decade and a half of pitching, is when you meet a client and they're giving you a brief that you're then going to come back and present on, and often you don't know how to present the agency, as say, 45 people, are we big or are we small? It depends on who we're pitching against.
Dan (23:46):
So one of the things I've found is, often you can ask a prospective client what they're looking for in a partner beyond delivery of the thing that they've briefed you. So they're like, "Oh, we want to see three ideas for a new TV commercial." And you go, "Cool, cool, there's lots of agencies that can give you a new TV commercial. Beyond that, what else are you looking for?"
Dan (24:05):
And what is incredible is the clients will tell you. They'll tell you, do they want agencies with higher velocity and agility, and fast paced, and they just want to see ideas and energy? Or are they a client that says they really want to see their thinking, they want it stepped out, they want it methodical, they want to see all the research. There's no right or wrong answer, but what I find amazing is; if they ask a client, they'll tell you. Then when you come back and present, you can present in exactly the manner that they've said they want to see it and they almost have no choice but to be consistent with what they've told you they were looking for.
Mel (24:34):
Yeah, you guys are definitely more sneaky than psychologists.
Dan (24:37):
Please, don't use that if you're pitching against me, Dr. Mel.
Mel (24:41):
All right, so have we covered all of the commitment bias?
Dan (24:44):
Yeah, I feel like we said we would, and then we did, and we've gone full circle.
Mel (24:49):
Wow, so let's wrap it up. So the commitment bias is the idea that individuals have a tendency to get locked into a course of action, so once we say we're going to do something, we are very likely to then act in ways that are consistent with that. In terms of New Year's resolutions, one thing that you can do to make sure if you really want to commit to it, is actually not just say what you're going to do, but also write down why you want that, why do you want to do it? Almost write a defense for it, that's going to enhance your commitment to the course.
Dan (25:19):
Right, and the way I can help you make your New Year's resolutions is, number one; go and buy something really expensive. If you decide you're going to sign up to the gym this year, sign up to a really expensive gym and you'll just force yourself to go, maybe. Alternatively, do something really cheap just to start getting used to it, and get that buy in. The third thing you can do is think about how this was always your destiny, and every year you've told yourself that you were going to get fit, and this is the year you're absolutely going to do it. If none of that works, ask yourself a list of questions that all end with yes, where the last question is, "Are we going to go to gym today?"
Mel (25:51):
And make sure that whatever it is that you commit to, that you print it out, put it up on the fridge, tell everybody about it as much as possible so that everybody else keeps you accountable as well.
Dan (26:01):
Yeah, totally do that. Take the pledge, post it to social media, so that when you see people out, they're going to ask you, "Hey, how's gym going?"
Mel (26:07):
And you want to be able to say, "Oh yeah, it's going well."
Dan (26:11):
It's great. Hey, [inaudible 00:26:12], just before we wrap this up, I have a couple of very quick questions for you. Number one; are you enjoying recording these podcasts with me?
Mel (26:19):
Yeah.
Dan (26:21):
I knew you were. And are you enjoying the fact that we're really getting a good level of cadence now? As they're coming out, people are loving them, feels good.
Mel (26:30):
Yeah, that part's good.
Dan (26:31):
Yeah, so wouldn't it be good if next year, we were actually able to get more of these out than we did this year because it's good for everybody?
Mel (26:40):
Yeah.
Dan (26:41):
Come on, we didn't do that many this year. It'd be much better if we did more next year, so I think ... how would you feel about recording our next episode early in the new year? Let's do it before the end of January.
Mel (26:52):
I see what you've done, you sneaky [inaudible 00:26:53].
Dan (26:52):
Yes, we're doing it, we're doing it, we're doing it. I'm going to buy you a new microphone. You're going to love it.
Mel (26:59):
Now we're talking.
Dan (26:59):
It's going to be really expensive, yes. All right, so I think that's it. Commitment bias, say it and then do it.
Mel (27:04):
I think that's a wrap on commitment bias, and I think it's a wrap on 2020 for us.
Dan (27:07):
I know, say it and then do it, this could have been a 15 second episode. Anyway, that is a wrap on 2020. Mel, you've been a wonderful, wonderful co-host, thank you for enduring me for another 12 months.
Mel (27:18):
I just want to note that you just verbally declared that and publicly, that doesn't happen when we're not recording, but yeah. Thanks Dan, that's really lovely. You've been good, too.
Dan (27:27):
I was going to say, don't forget the reciprocity bias. Make sure you say something nice about me, too. Hey, if you guys want to find us, we're on the internet, you know what to do. Otherwise, we'll be back for a bigger and better 2021.
Mel (27:54):
See you then.
Dan (27:54):
Bye.