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Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

By Robert Cialdini

Short review by Erik Lukas, junior compliance practitioner

To say I learned a lot from this book would be an understatement. Cialdini’s book has been recommended to me and I’d heard him and it lauded with praise. Apparently, this was because the book actually is really good.

Always a pleasant surprise....

I loved how he started by talking about what a sucker he is, how he’s always been manipulated, how he’ll always go along, always buy, always say ‘yes’

I’ve heard some of the actual lab experiments before. They were important for making points, but I enjoyed his personal stories far more.

My question:

Why aren’t they teaching me this in school? I would have to take every psychology and sociology class offered by Indiana University to get even half of the concepts presented in this book!

Ok, let’s jump in…

The Accidental Jewelry Experiment

Robert’s friend owned a jewelry store in Arizona. The tourist season brought a steady stream of tourists through her shop, but she was having trouble getting rid of some turquoise pieces. She tried the changing location and the display, standard retail boring stuff.

No luck.

And then while heading out of town, she scribbled a hasty note for her salespeople on the back of an index card. It said, “Everything in this display case x 1/2.” Of course, it was so hastily written that it was misread as “x 2.”

And two days later when she got back every piece had been sold for twice its price.

Something to do with expensive = good. That’s not true, is it? “I’ll paint your house for $300. How’s that sound? C’mon, I’ll do a really good job. It’s just $300. Why don’t you let me?”

I think it is to an extent. And so does Cialdini.

Cialdini explains that the “expensive = good” mindset is just one of many SHORTCUTS we use to make our daily lives and decisions easier.

And it makes perfect sense. We have these shortcuts to save us from brain overload, and most of the time they prove to be very reliable.

But there’s a certain amount of the time that skillful manipulators use the knowledge of our shortcut against us. Nonetheless, the shortcut is so accurate most of the time, that we are willing to live with those few times it leads us and our wallets astray.

Normally, the expensive=good shortcut works like a charm. Higher price usually does mean higher quality. And these tourists found themselves looking to purchase something they knew little about so “they understandably relied on the old standby feature of cost to determine the jewelry’s merits.”

I guess …

You get what you pay for.

And even knowing the higher price = higher quality shortcut could lead me astray, I fall into it at least once a month. “The more expensive _______ is better. I just know it.”

MOTHER TURKEYS - Am I a turkey?

I also learned that mother turkeys will nurture a stuffed animal polecat if it has a recording in it that makes the “cheep-cheep” sound of a baby chick.

Now for anyone who doesn’t know like I didn’t, the polecat and turkey are apparently mortal enemies. The turkey will attack the stuffed animal unless it emits the baby turkey cheeping sound.

Cialdini calls this the “CLICK-WHIRR” response. We have them too.

Sounds ridiculous when thinking of a turkey, until the pain at the hands of a few compliance practitioners comes back into your memory. Ok, the turkey still sounds ridiculous.

(I personally think I am obsessed with this price and perceived value issue and would be very thankful if anyone had links or hints for where to find more actual real world examples of this in action. Thanks. )

Why do we need shortcuts?

- To save time
- To save mental energy
- To deal with a very complex world that requires from decisions from us hundreds of times every day.
- To keep sane

Our rules of thumb give us a break. They let us make a decision. They get us off the fence. So we follow them without knowing it.

0% DISCOUNT COUPONS

Due to a printing error a tire company mailed out thousands of coupons offering their customers no savings …. Same response.

We expect double duty from coupons, both saving us money and the hassle of thinking about how to save money (just use the coupon, buddy).

Another “Expensive = Good” Story - The Hard of Hearing Salesman

Two brothers, Sid and Harry Drubeck, owned a tailor shop back in the 30s.

“Whenever the salesman, Sid, had a new customer trying on suits in front of the shop’s three-sided mirror, he would admit to a hearing problem, and, as they talked, he would repeatedly request that the man speak more loudly to him. Once the customer had found the suit he liked and had asked for the price, Side, would call to his brother, the head tailor, at the back of the room, “Harry, how much for this suit?” Looking up from his work and greatly exaggerating the suit’s true price - Harry would call back, “For that beautiful all-wool suit, forty-two dollars.” Pretending not to have heard and cupping his hand to his ear, Sid would ask again. Once more Harry would reply, “Forty-two dollars.” At this point, Sid would turn to the customer and report, “He says twenty two dollars.” Many a man would hurry to buy the suit and scramble out of the shop with his “Expensive=good” bargain before Poor Sid discovered the mistake.”

The Contrast Principle

Have you ever lifted a lighter object and then afterward lifted a heavier object? Well, the heavier object will seem heavier than if we hadn’t lifted the lighter one first.

I know this is true as I experience it quite often while lifting weights. This is one reason I never understood anyone who started with a lighter weight set and then kept moving up in weight, trying to max out. Just doesn’t make sense to me. I think psychologically they will be capable of lifting more without those first few sets of lighter weight. But what do I know? I injure myself all the time. Haha

Well, the Contrast Principle applies to more than just weight. It applies to how we value things, how attractive we find someone, how sweet something tastes, etc

RECIPROCATION - Repaying others for what they give us

Some university professor sent off a bunch of Christmas cards to complete strangers one year and got quite a few back from it.

