Uncertain rewards can often be more motivating than certain rewards

Behaviour Change

Imagine that you are participating in an auction that involves chocolate coins as a reward. You can bid on a lot containing five coins or on a mystery lot that contains either three or five coins - you won’t know which until after your bid is accepted. Logically, the lot with five coins is worth more.

But it wasn’t. Researchers at the University of Chicago staged just this auction and found that the average bid for the guaranteed five coin lots was $1.25. The average bid for the mystery lot was $1.89. When asked, participants said the uncertain auction was more exciting. It didn’t increase the actual value of the reward. It just made the game more fun. Participants paid more to play and said they wanted to participate in the auction again. (The secret, though, was getting caught up in the process. When participants planned their bid in advance, they preferred the certain reward.)

Mystery is seasoning. Some businesses serve it by the shovel. The uncertain chocolate reward became more valuable because bidding acquired suspense. Participants paid for the little story unfolding in their own head. Yet advance planning restored the appeal of certainty. The effect belonged to the moment, not some universal human worship of mystery.

A surprise sample can make an ordinary parcel delightful. A loyalty reward revealed after purchase gives routine a pulse. A sealed toy turns choosing into a tiny event. The minimum outcome matters: if “mystery” repeatedly means receiving the thing nobody wanted, customers learn that surprise is the seller’s euphemism for leftovers.

Variable rewards also power gambling and compulsive checking. Stronger behaviour is no certificate of customer benefit. A mechanism can be effective in exactly the way a mousetrap is effective.

Watch who owns the uncertainty. A surprise chosen by the customer can feel playful. A surprise imposed by the seller may simply transfer risk downhill while marketing calls the wobble delight. Use uncertainty where stakes are low, rules clear and every possible outcome fair. Planned, consequential purchases may benefit from the opposite: a known reward with no nasty little adventure attached.

The auction works while chocolate is trivial and participation voluntary. Replace coins with a mortgage rate or medicine dose and suspense becomes an astonishingly bad feature.