What would Goldilocks have done without 'just right' ?

While in godmother mode recently, I was strolling through the children's section of a book shop and there was Goldilocks and the three bears.

As my adult self flicked through the book I was reminded how much I loved that book as a child (probably because I love bears), but I remember thinking to myself what if there wasn't a 'just a right' for Goldilocks? That there was only two beds to choose from or two bowls of porridge for her to try? Would she have chosen any of them or just left - or is there always a 'just right' whatever the range of choice or is a decision made irrespective?

However, I was reminded of my Goldilocks thought recently while reading a really interesting book by Dan Ariely called Predictably Irrational. Essentially, first part of the book explains the idea of relativity and how decisions are based on how the options we have are presented in relation to others.

Now many a marketing offer is based on this psychology - and if you look out for them they are quite obvious - like subscription offers, but how much of this psychology do we try and test in our fundraising?

Recently raised by Craig Linton on twitter asked the twitterverse for ideas around the revamp of his organisation's donation form. He received some suggestions and recommendations. Now I was one of the people that offered up my ten pence worth - on the basis of the importance of a strong case for support being linked to the ask prompts - but would 3 prompts result in a 'just right' scenario for supporters better than 5 prompts?

Equally - how we present a regular giving ask in a script or mailing i.e. 'for less than a cost of a news paper...' or 'for the cost of half a chocolate bar you could...' etc how effective are these comparisons in helping supporters see the relative worth of the ask in real-life context? After all they are still very well used but are they actually effective?

I would be really interested to know if anyone has actually done any real testing on this in their fundraising recently - if you are happy to share.

Thank you.