Where does false value come from?
Sometimes we value things that aren't valuable at all. Here are six causes of our misassessment.
From my vantage point in the red pleather booth, I could see people passing by in the mall. “When is it going to get here?” I asked. Again.
“Here it comes,” my mother said, tracing the movements of our server like a military commander scanning a radar screen. (It’s a lot of work taking children out to eat).
I knew my order by heart: “I want this (index finger pressed on the cheerful image of a scoop of ice cream with Reese’s Pieces for eyes and a chocolate dipped waffle cone for a hat) with cookie dough ice cream and extra Reese’s Pieces.”
After what seemed like an eternity, the server placed my Cone Head™ sundae on the table in front of me. I’d learned that they put some Reese’s Pieces in the hat and that they put a lot in the bottom of the silver sundae dish. Grabbing my spoon, I set to work eating my ice cream in a way that revealed the buried treasure underneath so I could go back and forth between the ice cream and the colorful candy pieces. (It’s an art).
Today, I eat my ice cream in a far less cheerful form. I settle for a pint of chocolate chip cookie dough and a bag of Reese’s Pieces I mix in myself. Most of the value I seek from this experience is emotional; it’s comforting nostalgia wrapped in the promise of delicious food.
I know ice cream isn’t good for my health. Experience tells me that by the bottom of the pint, I will sink into my couch, enveloped in a sugar coma. And for all that, the ice cream never tastes as good as I remember.
It took years for me to recognize that this activity wasn’t going to deliver on taste or even quality nostalgia. It was false value.
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What is false value?
Think of it like a false positive. A false positive is an inaccurate result based on imperfect testing. Valuing things that aren't valuable at all is an inaccurate assessment resulting from our human imperfections. In the value economy, this is known as false value.
In some cases, that false value results in a bad Amazon purchase. In other cases, we invest a lot of resources into something that harms us.
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The causes of false value
To understand false value, we need to start by assessing where it comes from. What causes people who seek value to make an exchange for something that isn’t valuable?
I've identified six primary causes of false value.
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#1 - Incorrect information
In many cases, the person proferring the information isn’t aware that what they’re sharing isn’t true or relevant. They may think that they’re offering good advice, that the fact they’re stating is correct, or that the person to whom they’re giving a recommendation values the same things they do.
In other cases, we may only have half the information we need because the rest doesn’t exist, or the route to gathering it comes at too great a cost. Or we may have misinterpreted information because we made an honest mistake or the source we took it from shaded its presentation1.
Nutrition serves as a good example. I’ve given up turning to Google2 to learn more about nutrition because I can get any answer I want with the right search phrase. I’m certain accurate information presented with the appropriate nuance exists in the nutrition space; it’s simply overwhelmed by companies that want to sell you their vitamin gummy (which will help you live forever, of course) and trends peddled by the latest crop of influencers that want to bolster their views and affiliate marketing sales.
#2 - Social influence
Influencers with a capital “I” aren’t the only source of influence3. Whether we like it or not, we’re influenced by others almost every day. What we read, what we see, and who we interact with, from friends and family to the person who let the door slam on our face instead of holding it open so we could catch the train all shape who we are and what we think.
I think it’s critical to mention not only self-anointed influencers but also those we anoint with coverage, awards, or other forms of status. These people influence what we aspire to be and, therefore, what we value.
We’re also influenced by the culture we grow up in and the family that raises us. While I believe most parents and communities strive to do what’s best for their kids, we aren’t perfect.
Like those who have fused their identity to their kid’s athletic success. Team Termin4 is one such example. The father of these two competitive swimmers went so far as to become their coach and would stand at the end of the lane and yell to encourage top performance from his kids. It often takes something big to break the spell so the kid asks, “Wait, do I even want to be doing this?”
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#3 - Manipulation, coercion, and everything in between
Kinda like the spell a good salesman casts. One minute, you’re asking an innocuous question about the difference between computer models; the next, you’re walking out with a shiny new machine and an expansive warranty that covers “total meltdown from operating on the surface of the sun.” It’s not until you get home that you ask, “Wait. How did I come to this decision?”
We leverage manipulation and coercion for personal gain. Sometimes, we deploy head games. Sometimes, we outright lie. Sometimes, we hide information, but, as my mother always said, that’s just lying by omission.
We also create narratives. The right narrative can captivate someone with its worldview, the emotion it elicits, the community it builds, or (likely) all three. When carefully crafted and consistently perpetuated, large groups of people can come to believe a range of things, from the slightly untrue to the downright dangerous.
One of the core features of most gripping narratives is the enemy. We wholly invent enemies to advance our agenda. We also elevate trivial problems to a grand scale they do not deserve.
Imposter syndrome is one such problem. The concept was introduced in 1978 by psychologists Pauline Rose Clance and Suzanne Imes as the imposter phenomenon. I don’t know when we switched from phenomenon, which means “an observable fact or event,” to syndrome — which means “a group of signs and symptoms that occur together and characterize a particular abnormality or condition.”
Because we’ve pathologized this concept, we’ve created a problem that has to be solved. And no shortage of experts, coaches, consultants, and even institutes popped up to solve this problem, which — as an individual syndrome5 — will exist in perpetuity because new people enter the world every day.
