Tactic 25 of 99
The Decoy
Add an option nobody wants and watch them pick the one you want.
What it is
You add a clearly inferior option to make your target option look best. It is called the decoy effect, or asymmetric dominance. The decoy isn’t there to be bought. It’s there to make the comparison easy.
Spot it
One option nobody would ever pick, sitting right next to the one you’re being steered toward.
Counter it
Delete the decoy in your head and compare what’s left. Then ask what the decoy was built to sell: whichever option it looks most like is the one someone wants you to pick. If you’d choose differently with only two options on the table, choose that.