When new information comes in, people tend to compare it to their existing views to see if it is a close enough match to consider. Psychological experiments going back 50 years have found a “zone of acceptance,” an area close enough to people’s existing beliefs that they’ll consider new information. Incoming content that is too far away from their current perspective falls into a region of rejection and gets discounted.
Doctors deal with this issue when trying to get patients to change to healthier behavior. Sure, an overweight person should walk a mile every day, but for someone who hasn’t worked out in months, that’s a big ask. One solution is to start by asking for less or breaking the change down into chunks.
A doctor I spoke with a few years ago was dealing with an obese truck driver who drank three liters of Mountain Dew a day. She knew that telling him to quit cold turkey would fail, so she asked him to try just two liters a day. He grumbled but made the switch. Then, on the next visit, she asked him to cut it down to one liter a day, and only after that succeeded did she suggest cutting the soda out entirely. The trucker still drinks a can of Mountain Dew now and then, but he’s lost more than 25 pounds.
Product designers talk about such gradual shifts in behavior as stepping stones—a way to make a big shift feel less daunting. Uber’s initial model didn’t depend on persuading people to take a ride in a random stranger’s car. That’s exactly what Mom told you not to do. The company started instead by making high-end black-car service more accessible. Only after that gained acceptance did they move down-market to UberX, a cheaper nonluxury option. If Uber had asked people to make such a big change from the beginning, they probably would have failed. It was too far from what people were used to.