Influence - The Phycology Of Persuasion - Robert Cialdini

Influence - The Phycology Of Persuasion

Weapons Of Influence

In the study of animals in their natural habitat, one can notice some fixed-action patterns that occur in the same fashion and same order, in response to the same specific action or symbol. An example is one where the mother turkey protects, feeds, and tends to her young just by identifying them with a “cheep-cheep” sound. Other identifying features like smell, touch, or appearance seem to have a minor effect. The “cheep-cheep” sound is what she responds to, and a chick that doesn't do that will be neglected or even killed by the mother.

Another example is a male robin that will attack a rival male robin or preferably a clump of robin red breast feathers and will ignore a stuffed replica of the male robin without the feathers.

Notice that fixed action patterns act like they've been recorded on tape, and only require a trigger, to click on it to play out the different sequence of behavior. We humans too have our preprogrammed tapes, although they usually work to our advantage. Our automatic tapes come from stereotypes we’ve grown up exposed to and have come to accept. These things, although not detectable in the eyes of others, seem like a ready weapon of automatic influence in the hands of those who know how to use it to their advantage.

The author tells the story of his friend, who was a jewelry store owner, who had been trying to sell off a turquoise jewelry piece, but the tourists that came into the store still ignored it on every single visit. After a while, she just wanted to get rid of the piece at any cost, even if it meant taking a loss, so she scribbled a note to her head saleswoman just before leaving for a vacation to sell the piece at its price × ½. To her surprise, the saleswoman sold off the jewelry before author's friend got back, and that wasn't even the shocking price. The surprising part was that the saleswoman had mistakenly read the note as price × 2. So, the buyers, drawn to the mindset of expensive = higher quality, purchased the turquoise at twice its original price.

There are several components of the weapons of automatic influence. First one is the sophisticated and subtle mechanical process by which the weapon is activated. Second is the consequent exploitability of the power by anyone who knows how to trigger them. Thirdly, the way the weapon of automatic influence lends their force to those who use them. The exploiters use the power of these weapons to manipulate a person without the appearance of manipulation.

An example is in the way we see the difference between two things. If two things are presented one after the other, we will tend to see the second item more different than it is. It's called the contrast principle.

Clothing stores make use of this principle well when they instruct their sales personnel to sell the expensive item first. For instance, a man walks into the store and wants to purchase a three-piece suit and a sweater. If he just spent a lot of money buying the suit, when it comes to buying the sweater, even expensive ones, the price won't seem as high in comparison.

This principle is not limited to clothing stores, even in real estate companies, some adopt the method of showing clients a deadbeat house first so that when they eventually show the house up for sale, it looks way better than it should've looked, and they're more interested. Automobile dealers also use the tactic.

Attaching a reason to a request increases the success rate: “I have five pages, can I use the Xerox machine before you because I’m in a rush” had a success rate of 94% vs. 60% success rate when no reason was given. Showing potential customers the most expensive item first, then working your way downwards with the price, leads to an increase in the amount spent (as the next products seem cheaper in comparison).

Reciprocation: The Old Give and Take...and Take

When someone sends you a gift, invites you to an event, remembers you on your birthday, or does you a favor, there's this feeling of obligation to repay in kind. We humans dislike being indebted to someone, so much so that often a small gift or favor will lead to a more significant reciprocal response. It is a web of indebtedness that has you paying back whatever favor you received — it is a rule of reciprocation.

This principle says that we should try to repay, in kind, most times, what another person has provided us, and it is by far, the most universal & widely used method of influence. The act of sharing is basically how our forefathers survived — by banking on someone reciprocating an action they've once offered them.

An example is when the author read in the news in 1985 that Ethiopia that was almost the most poverty-stricken country at the time sent in a five thousand dollar donation to hurricane victims in Mexico that year. Considering that Ethiopia was the country suffering from poverty at the time, it was alarming that they still managed to make such donation. On further research, the author discovered that it was because Mexico had once sent aid to Ethiopia when Italy invaded them in 1935.

The rule of reciprocation is overpowering. An example is during an art appreciation event hosted by professor Dennis Regan of Cornell University. During the presentation, his attendant, let's call him Joe, who posed as one of the subjects, left briefly for a break. On his way back, Joe came back with two bottles of Coca-Cola and offered one of the people present at the event a bottle. Afterward, Joe asked the subject to do him a favor. The assistant indicated that there were some raffle tickets he was selling and that he would win a fifty dollar price if he sold the most tickets. Even though some people who liked him bought more tickets, those who took the coca-cola were more inclined to repay the favor and ended up buying much more tickets. The rule is so strong that it overshadows the influence of a factor like liking someone.

