The goal of Garner’s experiments was to see what was necessary to generate compliance in completing surveys—which are often quite lengthy and tedious— by fellow professors at the university, using only in- teroffice mail as the conduit of communication. The wild card factor in these experiments was the use of sticky notes. In one experiment, he sent surveys to three separate groups of 50 professors (150 profes- sors total). Three groups received three different re- quests, as follows:
Group 1 received a survey with a sticky note attached asking for the return of the com- pleted survey.
Group 2 received a survey with the same handwritten message on the cover letter instead of an attached sticky note.
Group 3 received a survey with a cover letter but no handwritten message.
What happened?
Group 3: 36% of the professors returned the survey.
Group 2: 48% of the professors returned the survey.
Group 1: 76% of the professors returned the survey.
Generalizing this experiment in other contexts simply requires understanding why the sticky note worked so well. It represents many powerful behav- ioral triggers all in one little object:
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Itdoesn’tmatchtheenvironment:Thesticky note takes up space and looks a bit cluttered. The brain, therefore, wants it gone.
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Itgetsattentionfirstbecauseof#1.It’sdiffi- cult to ignore.
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