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The scarcity principle in social psychology refers to how opportunities or material objects seem more valuable to society when they are made less readily available. Furthermore, if something becomes scarce, then we fear the possible regret of not acquiring it, and so we desire it more. This desire is increased further by reactance, which states that if we think that someone else might get what we desire, it will cause us to desire that opportunity or object even more simply because we did not get it. The scarcity principle is used in sales, with ‘sale ends today’ (scarcity of time), ‘whilst stock last’ (scarcity of product), etc. This concept of scarcity and social proof (the tendency for us to like things because other people like them) was exhibited in a study done by Worchel and colleagues when they offered subjects cookies from two different jars. Both jars contained the same type of cookie, however there were ten cookies in one jar and only two in the second jar. Results showed that the subjects preferred cookies out of the jar that contained only two, suggesting that they only liked them because (1) they were scarcer which caused the subjects to want them more and (2) they liked them better because other people liked them too (suggesting the related concept of social proof). The typical hypothesis regarding scarcity in social psychology states that “value and scarcity are always found together in one causal direction and never separated, the scarcity of something increases its value"; however, according to an article by Devoe and Pfeffer, Daie, Wertenbroch, and Brendl were among the first to turn this causal direction around by stating that if something is more valuable, it would also be presumably more scarce, thus terming this effect the “value heuristic.” Cialdini suggests one weapon of defense against the scarcity principle when confronted by people trying to use it against us by saying that when something is scarce, we should think about whether we really want it.