Calls to action make users curious about what will happen after they click the CTA button.
Curiosity is a strong motivator for action because satisfying one's interest brings pleasure.
Psychologists have developed many theories to explain curiosity, the leading one describing it as a normal drive that can be satisfied by repeated exposure to stimuli. However, the effectiveness of interest as a motive for performing an action is based not only on the desire for pleasure, but also on a sense of excitement.
Curiosity-induced arousal occurs when a person does not see, hear, or feel something fully. For example, imagine a child who wants to see what is behind a fence but cannot do so because the barrier is too high - the child will jump, climb, scream, and cry, wanting to satisfy his curiosity.
Psychologist George Loewenstein described the following experiment in his book The Psychology of Curiosity: A Review and Reinterpretation:
Psychologists Smith, Malmo, and Shagass conducted a indonesia phone number data study in 1954 in which respondents listened to an audio recording whose quality periodically deteriorated. The researchers noticed that when the recording was difficult to hear, the subjects' arm muscles tensed.
Walerstein also found similar results when he studied the reactions of people who listened to a philosophical essay being read inaudibly. The subjects showed an increase in muscle tension, followed by a decrease within a few minutes.
Levenshtein explains the results of the above experiments with the following conclusion:
Unsatisfied interest, based on the desire for satisfaction, causes aversive arousal. The desire to get rid of such tension gives rise to the desire to search for information, which is a basic manifestation of curiosity.
Online consumers know that they will receive some value when they click on a CTA. But they know what exactly will be presented to them, which creates informational dissatisfaction that breeds curiosity.
The effectiveness of the CTA element of the subscription form below is based solely on the stimulation of curiosity.