Influence
Robert B. Cialdini, Ph. D.
Dr. Robert B. Cialdini, Professor of Psychology at Arizona State University, has
spent over fifteen years in the scientific investigation of the processes whereby people
are persuaded and reach their decisions. He enumerates six fundamental social and
psychological principles underlying the thousands of individual tactics that successful
persuaders or compliance practitioners use every day to get us to say yes.
*These principles are:
Rule of Reciprocity
According to sociologists and anthropologists, one of the most widespread and
basic norms of human culture is embodied in the rule of reciprocity. The rule requires
that one person try to repay, in kind, what another person has provided. By obligating the
recipient of an act to repayment in the future, the rule for reciprocation allows one
individual to give something to another with confidence that it is not being lost. This
sense of future obligation within the rule makes possible the development of various kinds
of continuing relationships, transactions, and exchanges that are beneficial to the
society. Consequently, all members of the society are trained from childhood to abide by
the rule or suffer serious social disapproval. The decision to comply with another's
request is frequently influenced by the reciprocity rule. One favorite and profitable
tactic of certain compliance professionals is to give something to another before asking
for a return favor. The exploitability of this tactic is due to three characteristics of
the rule for reciprocation: 1) the rule is extremely powerful, often overwhelming the
influence of other factors that normally determine compliance with a request; 2) ;the rule
applies even to uninvited first favors, thereby reducing our ability to decide whom we
wish to owe and putting the choice in the hands of others; 3) the rule can spur unequal
exchanges; to be rid of the uncomfortable feeling of indebtedness, an individual will
often agree to a request for a substantially larger favor than the one he or she received.
Another way that the rule for reciprocity can increase compliance involves a simple
variation on the basic theme: instead of providing a first favor that stimulates a return
favor, an individual can make an initial concession that stimulates a return concession.
One compliance procedure, called the rejection-then-retreat technique, or door-in-the-face
technique, relies heavily on the pressure to reciprocate concessions. By starting with an
extreme request that is sure to be rejected, a requester can then profitably retreat to a
smaller request (the one that was desired all along), which is likely to be accepted
because it appears to be a concession. Research indicates that, aside from increasing the
likelihood that a person will say yes to a request, the rejection-then-retreat technique
also increases the likelihood that the person will carry out the request a will agree to
future such requests. Our best defense against the use of reciprocity pressure to gain
compliance is not systematic rejection of the initial offers of others. Rather, we should
accept initial favors or concessions in good faith, but be ready to redefine them as
tricks should they later be proved as such. Once they are redefined in this way, we will
no longer feel a need to respond with a favor or concession of our own.
Commitment and Consistency
People have a desire to look consistent within their words, beliefs, attitudes
and deeds...this tendency is fed from three sources: 1) good personal consistency is
highly valued by society; 2) consistent conduct provides a beneficial approach to daily
life; 3) a consistent orientation affords a valuable shortcut through the complexity of
modern existence: by being consistent with earlier decisions, one reduces the need to
process all the relevant information in future similar situations; instead, one merely
needs to recall the earlier decision and respond consistently with it. The key to using
consistency pressures for profit is the initial commitment: after making a commitment
(that is taking a stand or position), people are more willing to agree to requests that
are in keeping with the prior commitment. Many compliance professionals try to induce
people to take an initial position that is consistent with a behavior they will later
request from these people. Commitments are most effective when they are active, public,
effortful, and viewed as internally motivated (uncoerced). Once a stand is taken, there is
a natural tendency to behave in ways that are stubbornly consistent with the stand. The
drive to be (and look) consistent constitutes a highly potent weapon of social influence,
often causing us to act in ways that are clearly contrary to our own best interests.
Commitment decisions, even erroneous ones, have a tendency to be self-perpetuating because
they can "grow their own legs." That is, people often add new reasons and
justifications to support the wisdom of commitments they have already made. As a
consequence, some commitments remain in effect long after the conditions that spurred them
have changed. This phenomenon explains the effectiveness of certain deceptive compliance
practices. To recognize and resist the undue influence of consistency pressures on our
compliance decisions, we should listen for signals coming from two places within us: our
stomachs and our heart of hearts. Stomach signs appear when we realize that we are being
pushed by commitment and consistency pressures to agree to requests we know we don't want
to perform. Heart of heart signs are best employed when it is not clear to us that an
initial commitment was wrongheaded. Here, we should ask ourselves a crucial question,
"Knowing what I know, if I could go back in time, would I make the same
commitment?"
Social Proof
One means we use to determine what is correct is to find out what other people
think is correct. We view a behavior as more correct in a given situation to the degree
that we see other performing it. The principle of social proof can be used to stimulate a
person's compliance with a request by informing the person that many other individuals
(the more, the better, the more "famous" the better) are or have been complying
with it. This weapon of influence provides us with a shortcut for determining how to
behave, but, as the same time, makes one who uses the shortcut vulnerable to the attacks
of profiteers who lie in wait along its path (introduction seminars or guest dinners,
retreats to recruit cult members--provide the models of the behavior the group wants to
produce in the new recruit) Social proof is most influential under two conditions: 1)
uncertainty (when people are unsure, when the situation is ambiguous, they are more likely
to attend to the actions of others and to accept those actions as correct); 2) similarity
(people are more inclined to follow the lead of similar others) Recommendations on how to
reduce our susceptibility to faulty social proof include a sensitivity to clearly
counterfeit evidence of what similar others are doing and a recognition that the actions
of similar others should not form the sole basis for our decisions.
