#30 Pratfall Effect Why you can afford to make a mistake

People and brands often go to great efforts to manage the impressions others form of them, but what if we stopped trying to be perfect, and instead owned our flaws? In this episode, Mel and Dan explore the Pratfall effect, and why tripping up the stairs on your way to a presentation could be a winning strategy.

Mel: 00:16 Hi and welcome to Bad Decisions.

Dan: 00:18 The podcast that helps us understand why we choose what we choose.

Mel: 00:21 Why we think what we think.

Dan: 00:22 And how to exploit this stuff for fun and commercial gain.

Mel: 00:25 I'm Dr. Mel Weinberg. I'm a performance psychologist.

Dan: 00:27 And I'm Dan Monheit, co-founder of Hardhat.

Mel: 00:41 Dan, you know what? There's something very exciting today.

Dan: 00:45 It is Tuesday or Wednesday or Thursday. It's Corona, I have no idea what day it is.

Mel: 00:49 It is our 30th episode.

Dan: 00:51 Woo-hoo, dirty 30. Woo-hoo. Yeah, really testing the levels.

Mel: 00:56 Yeah, we are 30-years-old again.

Dan: 00:59 First woo-ing on bad decisions. How do you like that, Kopel? Not so much.

Daniel Kopel: 01:04 Yeah, I'm not in the podcast.

Dan: 01:07 You should be. It's about time. A third voice. The third voice that makes the first two voices sound much better, which given we're 30 episodes in, we were having a lot of fun doing this. We now have listeners in over 90 countries. So what up, everybody out there, thank you all so much for tuning in. We think it is time that we level with you guys just a little bit.

Mel: 01:27 Go on.

Dan: 01:27 Go on. Okay. I'll be leveling. Mel will be spectating my leveling. Well, I mean, you guys just like open your podcast player and you see the new episode come up and you start listening and you get to the end of episode and you think, "Man, that is slick. These guys are just smooth." And I guess we want you guys to know that in between our recording and you're listening, there's actually a lot of editing that happens. Like a lot, a lot, a lot of editing that happens.

Mel: 01:53 Well, hang on, not the lot. Most of it's pretty good.

Dan: 01:55 Well, a lot of your stuff needs editing. Mine's pretty good. Yours... It's kind of like out with a weed whacker, just trying to get to the nuggets.

Mel: 02:03 Thanks.

Dan: 02:03 But it's important. It's important because we need to come across as professionals here and yeah, we've got to be silky smooth.

Mel: 02:11 It's true about like you said, we do make mistakes sometimes and it gives Kops our producer a lot of great content for bloopers. Right, Kops?

Dan: 02:21 There are no bloopers.

Mel: 02:26 This is the conundrum that brands have made... I can't, I'm just going to... Okay.

Dan: 02:27 Do you remember the definition?

Mel: 02:31 Course not.

Dan: 02:35 Where are you, Mel?

Mel: 02:37 @drmelw, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn.

Dan: 02:40 Instagram, that's the number one academic...

Mel: 02:41 Okay. I'll tell that one again. Fuck me. God, I'm sorry, I'm just like...

Dan: 02:48 The second thing... What the fuck have I written here. The show that helps.

Mel: 02:51 The podcast.

Dan: 02:54 Sorry. I'm slightly confused. Are you telling me what you're about to do or are you just actually recording for the show?

Mel: 02:59 Okay. Let me start again. Start again.

Dan: 03:03 What, all the way back from the start? Fuck. Mic check was better.

Mel: 03:07 It's not always so competitive. There are... Here we go. So... Fuck me.

Dan: 03:15 What did I miss?

Mel: 03:17 But also, sorry, I actually don't have a point to make. I was just going...

Dan: 03:23 Maybe I should be asking you... Oh, sorry. Kops had to see the microphone.

Mel: 03:26 Monheit calling me a bitch, or what'd you call me the other day?

Dan: 03:27 Bitch, please.

Dan: 03:35 They are no bloopers.

Mel: 03:36 So we thought this would be a good episode to really look at whether there's any heuristics out there that actually celebrate mistakes because I think it's important that we do that.

Dan: 03:46 Yeah. Because you know what's better than being awesome? Being flawsome.

Mel: 03:51 Haw-haw.

Dan: 03:53 Cut that out as well.

Mel: 03:54 I was going to say, is it too late for that to go into the bloopers?

Dan: 03:57 What do you got for us, Dr. Mel? What are we talking about today?

