As a mathematical snob, I’ve often repeated the old insult that the lottery is a tax on people who can’t do math. That part is true. But lottery players don’t always believe wildly improbable things will happen. After all, they drive, and this despite the much greater odds of dying in a car crash than of winning the lottery.
So why do people believe the probable in driving but the improbable in jackpots? I think the answer is simple: it’s what they imagine. Though people fleetingly imagine car crashes, they primarily imagine and enjoy the experience of driving places safely. But with lottery tickets, they imagine winning, and they imagine it vividly over and over, even at the moment they are wasting their money. This instead of picturing the real things they could buy with the money saved on unpurchased tickets.
So people drive because they picture success and they buy lottery tickets because they picture success. Apparently, imagination is more persuasive than math for significant numbers (sorry) of people.
1 comment:
It's like imagination is a lot better at generating emotion than is math/numbers. Once these emotions get teased out, the decision is on it's way to being made. Imagination is like a virtual experience; it's the closest thing to actually experiencing the event. That will, for most, be more meaningful and influential than bare and boring numbers I guess.
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