Extremeness Aversion: The tendency to avoid the most expensive/largest or cheapest/smallest among presented options.
When a product has three tiers — "Premium," "Standard," and "Basic" — most people choose "Standard." This is because extremeness aversion influences behavior.
(p.274) Howard's research demonstrated this principle across multiple domains.
This insight is invaluable for pricing strategy: if you want people to choose your mid-tier product, make sure there's a clearly more expensive option above it and a clearly cheaper option below it. The middle option becomes the "safe" choice.
But the deeper lesson is about human psychology: we're wired to avoid extremes, to seek the comfortable middle. Knowing this about ourselves is the first step to making more deliberate choices.
