“I might make this my most fascinating read of 2007. It’s a book I picked up a while ago when I was reading a bunch of books on business, leadership, and management but I never actually got around to reading it. I’m glad I finally wised up.
Influence: Science and Practice began as Dr. Robert Cialdini’s attempt to write a textbook, then turn it into a readable paperback, then just combine the two. Cialdini worked as a researcher into “compliance methods” before beginning his professorship of psychology at Arizona State. In his remarkable book, Influence, he explores six areas where people become incredibly compliant. They obey what he calls the click, whirr response: in response to certain stimuli, the tape clicks on, and the actions automatically play out.
For instance, the mortal enemy of the turkey is the polecat. Polecats steal turkey chicks and, if a mother turkey sees a polecat, she’ll chase it down and tear it apart if she can. Researchers tried putting a stuffed polecat in the middle of some turkeys and the mother turkey instantly tore it to pieces. Next, they tried putting a stuffed polecat into the middle of the same group of turkeys with one difference: they put a tape recorder inside the polecat which played the cheep-cheep of the turkey chicks. The mother turkey accepted the polecat and even pulled it underneath her. When the tape recorder ran out of cheep-cheep sounds, the mother turkey instantly turned on the stuffed polecat.
The mother turkey exhibited an automatic response to a certain stimulus: when the cheeps happen, you nurture whatever is making the cheep sound. Cialdini contends that there are many things that trigger people’s automated responses as well—not with the perfect consistency of a turkey, but with astounding patterns. Cialdini divides these triggers up into six broad categories, each of which I’ll list here with a small sampling of the ways the book claims the principle shows up.
RECIPROCATION — The rule of reciprocation means that if someone does something for you, no matter how small, you feel more inclined to do something for them. For instance, a bunch of teens get together and do a “free” carwash (donations are accepted, of course). If you pull in and have your car washed, there’s an extremely strong urge to give them a donation in return for their services (even though they said it was free). That’s probably a fine use of the reciprocation tactic. What becomes evil, though, is when the gift or service is forced on you in an attempt to get a donation or make a sale. The Krishnas were banned from most airports because, in an attempt to solicit donations, they would press flowers into people’s hands without asking. Once the flower was given, the person felt obligated to give a donation to the Krishnas. People hated it, but they gave money anyway because once they’d gotten something, they were bound by the reciprocation rule.
The reciprocation rule works in other ways, too. For instance, if someone asks you to do something and you turn them down, if they ask you to do something else, you feel more obligated to do it. Smart salesmen know this. They’ll size you up, show you something out of your price range, and, once you turn it down, they’ll lead you over to the item they’d planned to sell to you in the first place. Since you’ve turned them down already, you feel more obligated to buy.
COMMITMENT & CONSISTENCY — We’ve all probably been encouraged to commit to or take a position on something, and then, once our position is threatened, we become more agitated and insistent in our defense of it. We’ve been trapped by a commitment and the desire to be consistent. Many people—from marketers to political organizations—can play havoc with us using this devastating combination.
Here’s a real life example: Toy companies have always hated January because of the incredible lag in toy sales following Christmas. How do you make parents willing to buy toys in January after they’ve just maxxed out their credit cards buying lots of plastic junk for their kids at Christmas? Simple: around November they start bombarding kids’ shows with ads for the hot new toy all the kids will want. The kids beg their parents to get them that cool new toy for Christmas and the parents make a commitment to buy it. Come December, toy stores are sold out of that toy because toy makers purposely understocked the stores. Christmas looms, so parents buy a bunch of other toys (usually more toys than they would have bought) because they have to have something under the tree on Christmas morning. Christmas morning, when presents are opened and that special toy isn’t there, the child turns on his parents: “But you promised!” The parent feels bound by the deep desire to be consistent—especially to a commitment. So in January, when all the toy stores magically have plenty of that toy in stock, dad goes out and buys one and toy manufacturers laugh all the way to the bank.
There’s an even more serious side to the commitment & consistency principle: the reason people feel such a desire to be consistent with a commitment is that what people commit to, they begin to feel is what they are. Therefore, if a person is encouraged to sign a petition sponsored by, say, the Republican Party, opposing something everyone would disagree with (”Reduce government waste!”), that person is much more likely to feel as though they are a Republican. They can then be counted on to sign more Republican-worldview petitions and eventually become a card-carrying, petition-signing, pledge-giving, single-party-voting member of the Republican Party. (Everyone from Democrats to Constitutionalists to Greens do this, too.) Or a company conducts a door-to-door “survey” asking if, among other things, you’d be the type of person to volunteer 3 hours at a hospital. Two weeks later, a person calls you asking if you’d like to volunteer a few hours of your time at the local cancer ward. Since you told someone else that you’re the type of person who would do that, you say Yes. In fact, when the American Cancer Society played that exact trick, they had a 700% increase in the number of volunteers.