Liking
People prefer to say yes to individuals they know and like. This simple rules
enables us to learn about factors that influence the liking process by examining which
factors compliance professionals emphasize to increase their overall attractiveness and
their consequent effectiveness. Compliance practitioners regularly use several such
factors. One feature of a person that influences overall attractiveness is physical
attractiveness. Although it has long been suspected that physical beauty provides an
advantage in social interaction, research indicates that the advantage may be greater than
supposed. Physical attractiveness seems to engender a "halo" effect that extends
to favorable impressions of other traits such as talent, kindness, and intelligence. As a
result, attractive people are more persuasive both in terms of getting what they request
and in changing others' attitudes. A second factor that influences liking and compliance
is similarity. We like people who are like us and are more willing to say yes to their
requests, often in an unthinking manner. Another factor that produces liking is praise;
although they can sometimes backfire when crudely transparent, compliments general enhance
liking, and thus, compliance. Increased familiarity through repeated contact with a person
or thing is yet another factor that normally facilitates liking. But this relationship
holds true principally when the contact takes place under positive rather than negative
circumstances. One positive circumstance that works especially well is mutual and
successful cooperation. A fifth factor linked to like is mere association. By connecting
themselves or their products with positive things, merchants of influence frequently seek
to share in the positivity through the process of association. Other individuals as well
appear to recognize the effect of simple connections and try to associate themselves with
favorable events and distance themselves from unfavorable events in the eyes of observers.
A potentially effective strategy for reducing the unwanted influence of liking on
compliance decisions requires a special sensitivity to the experience of undue liking for
a requester. Upon recognizing that we like a requester inordinately well under the
circumstances, we should step back from the social interaction, mentally separate the
requester from his or her offer, and make any compliance decision based solely on the
merits of the offer
Authority
In the Milgram studies of obedience, we can see evidence of a strong pressure in
our society for compliance with the requests of an authority. The strength of this
tendency to obey legitimate authorities comes from systematic socialization practices
designed to instill in society members the perception that such obedience constitutes
correct conduct . In addition, it is frequently adaptive to obey the dictates of genuine
authorities because such individuals usually possess high levels of knowledge, wisdom, and
power. For these reasons, deference to authorities can occur in a mindless fashion as a
kind of decision-making shortcut. When reacting to authority in an automatic fashion,
there is a tendency to do so in response to the mere symbols of authority rather than to
its substance. Three kinds of symbols that have been shown by research to be effective in
this regard are 1) titles; 2) clothing; 3) automobiles. In separate studies investigating
the influence of these symbols, individuals possessing one or another of them (and no
other legitimizing credentials) were accorded more deference or obedience by those they
encountered. Moreover, in each instance, those individuals who deferred or obeyed
underestimated the effect of authority pressures on their behaviors. It is possible to
defend ourselves against the detrimental effects of authority influence by asking two
questions: Is this authority truly an expert? How truthful can we expect this expert to be
here? The first question directs our attention away from symbols and toward evidence for
authority status. The second advises us to consider not just the expert's knowledge in the
situation but also his or her trustworthiness. With regard to this second consideration,
we should be alert to the trust-enhancing tactic in which a communicator first provides
some mildly negative information about him- or herself. Through this strategy the person
creates a perception of honesty that makes all subsequent information seem even more
credible to observers.
Scarcity
According to the scarcity principle, people assign more value to opportunities
when they are less available. The use of this principle for profit can be seen in such
compliance techniques as the "limited number" and "deadline" tactics,
wherein practitioners try to convince us that access to what they are offering is
restricted by amount or time. The scarcity principle holds true for two reasons: 1)
because things that are difficult to attain are typically more valuable, the availability
of an item or experience can serve as a shortcut cue to its quality; 2) as things become
less accessible, we lose freedoms. According to psychological reactance theory, we respond
to the loss of freedoms by wanting to have them (along with the goods and services
connected to them) more than before. As a motivator, psychological reactance is present
throughout the great majority of the life span. However, it is especially evident at a
pair of ages: "the terrible twos" and the teenage years. Both of these times are
characterized by an emerging sense of individuality, which brings to prominence such
issues as control, rights, and freedom. Consequently, individuals at these ages are
especially sensitive to restrictions. In addition to its effect on the valuation of
commodities, the scarcity principle also applies to the way that information is evaluated.
Research indicates that the act of limiting access to a message causes individuals to want
to receive it more and to become more favorable to it. The latter of these findings--that
limited information is more persuasive--seems the more interesting. In the case of
censorship, this effect occurs even when the message has not been received. When a message
has been received, it is more effective if it is perceived as consisting of exclusive
information. ("We" have the truth....we have special knowledge) The scarcity
principle is most likely to hold true under two optimizing conditions: 1) scarce items are
heightened in value when they are newly scarce (we value those things that have become
recently restricted more than those that were restricted all along); 2) we are most
attracted to scarce resources when we compete with others for them. It is difficult to
steel ourselves cognitively against scarcity pressures because they have an
emotion-arousing quality that makes thinking difficult. In defense, we might try to be
alert to a rush of arousal in situations involving scarcity. Once so alerted, we can take
steps to calm the arousal and assess the merits of the opportunity in terms of why we want
it.
*Taken from Influence. Science and Practice,
Robert B. Cialdini, Scott, Foresman and Company, 1985; Summary notes.
©Copyright by Carol Giambalvo,
June 1995 except where noted
Carol Giambalvo
P.O. Box 2180
Flagler Beach, FL 32136
Phone: 386-439-7541
Fax: 386-439-7537
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