Stanford, Harvard Business School Profs Examine Rookie Hype Phenomenon
Colleagues from the Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB) and Harvard Business School (HBS) have conducted a series of studies examining why rookies with much less demonstrated accomplishment often create more excitement – and command higher pay – than established players. Over the course of eight experiments in fields ranging from art and leadership to sports and academia, they discovered that the excitement factor around individuals with high potential is often greater than it would be for someone who has already achieved the very things the high-potential individual is only promising to do.
The researchers – Zakary Tormala, an associate professor of marketing at Stanford GSB; Jayson Jia, a Stanford GSB PhD candidate; and Harvard Business School associate professor Michael Norton – conducted a series of experiments to better understand the phenomenon. In one, they ran Facebook ads touting a real comedian, one version emphasizing the comic’s potential and the other emphasizing his achievement. The ad containing the tagline “Critics say he could become the next big thing” did more than twice as well (as measured by click rates and fan likes) than the one containing the tagline “Critics say he has become the next big thing.”
Another study called on participants in a lab experiment to play the role of an NBA team manager, evaluating players based either on their actual scoring statistics or their projected stats. In this experiment, participants not only showed a preference for the rookie over the veteran player, they indicated they would pay the rookie an average of $1 million more than the proven veteran.
In a third study, participants were asked to choose between two applicants for a management job, one with demonstrated achievement and another with high potential. “We had a question about how objectively impressive the person’s resume was at present, and participants did say that the achievement guy was more objectively impressive,” Tormala says. “Yet they were more excited about the person with potential and more interested in hiring that person. So people see the objective difference on paper, yet still get more excited about the person with potential.”
Tormala and his colleagues began to draw the conclusion that people are motivated to think more when they are uncertain. Therefore, when a claim that someone has high potential is bolstered by strong evidence, more thinking often leads to more favorable judgments. If, in contrast, the evidence to support an individual’s high potential is lacking, the pro-potential bias disappears or can even reverse.
Tormala, for his part, has begun incorporating his findings into his own life. For example, when he writes a letter or recommendation for a student seeking a job, he opens with a statement about his or her potential, following with evidence to support that claim. But the second part is as important as the first, he stresses. “If you make a hollow claim about potential — you say that this person could be great but you don’t say what the basis is — you might not create the effect. You have to be pretty confident that the information you’re giving is favorable and compelling.”
Read more about the power or potential study at Stanford GSB.
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