Pokemon Go players choose teams like consumers choose cellphone plans.

Millions of Pokemon Go players are choosing sides in their virtual hunts for Pokemon, which has taken them onto the streets, but their reasoning may be more related to the rudimentary psychological theories of choice rather than ambition or even personality. When players reach level five of Pokemon Go NTDOY, -1.19% they reach a gym where they can train, but they must first pick a team. It’s not possible to switch teams once you’ve picked one, so friends in the same neighborhood could end up battling other friends.

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When players are faced with choosing a team, they can click Team Instinct, Team Mystic or Team Valor. Team Instinct is yellow and has the fictional Pokemon Zapdos bird as its mascot. Team Mystic is blue and has Pokemon’s Articuno bird as its mascot. Team Valor is red and has the Moltres bird as its mascot. “It’s all about Team Mystic,” according to Adobe Digital Insights, the research arm of the software group. Players overwhelmingly prefer Team Mystic (43%) to Team Valor (32%) and Team Instinct (25%).

In other words, wily and athletic Pokemon Go players actually display most predictable consumer behavior: There’s a hefty body of academic research — like this Journal of Marketing Research study by professors of marketing at Yale University and Stanford University — show the middle option as a “compromise” for consumers. Color, birds, instinct, mysticism and valor may have very little to do with it. In the real world, it means a product that’s cheap, just not too cheap.

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People want to be on the winning team, but they also want to be on the biggest team. They walk through the middle door in buildings, drive on the center lane on motorways and buy the middle product on supermarket shelves, according to Jeremy Smith, a conversion consultant who advises businesses on turning website visitors into customers. It works for cell phone plans, software packages, perhaps even a Grande (medium-sized) Americano in Starbucks.

“ People walk through the middle door in buildings, drive on the center lane and buy the middle product on supermarket shelves. The middle option is even popular for cell phone plans. ”

The “compromise price effect” is used by retailers that want customers to pay extra, but know more customers will pay the middle price — which also has a high margin — says Michelle Barnhart, associate professor of marketing at Oregon State University College of Business. If a $300 Polo Ralph Lauren jacket is placed next to a slightly cheaper $200 jacket by Kenneth Cole, which is next to one from H&M for $100, you will likely choose the middle one and still think it’s a good deal.

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It also works for tipping. More businesses such as Starbucks SBUX, -1.82% have tried payment apps like Square for iPads and other tablets. When people are presented with three tip choices — 20%, 25% or 30%, for instance — they’re more likely to choose the middle option even if it’s more than the traditional 20%, according to an analysis of 13 million New York City taxi rides by the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business and published in the American Economic Journal.

Historically, men were hunters, which might also explain why 60% of Pokemon Go players are men, Adobe found. Pokemon Go makes money because players need to spend money to store, hatch, train (in the gym) and battle opponents. Big box stores also know that consumers enjoy the voyage the bottom of the bargain basement, says Brent Shelton, spokesman for deal site FatWallet: “People feel like they’re on a treasure hunt and finding a bargain that someone else missed.”