Selectivity raises perceived value, but only when the selectivity appears to be about you rather than general.
Walster and colleagues' first five experiments in 1973 failed to find a general hard-to-get advantage. Support emerged only for the narrower pattern in which the target was selective towards others and receptive to the participant.
In practice
- A candidate told the firm rejects most applicants is unmoved; one told the panel was undecided about them specifically leans in.
- A club with a general waiting list is less desirable than one that has personally deferred your application.
- Possible explanations
- The explanation is information: selectivity that is specific to you signals genuine preference, while general selectivity signals only that the person is choosy, which conveys nothing about their interest.
- In its favour
- The narrower conditional pattern has support, and it explains why the folk version fails so often in practice.
- Against it
- The original five experiments found no general hard-to-get advantage, so the popular version is unsupported, and deliberate unavailability also reduces the opportunities in which interest can be shown.
- Standing
- A narrow conditional effect: the original experiments found no general hard-to-get advantage.
- Subject
- Psychology & Behavior
- Essay
- A century and a half of measuring the mind