Mel: 04:00 We are talking about the pratfall effect.

Dan: 04:05 So the pratfall effect. I'm very excited to hear about the misadventures of Mr. And or Mrs. Pratfall. Enlighten me.

Mel: 04:12 I'm not sure who Mr. or Mrs. Pratfall are. I'm sure they're a lovely couple living a nice life somewhere, but the pratfall effect wasn't actually named after them. Let me tell you what the pratfall effect was and then I'll tell you what a pratfall is. The pratfall effect is the idea that people who are considered to be highly competent, intelligent, or otherwise superior in some way, actually become more likable after committing a blunder. And just in case you were wondering, and as promised, I will tell you what a pratfall is and what it was named after. The dictionary definition of a pratfall is literally a fall in which one lands on the buttocks.

Dan: 04:51 Who knew there was a specific term for falls which result in landing on one's own buttocks?

Mel: 04:55 Literally falling on your arse is the pratfall effect. And I think this is interesting because this is really specific. If you fall face-first, not a pratfall.-

Dan: 05:05 No, it's just a fall.

Mel: 05:06 ... It's a different type of fall.

Dan: 05:07 Stack, tumble.

Mel: 05:09 But there is a specific term for falling on your arse and I really like that.

Dan: 05:13 Yeah. I feel like it should be more widespread.

Mel: 05:15 So everybody, challenge for our audience, use the word pratfall in a sentence this week.

Dan: 05:20 Yeah. I like it. All right. So, hey, I mean, I think pratfalls, or showcasing flaws are a really interesting thing in the topic of brands because much like us two podcast hosts, a lot of brands go to a lot of trouble to make themselves pretty much perfect, pretty much flawless. And what this tells us is that might actually be slightly misdirected. If we think about what brands who show some flaws do is they come across as I guess more honest, or more credible, or more trusted because we know brands aren't perfect like we know people aren't perfect. And so by telling us what their imperfection is, it kind of stops us from guessing.

Mel: 05:53 Yeah.

Dan: 05:54 They're like, "I'll tell you what's wrong with me. It's right here."

Mel: 05:56 Hey, look, Dan, before we get too deep into it, I think it's really important that we look at the research.

Dan: 06:02 You know what, I'm always doing that. I'm so sorry. Yes, let's look at the research.

Mel: 06:11 So the pratfall effect was given its name back in 1966 by Elliot Aronson who presented his research in literally an article that was literally two pages long. And when I looked at this, I thought, "Wow. Research was so much easier in 1966 to publish." And if any of my students were to submit a piece of work like that, it would fail automatically today. However...

Dan: 06:36 Refer to the effort bias. I don't remember what episode that was, but she was real. So the lazy, lazy Aronson, what did he do?

Mel: 06:43 Aronson in 1966 conducted a study that involved 48 male university students who were involved in introductory psychology course. And basically what happened was all of these 48 students listened to a tape recording. Remember it was 1966. They listened to a tape recording of a fellow student who they were told was trying out to represent the university in a quiz contest, right? And so they were listening to this fellow student answer quiz questions. In two of these groups, the student performed really well. So they were getting 92% of the questions correct. So they gave the impression that they were superior and obviously really competent as a trivia person, the right person to represent the university.

Mel: 07:25 In the other two groups, the contestant only got 30% of the questions correct. And so they were considered the mediocre student if you will. And then within these two groups, there was another manipulation. So we've got the competent versus incompetent groups. And then within that, the other manipulation was that at the end of the recording, just before the tape ended, one of the groups in either the superior-competent or the inferior-incompetent group heard the student apparently accidentally spill a coffee on themselves and make a sort of claim aloud that said, "Oh my God, I've spilled my coffee all over my suit."

Dan: 08:00 "Oh, no."

Mel: 08:01 Yeah. "Oh, no. I spilled my coffee." Right? And two of the groups didn't hear that, they just heard the student answering all the questions. And so then afterwards, all of the subjects that participated were interviewed and they were asked to rate how likable the contestant, their fellow student was. And what the results showed was that those who listened to the contestant who performed really well, who got 92% of the answers correct. They actually liked that person. They rated them much more likable if they had heard him spill the coffee.

Dan: 08:32 Aw, because he's like a smart klutz. It's cute.

Mel: 08:34 Moral of the story is if you're good at something, spill your coffee all over yourself and get a new suit.

