Definitely think there’s some truth to this. It’s all about expectation and belief. Like how if you simply ask people to be creative, they come up with more creative ideas. Simple. Conrad credits Lucas McCann for the quote (who no doubt said it much more concisely and pithily).

The number of ideas produced in an ideation session is proportional to the size of the stack of paper in front of you

Spent many battles with the London bikes before learning this simple trick.

Release Boris Bikes with ease by pulling up on the saddle

This helpful framework is an enhancement of regular adoption theory with the different approaches to design for each stage. Canada, Mortensen, Patnaik, 2007 (pdf). Some great examples of each stage in the paper.

Designing for adoption