Relationship between how you're treated and how you act

[JakeRhee]

Question:
What is the relationship between how you "treat" someone or some group and how they act?
To be more specific, here's an example of what I'm asking:
-If you treat your child like a little kid, does he act more like one than if you treat him like an adult?

What I'm getting at is: Can we make people (customers?) "better" by entrusting them more? If we allow customers to pay rather than making them pay, will we increase the number of honest people in the world, or will the honest people stay honest and the thieves just have an easier time?

Maybe a psych major out there can give me a definitive answer on this, but I'm also interested in your thoughts.

[leggomygreggo]

Jake, the question you pose is a very intriguing one indeed. Before i start my response i would like to make clear that I am not a psych major so if i'm wrong about some stuff let me know.

Ok, so the concept of allowing people to pay instead of forcing them to pay sounds like a great idea, although there are several aspects about it that I am extremely pessimistic about. I recently read on springwise.com about a restaurant that has subscribed to this methodology. The article can be found here at Springwise: Pay-what-you-want restaurants

It talks about a restaurant in Melbourne that "lets customers pay what they can afford or what they think the meal was worth." The owners say that "while a few customers might take advantage of a restaurant's altruistic motives, most are happy to shell out a little extra to cover free meals for those who can't afford to pay."

Judging from this business, this concept seems to work. By entrusting them with the responsibility to pay for their own meals it creates a better relationship between the business and the customer. It's a surefire way to build customer loyalty.

My problem with this theory is my personal belief that a lot of people in this world are cheap and downright dishonest. While the article did say that when others could not, or would not, pay the bill others would gladly throw down extra money, it seems like a very risky chance to take. I would love to think that by giving people the responsibility of paying what they should it would turn everyone into an honest person. But as it stands, I believe that some people just will not change no matter what and live to take advantage of companies in any way they can.

I am not totally bashing this idea seeing as it is apparently working well over in Melbourne. This idea could work on a very minute and local scale. I think that if someone started a business on this principle and tried to expand to a larger scale, they only things they would find are dwindling profit margins and disappointment. Without a systematic way to definitively track sales and revenue the business would slowly go bankrupt. This may sound bad but i personally know that if I visited a business and I had the choice of paying what I should or not, I would walk out that door with all the free stuff I could. I know this is not true for everyone but i think there would be enough people doing this to negatively affect your business.

So in conclusion, absolutely brilliant idea in theory and quite feasible on a small, local scale, but on a grander scale it would be a one way street to disaster.

[leggomygreggo]

And btw i just read my post and I'm sorry if that sounded like a rant. I've been going on no sleep for a couple days working on my business plan and am really wired on coffee lol. No offense was meant at all. Just thought i would give my two cents worth. This could actually be a very interesting discussion Thanks for listening