Dan: 08:39 I can't wait to be good at something and try this out.

Mel: 08:43 So this is the idea, the idea that when you're really competent when you're perceived to be really competent in something that actually making a mistake in an area that's really unrelated can actually make you more likable. And the idea behind it is that when somebody seems to be really superior or really competent or really perfect in some way, they're not particularly relatable, but when they show that they are vulnerable in a way that any of us are, we tend to sympathize more with them. And that makes us like them more.

Dan: 09:10 Yeah, I really like is how the kind of the klutziness doesn't make them more competent. It just makes the same competent person more likable. Where I think this is really good if you've sort of maxed-out on competence, everybody already thinks your brand or your person is really good at something, this is a nice way to start working on it on another attribute around likability by showing some sort of unrelated flaws.

Mel: 09:35 That's exactly what it is. Yeah. And look, now that I've had my research moment. Yeah. I can guide you back to talking about brands.

Dan: 09:42 Yeah. Well, I know that's what people are tuning in for, right? It's good to have the research, but let's build on that. And when I think about this pratfall effect, where I absolutely see it coming to life is in the whole growth of the discount airline space, right?

Mel: 09:54 Okay.

Dan: 09:54 So the thing with brands is, you don't want people guessing where your flaw is, especially if you are something like an airline, right? Where if you're going to come out and start offering flights at much cheaper prices, you think about a Ryanair who's advertising flights for £5 to different countries. You don't want people guessing that the way you're able to do that is by compromising on safety or they're just using one trainee pilot, or they don't really service the planes very often.

Dan: 10:20 So by pratfalling, right, by saying, "Look, we're really good at getting you there, but the service is going to be shit or there's no food, or you can't take any luggage with you. Or the seats are not going to be very comfortable." It helps people understand what the real value proposition is and prevents them from questioning stuff that you don't want them to question. You don't want them questioning your safety record, you want them questioning the comfort of your seats because at the end of the day, for most people that doesn't really matter on a short flight.

Mel: 10:47 It's interesting to think about what they're actually focusing on, which is it forces you to think, "Am I going on this flight to get from A to B, or am I going on this flight to get the best meal I've ever had?" And most people will realize I just need to get from A to B, willing to compromise on the food or go to a nice restaurant when I get there.

Dan: 11:03 Exactly. And so it takes a brave brand to lean into that. And I think about where this is really relevant. And I think it's most interesting in categories where there is a lot of bravado, right? Because what you want to do with advertising, you want memorability and part of memorability is standing out, saying something different to what the rest of the category is saying. So some categories are really notorious for swag. And for basically everybody saying how awesome they are. So that might be around performance cars, or it might be around luxury hotels, or it might be around beer. Where everybody's just trying to one-up each other. And it's very interesting in those categories where people come at and say, "Well, actually there's something kind of wrong with me."

Dan: 11:43 So a couple of really famous examples of this. If we look at the car rental space, one of the most successful campaigns of all time was Avis coming out and saying, "We're number two, so we try harder." Right? If we look at Guinness, where Guinness actually takes twice as long to pour as most other beers, and taking that old software adage that, "It's not a bug, it's a feature." Guinness beautifully transformed taking twice as long to pour into the line that it's worth the wait. So they're not compromising the quality of the beer, they're just saying that it's going to take a little bit longer to get it, which in the scheme of things shouldn't really matter.

Dan: 12:18 Guinness actually makes me think of a lot of the work we did a number of years ago for Little Creatures when they were still an independent brewer. So before they absolutely blew up and became sort of the monolith that they were. Working with that brand through the early stages of their growth, the thing that was on every brief for them, not written but it was kind of subtext for every brief, was everything needed to be a little bit shit, right? So whether you're making an ad or a new website or a EDM campaign, right, it kind of had to look a little bit shit because they didn't want people wondering whether they were any good at beer, right? They wanted people to know these guys are exceptional at making craft beer, so it makes sense that they're not that great at making a website, or they're not that great at designing a menu, or they're not that great at making an ad.

Mel: 13:01 Right. And I think you've really touched on a point that sort of, we need to emphasize in that, which is that this isn't a heuristic for everybody, right? This is not a universal one-size-fits-all type thing. You need to be really careful when you use this heuristic or if you try to use this heuristic because it really is only for the bravado-type brands. It really is only for the superior, the competent, and the perfect. And as you sort of mentioned, it's not about being better or being the best. It's about being more likable instead. It reminds me... The other side of the research article I thought... Can I go back to the research just for a minute? Would you allow me?