The rule enforces uninvited debts in the sense that even if a gift is from a stranger or someone you don't like, you will be forced to feel indebted until you reciprocate the favor.

Social Obligations — This fact is exploited worldwide, e.g., by the Hare Krishna/ISKCON society for fundraising. Many people from this society would stand in public places and would offer a ‘gift’ of a flower that they refuse to take back. Now that the passerby has received the gift, he feels some indebtedness, and as such, the social pressure to donate leads to a higher donation rate than merely soliciting alone.

An Indian supermarket sold £1000 of cheese in a few hours by inviting customers to cut out their free samples themselves.

Reject and Retreat — Another application of this technique is by giving concession to anyone. You can try this by first giving out a high price (or a huge favor), then wait for it to be rejected, only to follow this demand up with a smaller one, (that you wanted all along). It can also make a person indebted to you and work so much that the person is compliant with you.

Door to door salespeople are given specialized training on this concept. The salesman first offers the customer something costly that they know they will refuse. When the customer refuses, they provide them with the concession to at least buy something inexpensive & small (what they wanted to sell). The customer does not know about this, and in most cases, buys the item.

Always be aware of other people using this with you and avoid getting into the trap.

Commitment and consistency: Hobgoblins of the mind

As humans, we have a general desire to be consistent in our behavior, and we also value consistency in others. If someone has committed to something, it will be easier to make decisions, in the hope of being consistent. Commitment probably explains why If we write down our goals and ambitions, we are more likely to follow them and take actions to achieve them.

An experiment was carried out by some psychologists on the beach to confirm this principle. An experimenter got up and went away for a few minutes, after laying down on a beach with a radio and some clothes, with many other people laying nearby. In two different instances, the results were very drastically different. In one case, the experimenter asked other people to look after his belongings, and when another experimenter, posing as a thief tried to steal the radio and clothes, these people who had committed to the first experimenter reported and took some action to save the belongings. In the other instance, he did not ask anything, so when the thief came, the people completely ignored him. It is startling to know that just getting some verbal commitment from people can influence them to act on something.

This principle has been used to drive sales with the concept of Wishlist on numerous e-commerce sites. Any customer is more likely to buy a product if he has committed by adding it to their wish list.

Consistency acts as a shield against mental stress or the hard work or consequences of an activity. To back this up, the author went to an introductory lecture given by the transcendental meditation (TM) program, where he saw the wall of consistency in action. The group claimed they could teach a unique brand of meditation that would allow you achieve all manner of desirable things, from pure inner peace to the more spectacular abilities to fly and pass through walls at the programs advanced (and more expensive) stages.

The author attended the meeting to study the tactics that the presenters would use, and he went along with his friend, a professor whose specialization was statics and symbol logic. During the presentation (made by two young men), the author noticed that throughout the lecture, his friend was uneasy and restless. Unable to contain his pain, when it was time to ask questions, he got up and broke down why the complex argument in the lecture was illogical, contradictory, and unsupportable. The presenters feeling weak, were unable to defend themselves appropriately and were embarrassed and admitted that the professor was genuinely right.

Shockingly enough, the presentation was received so well by the audience still, and the presenters received a rush of payments to register for the program. On their way to leave, he and his friend met with three people who paid for the program. These people were either dealing with or had problems sleeping, relaxing, or needed the self-control necessary to master his art. It turned out that they acknowledged that the professor’s theories were correct, but since they had real problems that needed solving, so, they had to pay instantly to register because if they left, they would start thinking about what the professor said, and never sign up. It is the power of consistency. They stuck to what they had the mind to do, even though it seemed to have been proven wrong.

Social Proof : Truth are us

This principle states that one means we use to determine what is correct is to find what other people think is right. Our measure of what is correct depends on what most of the people are doing at the time. This principle is also popularly known as the Herd mentality. We view a behavior as more correct in a given situation to the degree what we see others performing it. For example, we drive fast on a particular stretch if others are driving fast without even caring to know the limit, or laughing at a joke in a party if everyone is laughing although it might not be funny. This principle is used in the comedy industry, with the use of the canned laughter in enabling an audience to find jokes more humorous and to laugh more. The laughter stimulates the laughter of viewers or members of the audience even though the content may not be that funny. Usually, canned laughter is used for shows or comics that aren't so humorous.