Some sociologists say that every human society follows this rule in some way. And this is quite odd when you read about sociology and see how no matter how universal something seems (even facial expressions), there are always the Pigmies in New Guinea who do just the opposite (my memory is bad, but what I’m saying is still true.)

This rule lets human culture and society evolve by leaps and bounds. The knowledge that giving something away wouldn’t really mean losing has furthered the development of our society incredibly. Since society benefits from compliance to this rule, members are expected to live up to this rule.

Hare Krisha’s, we are on to you. We would rather try to restrict you from giving us flowers than try to fight the internal struggle when we receive without giving.

Donation appeals have a higher rate of response when they include free gifts which says that the sense of obligation we feel doesn’t just stem from things we’ve requested to receive. We can be put under mental and social obligation without asking to be by a flower or a pack of mailing labels.

It can be downright uncomfortable.

“We are trained from childhood to chafe, emotionally, under the saddle of obligation.”

CONCESSIONS - “Get your hot dogs here! Candy bars too!”

The boy initially offered to sell him a ticket to the Boy Scout circus that weekend. Robert said no. Then the boy said, “Well, if you don’t want to buy any tickets, how about buying some of our chocolate bars? They’re only a dollar each.”

After Robert walked away from a boy scout spending $2 on candy bars he didn’t even want, he sat down to analyze what happened.

Robert knew “something noteworthy had happened… because: a) I do not like chocolate bars; b) I do like dollars; c) I was standing there with two of his chocolate bars; and d) he was walking away with two of my dollars.”

This is an add-on to the rule of reciprocity. We feel an obligation to make a concession to someone who seems to have done the same for us.

Plus

Large first request = more room for concessions

Robert even postulates about Watergate. He thinks this law of concessions is what got the organizers to sign off on G. Gordon Liddy’s insane in retrospect plan. He initially came to them asking for much larger, crazier plans. His largest plan needed $1 and included “a specially equipped communications chase plane, break-ins, kidnapping and mugging squads, and a yacht featuring high class call girls to blackmail politicians.”

His scaled down, much cheaper, “let’s just put a few bugs in” plan seemed tame in comparison.

COMMITMENT AND CONSISTENCY

A few sociologists were doing some “research” at the racetrack. After losing all their money, they were just standing around and one hypothesized that right after a bettor had made his bet, his horse’s chances of winning went up in his mind.

We will stand behind our commitment and have been taught to do in order to be consistent.

Of course, that still doesn’t mean your horse is going to run faster.

Robert tells a story about pulling into a gas station advertising a low price. But when he looked at the pump, it was a few cents higher. He asked the owner, a gruff man, covered in motor oil, waddling around the lot, and he said they hadn’t had time to change the sign. Then Robert’s mind started weighing if he should leave on principle vs. whether the matter of a few cents was too trivial especially being that he already logically understodd his motivations. His decision was still being formulated when the walrus of a man asked him why he wasn’t filling up yet. He said he “didn’t like the price discrepancy.”

‘The walrus said with a snarl, “Listen, nobody’s gonna tell me how to run my business. If you think I’m cheating you, just put that dose down and get off my property as fast as you can do it, bud.” Already certain he was a cheat, I was happy to act consistently with my belief and his wishes. I dropped the hose on the spot… and drove over it on my way to the closest exit. Sometimes consistency can be a marvelously rewarding thing.”’

SOCIAL PROOF

Why like people can sell you on the benefits of a product…. We want to see that people like ourselves are using the product. And marketers seem to know this….

LIKING

Joe Girard sent 13,000 postcards per month out that said nothing more than “I like you” in an obviously impersonal manner. Could this really work for Joe? Yes.

AUTHORITY

They followed a man in a suit across the street when the light said no walking. They fall for the confidence games of con men wearing lifts in their shoes. They won’t get into lively debates if they know you’re a professor.

They dropped dimes into parking meters when told to do so by a passing security guard. The bought Sanka decaffeinated coffee when told to by an actor who played a doctor on TV. They sent what would have been deadly voltage through test subjects for not remembering words. They ran over a demonstrator laying on the railroad tracks, severing both his legs and then sued him for mental anguish for not letting them do their job.

They is us.

The implications are somewhat marketing related, but this chapter was more of a reminder to myself of the lengths to which a government can use its power.

SCARCE RESOURCES

This is one of the most powerful motivators.

Unpopular groups unable to speak. Research shows groups of college students became “more sympathetic to its arguments” even without hearing it! And let’s not pretend us college kids are the only ones susceptible to this law of scarcity.

It would seem that one of the best ways for an unpopular group to gain favor is to have themselves censored and then let people know about it.

Sounds like, “What Your Banker Doesn’t Want You to Know”, “Suppressed technology let’s you get 25% better gas mileage”, and a bunch of other things that always draw me in…. “The truth” (which it is implied has been hidden and kept from you)

It is interesting to note that he talks about his brother putting himself through college buying and selling cars in classifieds. He had the buyers show up at the same time. Now where have I heard that before? The first buyer was competing to keep his spot in line and get the car before that “newcomer over there got it.”

Applied sociology indeed.

Success,

Erik