> If it's free, people are suspicious and judge the cost to be something implicit, generally with a higher expected cost than $1. On the other hand if you make the cost explicit, people are more comfortable.
To address your point explicitly, if someone believes the cost of a hug is higher than $1 ("higher than expected cost"), then offering one for $1 should trigger a similar suspicion in your head.
Think about it, if a stranger offered you a free Porsche, you'd rightly be suspicious. Would you be less suspicious if they offered that same car for $500?
Porsches are worth big money. The “costs” for hugs are more of a social calculation.
I expect that the act of taking a small social good that would not normally be available, or even allowed, but is being offered for free, feels subtly wrong.
“Why would this person give me X for free?” Makes us feel uncomfortable. We feel we are not seeing something, or perhaps freeloading. Which prompts a subconscious threat or status calculation, not a simple cost calculation.
But being able to pay for it suddenly fits a common pattern, even if the “product” (hug or conversation) is novel.
Well with that mentality this whole conversation is useless. You can't argue any perspective on a faulty premise.
Yes, it very well might be. Let’s look at the post I’m replying to:
>> If it's free, people are suspicious and judge the cost to be something implicit, generally with a higher expected cost than $1. On the other hand if you make the cost explicit, people are more comfortable.
That’s some deep psychological explanation for something when the simplest explanation could be “it was staged.” I hate to be cynical but it’s not exactly uncommon in show business!
Likewise, "free car" can come from a family or friend. So I might trust it more than a $500 beater that I'd immediately take to shop.
Parents wanting ever-so-forgiving cheap daycare need to move an idle grandma into town.
Although, given this is in an area where streetside parking can be $20-$30 for a couple of hours...
It ties in with the story in Freakonomics about the daycare that started to charge a small "fine" to discourage parents picking up the child late, with the effect that these incidents happened more often. Because the cost went from implicit (shame, etc) to explicit (it's only $10).