Another example is in bars or at church collections, where the tips/donation boxes are ‘salted’ by having money already placed there or having a stooge give money to stimulate others to tip. Or by advertisers in ads with words like “largest selling” or “fastest growing” which inadvertently sells us their product in our minds. Social proof can very comfortably be used in User Experience design to drive more engagement. If you highlight the positive feedback of other users on the products, it can act as a weapon of influence on other users for their acceptance

Liking: The Friendly Thief

We will prefer to buy a product if one of our friends or favorite celebrity recommends it for us, right? The principle of “Liking” works on this idea. Almost anything we do in life we prefer doing with people we like and enjoy being around. Because of this, companies use great movie stars or musicians in advertisements to endorse their products? It is because the consumers can quickly like them, and as such will improve the sales or demand of the service or product provided.

The author suggests these five factors to help someone like you:
Physical attractiveness: Good looks will suggest other favorable traits like honesty, humor, trustworthiness.
Similarity :  We are more attracted to people similar to us in terms of interests, opinions, personality, background, etc.
Compliments :  We love to receive praises, and automatically tend to like those who give it.
Contact and Cooperation :  We feel more at ease when working with others to fulfill a common goal.
Conditioning and Association : We like looking at models, and thus create relationships or links between each former and later car.

User experience is about creating an aura of likeliness for the user with your product or service. If the user likes your interface or product, he will surely prefer to use it over its alternatives. We, therefore, need to find areas of shared interest to increase rapport and connection.

Authority : Directed Defense

As humans, authority is an essential element in our survival. We have grown to respect and obey authoritative figures and personalities like our elders, teachers, mentors, etc. We rely on a chain of command to shape our subconscious responses to requests for compliance & influence.

The author describes the infamous Milgram experiment that was thought to be a “memory study”, where subjects called “Teachers” believed they were inflicting increasingly high levels of electric shock on an actor “victim” if they made error in remembering the pair of words given, even though he was screaming for them to stop. The subjects were extremely uncomfortable with what they were doing, but they continued to shock the people because the researcher urged them to do so. Milgram concluded from this experiment that humans possess an “extreme willingness to go to almost any lengths on the command of an authority.”

Hospitals have a 12% daily error rate because nurses and junior doctors will very rarely challenge the decisions made by an authority figure, like the Chief Medical Doctor of the hospital, despite receiving potentially lethal or unusual requests. We usually perceive and interact with people with authority differently. The more power a person is deemed to have, the more generous people are when estimating their height, the more accurate we give our information, and the more cautious we are with our conversations.

The principle of authority, along with the rule of liking, can be used in any advertisement to have someone recognized from any field to be used to sell any product.

Scarcity : The Rule Of Few

We are more motivated to act if we think we are going to lose something, than if we are to gain something. In an advertisement, stating what you could lose if you don't act is more effective than saying what you would achieve. For instance, a “Save £50 a month on…” would not be as effective as a “You are losing £50 a month on...”

You will have come across this message on most of the traveling websites trying to book air ticket  —  “Very few tickets left.” This message only stimulates the scarcity principle, and you will find that the same message will still be there, even after a few days. This message helps these websites create an urgency in the mind of the customers to buy the product or lose it forever.

We feel like the more unavailable something is, the more valuable or important it is. A scarce item is more desirable than one that is freely available. The price of collectibles is also decided based on its scarcity, and as a rule, the rarer an item, the more expensive it'll be.

In high-pressure environments like an auction, items are sold for a high price as the buyers fear losing out to another person. Your competitors make a bid, and the competition makes it more scarce, so you tend to like it more and are willing to pay more for it, even though it might not be worth it.

It is also a psychology principle that an item in question becomes more attractive to us if we think we can’t have it. Compliance professionals have been using this concept to create artificial scarcity of their products to earn profits or boost sales.

When buying anything, instead of thinking of its rarity, we should think of its utility. If a thing isn't of use to us, whether it is scarce or not, it will be the same.

Design concepts also leverage this principle to influence potential customers in making quick decisions. Many e-commerce websites will show you how many viewers are viewing a product and its limited quantity to ignite an emotion of competition and willingness to possess that item.

Conclusion

Now that you have finished with this book, you should understand how compliance professionals can sell you their ideas. Also, now you have been exposed to the rules of persuasion and how to access the powers. In the application to your business, it is all about reaching out to your users through your design or product. Your approach is very vital in how your product or service is perceived. With a combination of one or more of the weapons of influence, you should be more than fine when it comes to handling or boosting your business.

When you think you are not connecting well to your consumer, try to relate with them, find some commonality, study to find their most preferred approach, and use it to your advantage