From Impressed to Obsessed: 12 Principles for Turning Customers and Employees into Lifelong Fans

CHAPTER 12

Give the Perception of Control

In the late 1970s, Richard Mills, a University of Southern California psychology student, conducted an unusual experiment to test theories around the emerging concept of “perceived control”—the idea, posited by other academics, that the more control people exert over their surroundings, the happier they are.¹

Mills approached the local American Red Cross blood donation center and enlisted their help in a study. For one group of people, the Red Cross phlebotomist asked the donors to choose from which arm they wanted blood to be drawn. The other group was given no such choice; the nurse merely advised that blood would be drawn from the donor’s nondominant arm.

The donors who were given the opportunity ...