---
name: marketing_psychology
description: "Apply behavioral psychology to marketing decisions: maps a campaign, message, funnel step, or pricing page to primary-research-backed principles (loss aversion, anchoring, social proof, scarcity, reciprocity, decoys, defaults, mere exposure, peak-end), grounds each move in a cited study with honest limits, and flags ethical and legal lines. Use when designing, auditing, or fixing marketing copy, pricing, funnels, or persuasion tactics."
---

# Marketing Psychology

## Purpose
Turn persuasion instincts into research-grounded marketing decisions. Given a campaign, message, funnel step, or pricing page, identify which behavioral principles apply, tie each to a real study, show the application with a before/after, and mark where it crosses an ethical or legal line.

## Workflow
1. Capture the artifact under review: the copy, offer, funnel step, or pricing tiers. Write down the one action it wants the customer to take.
2. Open `references/principles.md` and match the artifact against the catalog. For each candidate principle, record the study behind it, the mechanism, and the honest limit (most of these effects are conditional).
3. Apply at most three principles per artifact. Rank by strongest evidence plus cleanest fit. Drop anything you cannot cite.
4. For each applied principle, write a before/after showing the exact change. "Use social proof" is not an application; "put the real customer count next to the CTA, per Asch (1951)" is.
5. Run `references/ethical-lines.md` as a red-team pass over every applied principle. Fake urgency, fake scarcity, fake reviews, hidden fees, trap subscriptions, and deceptive defaults all fail. Replace a failing tactic with an honest version or cut it.
6. If a claim in the source material is unverified (a number, a quote, a study result you could not confirm), cut it or label it opinion. Never invent research.

## Output Contract
- 1 to 3 named principles, each with its study citation (author, year, venue).
- A concrete before/after for each, written as copy or design direction, not slogans.
- One "honest limits" line per principle: where the effect breaks down.
- An ethics verdict per principle: clean, needs a fix (say the fix), or cut.
- If a tactic touches a legal rule (FTC Act Section 5, EU UCPD, ROSCA for subscriptions), name the rule and why, then stop.

## Operating Rules
- Every factual claim about research traces to `references/principles.md`. No invented numbers, dates, quotes, or study names, ever.
- Never recommend a tactic the ethics reference flags as deceptive. This is a hard gate, not a suggestion.
- "Everyone does it" is not a citation and not an argument.
- If asked for dark patterns by name (fake countdowns, bait-and-switch pricing, confirmshaming), decline that request and offer the honest alternative.