Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: The Psychology of Scarcity with Dr. Mindy Weinstein
25 Feb 2026
Chapter 1: What is the psychology behind scarcity and how does it affect decision-making?
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Chapter 2: How does FOMO activate urgency and influence our buying behavior?
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Chapter 3: What are the different types of scarcity used in marketing?
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Chapter 4: How does social media amplify the effects of scarcity?
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With scarcity, the whole idea of FOMO is pretty big with scarcity because it is that fear that we might lose a chance. We might lose the freedom to purchase that. We might lose the freedom to take this opportunity, whatever it might be. And so again, the way that our brains operate is,
Chapter 5: What psychological factors drive product launches and ticket presales?
you just get into high gear of like, we got to fix this situation. There's been so many studies where people were hooked up to MRIs and faced with a scarce situation. And the way that the brain would react is the activity where quick decisions are made would just light up.
And the activity where we would value something just would light up, meaning we'd skip the normal decision making steps that we take.
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Chapter 6: How can businesses ethically use scarcity to boost sales and loyalty?
Hi, and welcome back. I'm so excited for you to meet my guest today. You have never heard about this topic, I promise. Mindy Weinstein, PhD, she's a leading expert in digital marketing and has been named as one of the top women in the industry globally. founder of the digital marketing firm Market Mindship.
She has trained thousands of professionals from organizations of all sizes, including Facebook, the Weather Channel, and World Fuel Service. She has a Doctor of Philosophy degree in General Psychology with an emphasis in technology and is a marketing instructor at Grand Canyon University at the University of Denver, as well as a program leader for the Wharton School and Columbia Business School.
Mindy, thank you so much for being here today.
Thank you so much for having me.
I'm so excited.
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Chapter 7: What strategies can consumers use to avoid impulse purchases driven by scarcity?
Okay, let's jump into scarcity, which is like your homeboy. First of all, I want to say this. The word in and of itself seems so negative to me just because of this whole... versus scarcity mindset, right? I grew up poor. And so my whole life, I'm always trying to think, okay, get away from scarcity, Heather, right?
So when I hear like, you're an expert on this, you have this amazing new book about scarcity and how I can leverage it to drive revenue and sales. There's some type of like internal conflict when I hear it.
And that happens. And so even what you're talking about now, that's a reaction I get from a lot of people is like, oh, scarcity, you know, does that just mean something's hard to get, you know, and oh, well, that's does that even work?
Chapter 8: How can scarcity marketing be effectively applied to traditional products?
But there's so much that really goes into the psychology behind scarcity. And there's a reason why it does trigger certain reactions, you know, as we're thinking about it, even physiological reactions to scarcity. And that is really what caused me to want to study this topic in depth, really.
It was surprising to me that you shared that this is studied a lot, that this is not, because I was in media and marketing for over 20 something years. No one was ever talking about scarcity marketing. It was always very much traditional and then digital and social, but I was never hearing a theme of scarcity marketing. Why is that?
What is so interesting about that? There's a lot of information in academic journals. So for me, like I ended up getting into this subject and diving deep and starting to do my own research and studies when I was working on my dissertation. And I had that time had realized that, you know, I was interested in influence and persuasion. Like what what drives us?
Because that's always been something that, you know, I was thinking about. and realized really quickly that scarcity out of all the different factors that motivate us, that one is the most powerful. And yes, like you said, it wasn't from studies.
I mean, studies have been going on for decades on scarcity, but there is a bit of a disconnect in the information that's like in the academic journals versus like what's out there in the mainstream. And And I think that happens though with a lot of different topics. There's the academic world, but then it's not always translated to what does that mean for us in business?
And that is one of the many reasons why I wanted to write this book. So if you don't mind, I'll even get into some like what my trigger was to actually like put this whole book together that I had been studying. So I'd been working on my dissertation. I had finished my dissertation. I was in the process like of defending it when COVID hit.
And I remember at the time, like thinking, oh, my gosh, I'm like watching all of this stuff that I've been studying for years play out like with toilet paper, like of all the things like, you know, I would not have anticipated that with my studies and research.
Will you break down exactly what you mean by that for people listening that might not understand what you just said?
Yeah, you know, so when I said playing out, basically, like with the toilet paper and the craze with that, what was happening from a psychological perspective is, well, there's a couple things. One, when something starts to feel like it's a high demand, and there's a risk that we can't get it. That does cause a reaction in us. And that's something that's actually innate in us.
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