Why expensive, wasteful, effortful, or self-deprecating actions build trust and desire — Rory Sutherland on signalling. Use when the problem is credibility or desirability rather than meaning: the user asks 'why don't people trust us', 'how do we look more credible/committed/premium', 'is our guarantee/warranty worth it', 'should we spend on brand advertising', 'how do we justify a higher price', or wonders why a cheaper-looking competitor wins. Covers costly signals (advertising spend, guarantees, over-delivery), price-as-quality-signal (Veblen goods), and the Pratfall Effect (admitting a real flaw to gain trust). Inspired by Rory Sutherland's *Alchemy*. Routed to from psycho-logic. 日本語の相談（「信頼されない」「安心してもらえない」「強気な価格で売りたい」「広告費に意味はある？」）にも使う。中文咨询（“不被信任”“想以高价出售”“广告费有意义吗？”）也适用。
counterintuitive-tests
Generate ideas that don't sound logical, then validate them with cheap behavioural experiments — Rory Sutherland's 'the opposite of a good idea can be a good idea' plus revealed-preference testing. Use when the obvious/logical solution is saturated and the user wants genuinely different options, asks 'what's a creative/unconventional angle', 'how do we stand out', 'should we run a test/experiment', 'how do we know what people actually want', or is about to trust a survey/focus group. Covers deliberate inversion of the obvious move, why stated preferences lie, and designing small reversible experiments that watch behaviour. Inspired by Rory Sutherland's *Alchemy*. Routed to from psycho-logic. 日本語の相談（「競合と同じ案しか出ない」「アンケートは好評なのに売れない」「思い切った案を安く試したい」）にも使う。
中文咨询（“只能想出和竞品一样的方案”“问卷好评却卖不动”）也适用。
含まれるファイル（2）
- SKILL.md6.2 KB
- evals/evals.json21.6 KB
SKILL.md（原文）
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Counterintuitive Tests — invert the obvious, then watch behaviour
Two moves: (1) deliberately generate the ideas that sound wrong, because the sensible ideas are already taken; (2) never trust what people say about them — run a cheap, reversible experiment and watch what they do.
Why the obvious idea is the wrong default
Logical optimisation converges: every competent competitor finds the same "best practice," so it stops being an advantage. The remaining opportunities are the moves that don't survive a rational business case — which is exactly why nobody has tried them. "Doesn't make sense" is not a reason to reject an idea; it's a reason it might still be available.
- Red Bull launched a small, expensive can of bad-tasting drink. Every logical signal said fail. The "wrongness" was the positioning — it must do something.
- Raising the price sometimes raises sales (it changes the signal — see costly-signaling).
- Removing features/options/steps often beats adding them (paradox of choice).
Why you must test behaviour, not opinions
People don't think what they feel, don't say what they think, and don't do what they say.
Surveys and focus groups capture post-hoc rationalisations, not causes. Nobody in a focus group asked for Red Bull. Stated preference is cheap talk; revealed preference (what they actually clicked, bought, kept) is the only honest data. So your job isn't to ask whether the counterintuitive idea works — it's to expose people to it and measure behaviour.
How to apply
- Write the obvious solution down. The thing every competitor would do. This is your "do not just do this" baseline.
- Invert it on purpose. For each obvious move, generate its opposite and ask "under what circumstances would the opposite be better?" (Charge more. Offer less. Make it slower but nicer. Hide the price. Add friction. Remove a feature.) Keep the ones that aren't insane on inspection.
- Design a cheap, reversible test. The whole point of a counterintuitive idea is you can't reason your way to the answer — so make the experiment so cheap and reversible that you don't need to. A/B test, a soft launch to one segment, a fake-door, a landing page, one store. Small, fast, undoable.
- Measure behaviour, not approval. Define the behavioural metric before running (clicks, purchases, retention, completion). Ignore "would you…?" survey answers about the idea.
- Let surprising-but-real results win. If the illogical version beats the logical one on behaviour, ship it — even if you can't fully explain why. It doesn't have to make sense to work.
How to think about the experiment
- Bias toward many small reversible bets over one big committed one (barbell: safe core, cheap weird experiments).
- A test that can't fail (no clear behavioural metric, no control) isn't a test — it's theatre.
- Negative results are wins: a cheap experiment that kills a bad idea saved you the expensive version.
日本語の使用例
- 「競合と同じ訴求しか思いつかない」→ まず当たり前の解を書き出し、その逆を1つずつ生成（"もっと高く" "機能を減らす" "あえて遅く・丁寧に" "価格を最後まで見せない"）。安く・元に戻せる形で検証。
- 「アンケートでは好評だったのに売れない」→ 言うこと≠やること。アンケート（安い口先）ではなく、ランディングページや少数セグメントへのソフトローンチで**行動（購入・離脱）**を測る。
- 「値上げしたら売れなくなりそう」→ 直感で却下せず、1セグメント・期間限定の可逆なA/Bで行動を見る。論理ではなく結果に判断させる。
- 葬儀/シニア領域：「分かりやすさ＝情報を増やす、が定石」→ 逆に選択肢と情報を削る版を作り、問い合わせ完了率で比較する。
Cross-check against the canon
Sanity-check inversions and experiment designs against these; if one contradicts your plan, name it and justify the exception. When a claim is load-bearing or the user asks for evidence or fresh examples, web-search the named theory or case and cite what you find.