Dan: 13:35 Oh, fine. Let's go back to the research.

Mel: 13:37 Because there was another part of it, which is that in the-

Dan: 13:40 One second, do you want music to go back to the research? Or you just want to dive back into it.

Mel: 13:44 No, no, I'm fine to just go back into it. That's fine.

Dan: 13:45 I've already paused us now. I think we should get the music. Come on, Kops, let's get some music.

Mel: 13:54 The other side of that study that I didn't mention was that when participants were exposed to the mediocre-type contestant, who wasn't very good at answering quiz questions, so who was generally incompetent.-

Dan: 14:06 The 30% guy? Yeah?

Mel: 14:07 Yeah. When that guy spilled his coffee, he actually became less likable and less competent. It was like this guy is a moron and he can't even hold a cup of coffee.

Dan: 14:17 Yeah. Yeah. So you really can't understate that you need to be competent first. If you are not... If you're Little Creatures and you're not already making great beer, making shit ads is not going to help, right? But if you are highly competent, then maybe it's going to make people like you more. Is that fair?

Mel: 14:33 Yeah. I think that's fair. And remember, as we've said, this is all about likability, right? And not trying to be perfect, but trying to be more human and trying to be something that people can relate to.

Dan: 14:42 So I think if I was going to sort of sum this up as a recommendation for brands, the thing to do is to be brilliant at the thing that is important. You don't want to pratfall effect the core thing people are trying to buy from you. If you're an airline, don't make jokes about your safety procedures, right? You need to be brilliant about what's important and honest about what is not important.

Mel: 15:03 Yeah. I mean, the way that I think of it is that if you're a competent sportsperson and you miss a catch, it's probably not going to go well for you because that's the thing that you're supposed to be good at. You got to catch the ball, right? But if you're a competent sportsperson who isn't very good at drawing pictures of animals, then that makes you more likable, right? If you're a lousy sportsperson and you drop a catch, then you're probably just crap at what you do. You're just a lousy sportsperson.

Dan: 15:28 You should be here in the first place, let's be honest.

Mel: 15:30 I was going to say, and if you're a lousy sportsperson and you can't draw pictures of animals, then you're probably just a lousy person in general.

Dan: 15:35 Yeah. You need to find something else to do with your time.

Mel: 15:38 So Dan, obviously I, as a psychologist, I'm a huge fan of vulnerability. I encourage people to be vulnerable, right? I imagine that this could be a really helpful thing for competent brands to use. Why don't we see more of it?

Dan: 15:51 This is a wonderful question and I would love to see more brands doing this because it does make for interesting ads. Every ad is basically a brand talking about what they're great at. So there should be disproportionate payoffs for brands that don't do that. I think the biggest issue we have, and I certainly know when I've sort of tried to talk to some prospective clients about this. The biggest issue that we have is something called the principal-agent problem, where you have the principal, which is the brand, right? And you have the agent, which is the marketer, the person acting on behalf of the brand. And often the best outcome for each of those things is not the same.

Dan: 16:29 So for a brand, the best longterm thing might be to indulge in this pratfall effect to talk about some of its vulnerabilities to build likability over time. But it is a rare marketing director or marketing manager that's going to bet their next campaign and therefore, possibly the next phase of their career on an ad that tells people that their beer is really slow. It's a kind of perceived higher-risk strategy than it really is. And I think that explains why we don't see many marketers take it on, even though I would really encourage you to.

Mel: 17:01 Yeah. So it's one of those high-risk, high-reward possibly, the type of situations if you play it right.

Dan: 17:06 Yeah. And the thing with the high-risk is it's high-risk for the individual, but it's not high-risk for the brand. If you get it right, it's great for the brand. If you get it wrong, it doesn't really matter, you'll just switch and do some other campaign later. But for an individual, it's like you're only as good as your last campaign and you do not want to be the guy or girl that did the world's worst tasting yogurt campaign when you're actually trying to sell yogurt. It's just not going to go well for you.

Dan: 17:28 So with that in mind, I guess what I would say to brands is you got to try and find a way to do this, right? You got to try and find a safe way to do this. Maybe don't commit your whole next wave activity to it. Maybe there's one channel, or one market, or one audience, or one product line where you could just indulge in this idea of trying to be brilliant at what is important and honest about what is not. So find a safe space, give it a crack and we'd love to hear how you go. I'm sure it'll be fine. I'm sure your career will be great. And if not, you can always talk about the failure in your next interview as the thing that you messed up and that'll make you more likable.

