Cognitive Mechanism Design

Behavioral
Economics

Your customers are not rational. Your strategy should not be either. We design decision environments that produce systematically better outcomes.

Our Thesis

Decisions Are Not Made by Rational Actors. They Are Made by Brains.

Decades of behavioral research have documented exactly how human decision-making diverges from the rational-agent model. Loss aversion, anchoring, present bias, scarcity, social proof, framing. These are not edge cases. They are the operating system of every purchase decision.

Most organizations design pricing, conversion funnels, and customer experiences as if the rational-agent model were true. That mismatch is what produces conversion plateaus, abandoned carts, and pricing power left on the table. We close the mismatch by engineering decision environments around how brains actually work.

The landscape · Market context
Most value is lost in the decision, not the price.
0%
of online carts abandoned
0%
average ecommerce conversion
0x
fewer choices, higher purchase rate
0%
of decisions are subconscious
Roughly seven in ten carts are abandoned, the average store converts near two percent, and the large majority of buying decisions are made below deliberate awareness. Cutting choice from many options to a few has been shown to lift purchase rates by an order of magnitude. This is not a traffic problem; it is a decision-architecture problem.
Baymard, Smart Insights, Iyengar-Lepper, Zaltman. Market context.
Designing the decision

Anchoring, social proof, loss framing, and choice architecture, composed as one decision environment.

Figure 02 · Loss aversion
Losses are felt about twice as hard as gains
2.25x
gains →← losses
+1.84
felt value of a gain
-4.14
felt value of the same loss
The value function bends sharply below zero. That asymmetry is why “don’t lose your unclaimed credit” outperforms “save the same amount.” In the C-suite the kink is steeper still: risk avoided beats capability gained. Drag the coefficient to feel the bend.
Prospect theory value function (Kahneman & Tversky)
The Six Mechanisms

What We Architect

Anchoring & Reference Effects

Design the first number a customer sees so the rest of the journey is evaluated against the right reference point. Affects pricing pages, plans, and product comparison.

Loss Aversion Framing

Loss looms twice as large as gain. We rewrite value propositions, retention messaging, and abandoned cart flows around what is being lost, not just gained.

Social Proof Architecture

Review aggregation, peer validation, and authority signals positioned at the decision moment, not buried in a testimonial section nobody scrolls to.

Scarcity & Time Pressure

Authentic scarcity signals (inventory, deadlines, cohort caps) integrated honestly into the funnel. No fake countdowns. The behavior survives without the lie.

Choice Architecture

The number, ordering, and framing of options. Decoy effects, default selection, progressive disclosure designed to make the better choice the easier choice.

Decision-Stage Friction Maps

Cognitive load measured at each step of the journey. Friction added where customer protection requires it, removed everywhere else.

Figure 01 · Anchoring
The first number rewrites every number after it
$400
Basic
$90
.
Pro
$200
intended
Premium
$400
anchor
How reasonable the $200 plan feels73/100
The premium tier is rarely there to be bought. It is there to set the reference point that makes the intended tier feel reasonable. Drag the premium price and watch how the same $200 plan changes in perceived value, without changing at all.
Illustrative reference effect
How We Engage

From Diagnostic to Compounding Wins

I. Behavioral Diagnostic

2 to 3 weeks. Decision audit across the funnel. Mapping cognitive load, friction points, and the implicit choice architecture currently in place.

II. Intervention Design

4 to 6 weeks. Specific interventions designed against the diagnostic. Each intervention paired with a measurable hypothesis and validation method.

III. Test & Validate

A/B and multivariate testing governed by causal inference. Each behavioral mechanism validated against a holdout before it ships at scale.

IV. Compound & Generalize

Successful interventions documented, generalized, and rolled across adjacent surfaces. Behavioral wins compound when the underlying decision system improves.

The operating model
Diagnose. Architect. Execute. Compound.
Every engagement runs the same loop. The fourth phase is the one most firms skip: results are designed to compound, so the advantage of each engagement raises the floor for the next rather than resetting it.
The Stochastic Minds method
Interactive · Scorecard
Are you designing for how people actually decide?

Three questions on whether your commercial system is built around real decision mechanics.

1Are your pricing and choices architected deliberately?
2Do you apply principles in isolation or as a system?
3How do you validate behavioral changes?
0/3 answered
Indicative readiness check
Frequently Asked

Questions Buyers Actually Ask

What is behavioral economics consulting?+

Behavioral economics consulting applies findings from psychology and economics to understand how people actually make decisions, not how rational models predict they should. Consultants use this to design choice environments, pricing structures, and communication strategies that produce better outcomes for both organizations and consumers.

How does behavioral economics improve conversion rates?+

By identifying and systematically addressing the cognitive friction points in the customer journey. Loss aversion, anchoring, social proof, and scarcity are not marketing buzzwords, they are documented psychological mechanisms that, when properly architected into a conversion funnel, produce measurable and reproducible uplift.

What industries benefit most from behavioral economics?+

E-commerce, financial services, healthcare, hospitality, and any industry where consumer decision quality has direct revenue impact. The ASOS engagement, which produced +81% conversion uplift, demonstrates the potential in high-consideration digital retail environments.

Is behavioral economics manipulation?+

No. The distinction between ethical persuasion and manipulation is transparency and alignment of interest. We design choice environments that help people make decisions that are genuinely better for them, not environments designed to extract value from people who would otherwise choose differently.

How long does a behavioral economics engagement take?+

Most engagements produce measurable results within 90 days. A typical engagement begins with a diagnostic phase (2 to 3 weeks), followed by intervention design and testing (4 to 6 weeks), with deployment and measurement rounding out the first quarter.

What is the ROI of behavioral economics consulting?+

Because behavioral interventions target the decision-making process itself rather than increasing traffic or spend, the returns compound over time as optimized decision architectures continue to perform. ROI depends on the scope of intervention and the complexity of the decision environment.

Behavioral Economics
People do not decide rationally.
So we design for how they do.

Cognitive mechanisms, composed and tested as a system, not isolated nudges.

Ready to Engineer Better Decisions?

The Strategic Diagnostic is the entry point.

Apply for Diagnostic