The question about the impact on opinions often arises in our heads. But what do we need to understand its working mechanisms? Some cognitive science really can help us here.

Let’s imagine that you are an alligator. This huge and heavy creature has a pretty small brain. It would be tough for such a small thing to make all the gator’s body function. That’s why alligators’ brains save energy and use reflexes for basic actions. For this reason, alligators move, eat, or rest without any second thought.

Of course, your brain is much bigger than the alligator’s. Still, we have something in common. When walking, brushing your teeth, or eating your morning flakes, you don’t really think about fulfilling this task. You’re just using your instinct and reflexes. You are utilizing one of the cognitive systems we will call the Gator Brain.

But here you are, having a task you have never done before! That’s the time for the second Brain System, which is the Judge Brain. You don’t know how to do it, so you need to ask questions, compare possibilities, and analyze it all.

There’s a common misunderstanding of this simple phenomenon. A lot of people used to believe that we are using our Judge Brain more often than the Gator Brain. But that’s not actually true. When your cognitive system meets a problem, it’s the Gator Brain who will try to solve it in the first place. It always takes the main part of all the cognitive pressure.

In 2015, Domino’s created an amazing strategy to dominate the pizza delivery market. Domino’s used cognitive science to develop anywhere. The idea was to make the pizza ordering process as simple as possible. Domino’s offered their customers who had ordered from Domino’s before to simply send a text message or even an emoji. And hooray! This is enough to get the order delivered to you.

That's how Domino’s beat its main competitor, Pizza Hut. During this quarter, sales grew by ten percent. It was really amazing. But what was the basis for creating such a brilliant strategy? Actually, we need to go deeper here.

We think the constant use of the Judge Brain as a decision-making center is a good tactic. But in reality, our Gator brain is much more reliable here. We have to realize that influencing this lazy brain should be our priority. You have to keep things simple. Think about how to turn a task into a simpler one. When only the Gator brain is working, it is much easier for a person to decide.