Mel: 18:02 And I think it was really easy for me thinking about this to link this to sort of the human side of things. And as soon as I sort of started reading about the pratfall effect, it immediately reminded me of the structure of a TED Talk, right, where you've got somebody who is usually... I guess, the whole point of them doing it is that they're the expert, they're the most competent person in that area to be giving that talk. And the first instruction of a TEDTalk is to make yourself vulnerable. Nobody does this better, Dan than Brené Brown, right, who-

Dan: 18:31 Well, maybe Brené Brown's second best. I have seen your TEDTalk and it was magnificent, but following you, Brené Brown-

Mel: 18:36 TEDx, TEDx.

Dan: 18:38 TEDx, TEDx, TEDx. Following you though, Brené Brown does do a pretty good job of this.

Mel: 18:41 I was going to sort of segue Dan, that Brené Brown... I mean, you and I did share a stage with her last year, was it? At South by Southwest? Maybe not the exact same stage, her stage was a little bigger than ours.

Dan: 18:55 We shared some carpet. I think I walked over some of the same carpet that she walked over.

Mel: 18:58 But sure nobody does this better than her. Her actual TEDTalk is about being vulnerable. So it's really meta the way that she goes about it. And so she really plays that out. And I think it's part of making her who she is. Yes, she's a wonderful expert in that space and lots of people know her to be that, but she's also very vulnerable. She leaves herself very exposed on there and it's much easier to relate to her. And she's very likable for that reason.

Mel: 19:24 And I think, just thinking about people in general, we all strive for perfection, right? We all think that we want to be perfect, and we admire people who are perfect, and we want to be admired. But sometimes what we don't realize is that people don't actually like perfect. They might admire it, but they don't like it. People like people. And so it's not that we're saying that we want to see important people stuff up. That's not what this is about, but we want to be the type of person that others can relate to and nobody can relate to perfect because nobody is perfect.

Dan: 19:56 Very true. And the same goes for brands. So I'll tell you what, how about we... Do you want to put a slightly imperfect ribbon on all of this?

Mel: 20:03 Yeah.

Dan: 20:04 We'll wind it back. All right. So today we have talked about the pratfall effect, not named after a Mr. or a Mrs. but instead after the specific word for falling on one's buttocks.

Mel: 20:13 Correct.

Dan: 20:14 You want to hit us with a definition, Dr. Mel?

Mel: 20:16 I can.

Dan: 20:18 Please. Indulge us.

Mel: 20:22 The pratfall effect is the idea that people who are considered highly-competent or superior actually become more likable after they make some sort of mistake.

Dan: 20:29 Right, and the key thing for brands here is you've got to carve out a little space to do this. And when you do it, focus on being brilliant at what is important and honest about the rest of it, right? So make sure you're failing at something that is kind of tangential, doesn't really matter, it could be a little bit funny. And for peeps?

Mel: 20:45 The takeaway for people is that look, all we want as human beings ultimately is to love and to be loved by others. And so falling on your butt every now and then maybe a better play in the long-run than striving for perfection.

Dan: 20:56 Love it. Inspirational message. All right. That is a wrap for today. Episode 30. Thank you all so much. I might just take one quick moment to thank our very special producer extraordinaire, Kops in the booth on the wheels of steel making us sound-

Mel: 21:09 Does an excellent job getting rid of all of our bloopers all the time.

Daniel Kopel: 21:12 Except this episode.

Dan: 21:14 Just one time we're just going to publish the whole two-hour mess and you guys can sort it out for yourselves. Thank you guys all so much for your downloads, your listens, your ratings, reviews. If you guys have got questions, feedbacks, comments. Good feedback to me, bad feedback to Mel, she's working on her pratfall effect right now. We'd love to hear it. And Dr. Mel, thanks to you. This has been good. Let's do 30 more.

Mel: 21:35 Oh God. 30 more. You got 30 more heuristics for me?

Dan: 21:38 Yeah, we just have to make some. It's fine.

Mel: 21:40 The Weinberg-Monheit effect. Coming up in a future episode. Do you like how I put Weinberg first?

Dan: 21:47 Anyway, let's do it. If you've got ideas for what that effect could be, send them through and we'll see you next time.

Mel: 21:53 Bye.