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Scarcity Principle
Definition
According to the scarcity principle, objects become more attractive when there are not very many of them. This scarcity may be either real or imagined. People assume that because others appear to want something, and it is in short supply, it must be valuable. In a classic demonstration of the scarcity principle, students were divided into two groups. One group was asked to choose a cookie from a jar with two cookies. The other group was asked to choose a cookie from a jar that contained ten cookies. Consistent with the scarcity principle, students who chose from the jar with two cookies (scarce condition) rated the cookies as more desirable than students who chose from the jar with ten cookies (plentiful condition).
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- Action Control
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- Misattribution of Arousal
- Moral Development
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- Name Letter Effect
- Objectification Theory
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- Personal Space
- Phenomenal Self
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- Procrastination
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- Psychological Entitlement
- Reactance
- Regulatory Focus Theory
- Roles and Role Theory
- Schemas
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- Self-Affirmation Theory
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- Social Identity Theory
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- Terror Management Theory
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- Uniqueness
- Value Priorities
- Zeal
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- Accessibility
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- Action Identification Theory
- Actor–Observer Asymmetries
- Adaptive Unconscious
- Alcohol Myopia Effect
- Anchoring and Adjustment Heuristic
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- Attribution Theory
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- Availability Heuristic
- Bad Is Stronger Than Good
- Barnum Effect
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- Central Traits Versus Peripheral Traits
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- Illusory Correlation
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- Prototypes
- Recency Effect
- Responsibility Attribution
- Risk Appraisal
- Salience
- Satisficing
- Schemas
- Scripts
- Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
- Self-Reference Effect
- Self-Serving Bias
- Self-Verification Theory
- Shifting Standards
- Similarity-Attraction Effect
- Social Categorization
- Social Cognition
- Social Cognitive Neuroscience
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- Social Impact Theory
- Social Projection
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- Spreading of Alternatives
- Subliminal Perception
- Subtyping
- Symbolic Interactionism
- Theory of Mind
- Thin Slices of Behavior
- Three-Dimensional Model of Attribution
- Transactive Memory
- Value Pluralism Model
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