The honest conclusion is uncomfortable for reformers: people are not waiting to be corrected. The strange thing about the loyalty card is not that it exists but that it works, most of the time, for most people. Nobody sets out to be governed by the loyalty card, yet it shapes an astonishing share of the ordinary day. Every one of us runs the same shortcut, and every one of us believes we are the exception.
The ordinary case
The honest conclusion is uncomfortable for reformers: people are not waiting to be corrected. The point is not that people are foolish. The point is that hope is expensive, and we economise on it like everything else. Institutions know all this, of course, which is why the loyalty card is so rarely left to chance. In the studies we have, the effect is modest, reliable and almost entirely ignored by the people it describes.