The ability to change how people see themselves is what makes this principle so powerful. Think of how much people define themselves by where they buy their coffee or what label their clothes carry. Once you buy something that tells you “you’re the type of person who appreciates great coffee” or “you’re the type of person who doesn’t settle for blasé fashion,” then you develop a dependency on the product that gives you that idea. You’ve changed how you see yourself and some company or salesperson has made you a repeat customer. I don’t know how many times I’ve splurged on something I’ve repeatedly told myself was too expensive and then thought later that buying that item again wouldn’t be such a splurge. Why? Because I’m now “the kind of person who buys those things.” So I rationalize because I’ve made a kind of commitment and now I need to feel consistent: “ummm… well… it’s quality! And I appreciate quality. And… and… I selectively spend my money on things like that. Yeah!” The commitment & consistency principle can really encourage us to rationalize bad purchases. Or even, as one example in the book mentioned, bad relationships.
One of the most interesting things is that writing plays a large part in our sense of commitment. That’s why so many improvement programs want you to physically write down your goals. They know that in the act of scratching a pen across paper some mystical transaction occurs. We are far more likely to feel bound to what we’ve written that what we’ve only said. But while it can help us shed a couple more pounds or kick the cigarettes for good, it can also get us into trouble with a salesman. The old low-ball tactic was where a salesman would give you, say, a $400 discount on an item and you would begin to sign the papers for it. Well, during the process, the salesman would “discover” that he couldn’t give you that $400 discount. But he knows that since you’ve begun scratching your marks on paper, you won’t back out. It’s pretty amazing, but it works.
SOCIAL PROOF — Social proof is where we gauge the value of something or the correct response in a given situation based on what those around us are doing. Social proof is probably the most intensely covered topic in the book because it has so many fascinating ramifications. There’s, of course, the story of the lady in Chicago who was repeatedly attacked and stabbed over a several hour period (she lay injured in an alley) while over 30 people heard her screaming and no one came to the woman’s aid or called for help. No one saw that anyone else was alarmed so everyone convinced themselves that there was no need to act.
But an even more troubling case comes from research into suicide data. It’s well-known that when someone high-profile commits suicide, in the following days there’s a spike in suicides. But what one researcher discovered, was there’s an increase in fatal accidents as well. Put those two together and you might argue that some people, in an effort to have their family collect on their life insurance or avoid shaming those they love, commit suicide in ways that appear accidental. Well, the researcher gathered data on spikes in certain-death accidents (like driving your car off a cliff or 90° into a wall) vs. accidental-death accidents (bounced off a guardrail and flipped the car). And the data confirms the hypothesis: there’s a corresponding spike in certain-death accidents following a high-profile suicide. It seems to indicate there are some people “secretly” committing suicide who are being reported as accidents. That means the spike in copy-cat suicides is much higher than we think.
But why stop there? Do people only commit suicide when they’re alone in their cars? What about bus drivers? Or airline pilots? What if one of them wanted to kill himself using his bus or plane? An interesting question. And the amazing thing is, there is a spike in fatal airline and bus crashes immediately following a high-profile suicide. And the spike in suicides, certain-death accidents, and airline and bus fatalities is an identical spike that can only be traced to high-profile suicides. This has some questions about how safe you feel flying after a Hollywood actor commits suicide. It has some ethical implications for journalists deciding how big of a deal to make about a famous novelist killing herself. It’s not just a story. The data shows a spike in suicides and related deaths—these are excess deaths that wouldn’t have occurred had the news not been made so public.
LIKING — We all know (although we won’t generally admit) that we gravitate towards people who are like us, people who are beautiful, and people who flatter us. But we might underestimate the amount of that pull. For instance, studies have shown that people equate good-looking people with kindness, talent, honesty, and intelligence. Good-looking politicians tend to glean two and a half times more votes than unattractive politicians. And, most ominously, attractive people are more often acquitted, awarded larger and more settlements, and given lighter sentences. Juries, of course, vehemently deny that good looks have anything to do with their decision, but when multiple juries hear the exact same case (in a controlled experiment), and the only difference is the attractiveness of the defendant, it becomes hard to argue when they convict the ugly person and let the good looking person go.
Besides good looks, another way to achieve liking is by indicating similarity. It’s done through dressing or grooming the same or through talking about similar interests or similar backgrounds. Some salesmen will watch prospects to see if they have religious bumper stickers, or if there’s camping gear in the trunk. Then, during the course of their pitch, they’ll talk about their church or the camping trip they’ll be going on next week. They know that if you identify with them, you feel more comfortable (you might even say more obligated) to buy from them.