- Paul Samuelson, revealed preference — the economics behind "watch what they do": choices, not statements, define preference.
- Barry Schwartz, The Paradox of Choice — why "offer less" is a serious inversion, not a gimmick.
- Nassim Taleb, the barbell — keep the core safe and make the experiments small and reversible; never bet the company on an inversion.
- Byron Sharp, How Brands Grow — the empirical brake: some counterintuitive moves (e.g. abandoning reach to court loyalists) reliably fail in his data. Test against evidence, not just cleverness.
Related skills
- psycho-logic — the router; use it to decide which obvious move to invert
- reframing / costly-signaling — common sources of the counterintuitive idea you'll test
- experience-design — many counterintuitive wins are journey changes; test them the same way
- ab-testing / marketing-psychology — mechanics of running tests and the biases involved (separate plugins — only if installed)
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同じリポジトリのスキル
概要と使いどころ
The perception-by-culture lens for psycho-logic — establish HOW a specific region, country, or subculture reads a signal before you send it, because perception is culturally coded and the same move can mean the opposite elsewhere. Use when adapting a product, price, message, or campaign to a new market; when the user asks 'will this work in [country/region]', 'why does this land in X but flop in Y', 'how do people here perceive Z', 'how do we localise/differentiate by region', or is about to copy a US/global playbook into another market. Covers the cultural dimensions that move Sutherland's levers — uncertainty avoidance, individualism/collectivism, status/power distance, high- vs low-context communication, mental-accounting norms, trust locus, and taboo/sacredness — and how each rewires reframing, costly-signaling, and experience-design. Inspired by Rory Sutherland's *Alchemy*. Routed to from psycho-logic; pair with market-recon for live local data. 日本語・中文の相談（「この地域で通用する？」「适合本地市场吗？」）にも使う。
Fix the psychologically significant moment, not the logically significant metric — Rory Sutherland on experience. Use when the outcome is fine but the journey feels bad: complaints about waiting, anxiety, uncertainty, or 'it's technically fast/cheap/correct but people still hate it'; when the user asks 'how do we reduce complaints', 'how do we make waiting/onboarding/checkout feel better', 'people are anxious during X', or is about to spend big to shave a number (wait time, load time, steps) when the real pain is how the moment feels. Covers uncertainty reduction, idle vs occupied waiting, and the peak-end rule. Inspired by Rory Sutherland's *Alchemy*. Routed to from psycho-logic. 日本語の相談（「待ち時間のクレームが多い」「手続きの途中で離脱される」「お客様を不安にさせている」）にも使う。中文咨询（“等待时间投诉多”“办理中途流失”“让客户感到不安”）也适用。
The live fieldwork layer for psycho-logic — go look at the actual target market NOW instead of reasoning from your training-data stereotype of it. Use when a psycho-logic move needs grounding in a specific place: the user asks 'what do competitors in [region/country] actually do', 'what's the real price band / norm here', 'how do local leaders position themselves', 'research this market before we localise', 'what signals trust to buyers in X', or is about to launch/adapt in a market you haven't studied. Runs structured web research in the local language — local competitors and their signals, price bands, category conventions, review/trust sources, local terminology, taboos and regulations — and synthesises a compact perception profile the four moves consume. Inspired by Rory Sutherland's *Alchemy*. Routed to from psycho-logic; pair with cultural-context (the lens that tells you what to look for). 日本語・中文の相談（「現地の実態を調べて」「调研当地市场」）にも使う。
Rory Sutherland's 'psycho-logic' approach to marketing, product, and business problems — solve the human perception, not just the engineering or economic metric. Use when the obvious 'logical' fix is expensive, slow, or already done by every competitor; when the user asks 'how do we make people want X', 'the product/price/funnel is fine but nobody converts', 'how do we stand out', 'is there a cheaper way to fix this', or mentions behavioral economics, nudges, irrational behavior, perception, or 'it doesn't make sense but it works'. This is the ROUTER skill: it diagnoses the problem in human terms, then dispatches to reframing, costly-signaling, counterintuitive-tests, or experience-design. Inspired by Rory Sutherland's book *Alchemy*. 日本語の相談（「商品はいいのに売れない」「値下げしかない？」「競合と差別化できない」）にも使う。中文咨询（“产品很好却卖不动”“只能降价吗？”“无法差异化”）也适用。For a catalogue of individual biases, use marketing-psychology (separate plugin) instead.
Change what something MEANS before you change what it IS — Rory Sutherland's cheapest lever. Use when a product, price, feature, or message is objectively fine but feels cheap, generic, boring, overpriced, or unjustified; when the user says 'how do we make this feel more premium/valuable/exciting', 'people don't get why it's worth it', 'how do we reposition/rename/repackage this', or wants to raise perceived value without changing the product or cutting the price. Covers renaming, recategorising, mental accounting (price framing), creating artificial value, and context-shifting. Inspired by Rory Sutherland's *Alchemy*. Routed to from psycho-logic. 日本語の相談（「高いと言われる」「安っぽく見える」「値下げせずに高級感を出したい」）にも使う。中文咨询（“被说太贵”“显得廉价”“不降价也想显得高级”）也适用。