Moreover, the pathologizing of this concept caused a contagion effect. I’ve watched perfectly confident people suddenly discover they, too, have imposter syndrome because they’re in a room with other people talking about their imposter syndrome. (Goody, more people to sell my book on overcoming imposter syndrome…)
Not everyone sits at their desk twisting their mustache, dreaming up new ways to screw people. Incentives play a powerful role in creating manipulative behavior in otherwise decent people.
For example, if I get my bonus based on how many sales I close — and the dollar value of those sales — it doesn’t matter that I know what I’m selling won’t work; I’m going to get you to buy it anyway because that’s the point of my game. And if I’m really good, I’ll get you to pay for all the extras you didn’t need and can’t afford because that’s what gives me the greatest benefit.
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#4 - Biological manipulation
Technology that leverages behavioral science, as well as neuroscience, allows us to manipulate people at a biological level.
Two examples readily come to mind: gambling and social media. In this glorious spelunk into the inner belly of slot machines, Matthew B. Crawfordexplores how these companies have manipulated our natural wants and tendencies to the point that people won’t stop putting money into the machine even if they pee their pants.
Social media companies have studied the same human behavior research as slot machine companies. They tailor their software to remove friction and prey on our natural weaknesses, including our pleasure receptors. We’ve come to find meaningless likes hugely valuable.
But TikTok may have taken social media to another level. According to Gurwinder, “TikTok, more than any other app, is designed to give you what you want while requiring you to do as little as possible. It cares little who you follow or what buttons you click; its main consideration is how long you spend watching. Its reliance on machine learning rather than user input, combined with the fact that TikTok clips are so short they require minimal memory and attention span, makes browsing TikTok the most passive experience of all major platforms.”
The extreme passivity causes atrophy of our mental faculties. “Slowly but steadily it could turn [us] into perpetually distracted dopamine junkies ill-equipped to maintain the civilization built by [our] ancestors.”
All traded for the quick dopamine hits that come from watching inane dances and ludacris stunts6.
#5 - Maintaining the status quo
In this case, we’ve established a feedback loop that’s beneficial enough for someone to keep it going round and round. Sometimes, it’s a matter of complexity. Undoing the colossus we’ve built feels insurmountable, so we let inertia carry us forward.
Sometimes, we know how to solve the problem, but treating the symptoms is too profitable. As an example, there’s a Law and Order SVU episode where Dr. Huang treats an addicted patient with a drug called Ibogaine. In one treatment, the patient is clean for life. But it’s illegal to administer in the U.S. because — according to the show — the patent expired. That means no drug company will profit from it, and because there’s no profit, no one will pay for the drug to go through FDA trials. In short, the pharmaceutical industry can make more money treating those suffering from addiction with less effective drugs, so they do.
To maintain the status quo, we also preserve the problem to which we are the solution because we want to survive in our current form, or because there’s too much money, prestige, and even meaning wrapped up in solving it. If there’s no longer a [insert charitable cause here], what happens to all the nonprofits, consultants, lobbyists, volunteers, and protestors who’ve found essential meaning in changing the world?7
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#6 - Pushing value too far
Then, sometimes, we edge. We take something valuable and push it so far that it becomes the opposite. The most common catalyst is the more motive. Legitimate value gets incubated and develops into something false and potentially harmful.
Take mental health services. People get value out of services like therapy. It’s also true that in the name of more, companies like BetterHelp.com would like everyone to be their customer — whether or not they truly need mental health services.
Through the wonders of marketing, we’ve made normal feelings and difficulties something that requires professional support, which renders us less resilient and even more willing to fork over cash so we can be fixed.
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It’s all empty calories
Like my ice cream, false value serves as empty calories. Sometimes, we have a neutral experience: my low-calorie organic popcorn is as close to eating air as I think you can get. We can have a negative experience: I feel lousy after eating a pint of ice cream. We can also have a detrimental experience: eating a pint of ice cream every day can cause diabetes, which leads to a whole host of negatives — including death.
In my next post, I will explore what false value means for us as individuals, as businesses, and as a culture. Then, in a third post, I’ll suggest ways we can limit the creation and spread of false value.
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Think numbers — like statistics or other data — which seem irrefutable, but in reality can be made to say whatever we want with enough slight of hand.
I went to a trusted healthcare provider and asked him to recommend a nutritionist. I then worked closely with her and — even though I believed her to be capable and working in my best interest — asked questions to ensure I understood how she came to her conclusions.
Because we talk about influencers and social media so much, we have elevated the role of influencer, which gives those working as influencers even more sway. Exhibit A: We used to have space camps; kids are now going to influencer camps. Let that sink in.
One of the things he would yell is, “The wall! The wall!” while pointing down at the wall where you’d need to do a turn to start the next lap. I wasn’t quite sure if there was some kind of code that his kids understood or if he thought the wall would move.
Including (but by no means limited to) the penny challenge, where teens plugged a charger part way into an electric socket, then touched the exposed metal prongs with a penny just to see sparks fly. More here.
This phenomenon is sometimes referred to as the Shirky Principle.
Katie,
This is terrific. Looking froward to the rest of the series.
Hi, thanks for the shoutout. I'm curious as to why you inserted a [sic] when you quoted me?