There are several other ways we can achieve (or are subject to) liking, such as frequency of contact, mutual cooperation, or flattery; but I’ll move on because this post is getting pretty long and it’s more interesting when you read it in the book and can see all the study results.
AUTHORITY — Briefly, authority is the principle that we tend to comply with or accept as true whatever is told to us by an authority. This generally works in our favor (imagine everyone trying to argue with a cop directing traffic when a stoplight goes out). But it can also make us susceptible to con-men, slick marketers, or just any genuine authority that’s making a mistake. Con men know that if they dress like someone extremely successful—down to the cufflinks and the car they drove up in—they have immediate credibility with people and people will comply with almost anything they ask. Especially when they impersonate people who have a uniform (like policemen). Marketers also know that even the appearance of authority is enough to move product off the shelves. Take the case of actor Robert Young, who played Marcus Welby, M.D. on a TV show: he did a commercial spot for Sanka decaf coffee where he talked about the medical dangers of caffeine. The commercial was incredibly effective because people associated him with expert medical opinion—even though he’s not a doctor and only plays one on TV.
Most of us have probably heard of Milgram’s study on compliance with authority. He had a person (Subject A) who was asked to give increasingly high dosages of electric shock to Subject B (actually an actor). Even when the electric shocks were obviously harming Subject B (even rendering him unconscious), if the researcher told Subject A to increase and administer the shock, nearly every participant complied. Interestingly enough, some people—crying and shaking—begged the researcher not to make them do it, but when the researcher told them they had to, they went ahead and did it. Cialdini then rightly makes the observation: “could anyone doubt the power of the force that held them there?” Authority is, indeed, a powerful force that many people are willing to obey even against their conscience. That’s especially interesting given the prevalence of science in our culture. Scientists are our modern day gods. What they say they’ve researched, we believe. We change how we eat, how we sleep, how we spend our leisure time, how we work, how we think, how we raise our kids… anything, really… based on what “they” say (who is They* anyway?). In an age where communication is multiplying at astonishing rates, it’s becoming more and more difficult to sort through whose voice truly is an authority and who just felt like putting up a website and acting like one. Cialdini recommends that, in order to restore some equity to information, we should take a hard stance against anyone or any company that starts blurring the lines (or crossing them) between being an actual authority and acting like one. I’m inclined to agree.
SCARCITY — The principle of scarcity simply means that the less availability we perceive a thing to have, the more value we assign it. It’s the principle that makes eBay most of its money: people get in a bidding war and since they see that there’s only one of the item, it has more value. And since there’s an increasing shortage of time as well, the value of the time until the end of the bid keeps increasing. It all makes the item seem more and more valuable. We place higher and higher bids even though, if we saw the item on a shelf somewhere, we would never have offered so much for it.
The scarcity principle also holds true for information. When we think information is less available, we place a higher value on it. That’s why censorship has a notorious history of promoting what it attempted to suppress: if people perceive some information (a book, album, product, whatever) as having highly limited availability, they suddenly feel strangely drawn to it. This was evidenced in tests with two year old children who were placed in a room with two equally interesting toys, yet one toy was placed on the other side of a clear barrier. If the barrier was five inches high (and thus no obstacle to the child), he played with either toy equally. But if the barrier was two feet high (and thus the child had to go around the barrier to get to the toy), the child would walk in the room and immediately go around the barrier to get the toy. As Cialdini said: “the boys in this study demonstrated the classic terrible-twos response to a limitation of their freedom: outright defiance.”
A limitation of freedom can also come in the form of granting someone or some group rights and privileges, and then taking them away. Whereas the people may have been content before the rights were granted, taking them away can produce full-scale riots. This was the case in Russia when Gorbachev instituted the twin doctrines of glasnost and perestroika. Once the military deposed Gorbachev and removed his more open policies, the normally compliant Soviet citizens revolted, mobbing the streets, arguing with soldiers, and climbing on tanks. Within three days, the military relented and sued for peace with Gorbachev.
Each of these principles can be applied by itself or in combination with each other. For instance, we might be sent some small item (a book or some return address stamps, etc.) in the mail with a request to sign a petition for something (commitment) that has to be done immediately or else the opportunity will be lost forever (scarcity). And the petitioning organization talks about all the values that we share in common (likeness). Unless you’ve recently been born, you can probably see that most companies already know about all these influence tactics and are putting them to use on us. But with this book, maybe it’s time that we learned enough to fight back.
Going to the local Kroger:
Old lady in the hair net: “Sir, would you like to try these new chocolate chip cookies? They’s free samples.”
~~~Just say no to the free samples. Or if you say yes, feel free to buy nothing. They’re just trying to make you feel guilty so you’ll put a box in your cart.~~~
(eat cookie)
To the old lady in the hair net: “No thanks!”
See? It works!”
Jeff Gray wrote this review Monday, April 14, 2008.
(
reply |
permalink )
