They know what works and what doesn't; the law of survival of the fittest ensures this. And so it is for the exploiters of the weapons of automatic influence that naturally exist all around us.
RECIPROCATION
The Old Give and Take…and Take
It is the future-orientation inherent in a sense of obligation that is critical to its ability to achieve social progress of the kind described by Tiger and Fox. Anything would help, the more the better.” The main finding of the study concerns the number of tickets that subjects purchased from Joe under the two conditions.
The Rule Is Overpowering
And of course this is a legitimate desire of the manufacturer - to expose the public to the qualities of the product. The beauty of the free sample, however, is that it is also a gift and, as such, may involve the rule of reciprocity.
The Rule Enforces Uninvited Debts
Although the obligation to repay constitutes the essence of the reciprocity rule, it is the obligation to receive that makes the rule so easy to exploit. The extent to which even an unwanted favor, once received, can cause guilt is aptly illustrated in the seeking technique of the Hare Krishna Society.
The Rule Can Trigger Unfair Exchanges
Because reciprocal arrangements are so important in human social systems, we have been conditioned to feel uncomfortable being watched. Viewed in light of these costs, it is not so surprising that in the name of reciprocity we will often give back more than we receive.
RECIPROCAL CONCESSIONS
In my door-to-door sales research, I have witnessed another form of the refusal-then-retract technique. We have already discussed one reason for the success of the reject-then-withdraw technique—its incorporation of the rule of reciprocity.
HOW TO SAY NO
And it stands to reason that people who are satisfied with a given arrangement are more likely to be willing to agree to promote such arrangements. To enter into this kind of arrangement with another is not to be taken advantage of by that person through the rule of reciprocity.
From a Former TV and Stereo Salesperson
Remember that the rule of retribution entitles a person who has acted in a certain way to a dose of the same. Notice how using the reject-then-withdraw tactic, as is usually the case, also involves the operation of the principle of contrast.
COMMITMENT AND CONSISTENCY
Hobgoblins of the Mind
In the study, a research assistant placed a beach blanket one and a half meters away from the blanket of a randomly selected individual: the test subject. Before the road racing show, I happened to meet a former neighbor who bought the same toy for his son.
COMMITMENT IS THE KEY
It is important to understand that the main intention of the Chinese was not simply to extract information from their prisoners. It seems that the real aim of the Chinese was to change, at least for a time, the hearts and minds of their captives.
The Magic Act
For example, the Chinese knew that many prisoners wanted to let their families know that they were still alive. The Chinese were wise enough to realize that most prisoners would not participate in a competition that they could only win by writing a communist tract.
The Public Eye
So all the students were given new evidence that suggested their original estimates were wrong, and they were then given the chance to change their estimates. But Deutsch and Gerard found that, by far, it was the students who had publicly registered their original positions who most resolutely refused to change from those positions later.
The Effort Extra
Here, in the company of his peers, he undergoes severe obscurity from society's grown men. Under the slightest pretext, he can be beaten by one of the newly initiated men who are assigned the task by the older men of the tribe.
The Inner Choice
He was really interested in the effectiveness of the threat in controlling the boys' behavior later when he was no longer around. First, Freedman's instruction alone was enough to prevent the boys from operating the robot while he was briefly out of the room.
From a Woman Living in Portland, Oregon
The tube fell into place for me…and drove it on the way to the nearest exit. Although it still hurts to think about it, thinking about the event after reading your book, I now realize what happened.
SOCIAL PROOF
Truths Are Us
Instead, it's the behavior of the audience, of you and me, that seems strange. But there was little noticeable in the reactions of the people in that room.
CAUSE OF DEATH: UNCERTAIN(TY)
With the only acceptable form of truth having been undermined by physical evidence, there was only one way out of the corner for the group. On the day of his lunch with the commissioner, he assigned a reporter to investigate the "bystander angle" of the Genovese incident.
Devictimizing Yourself
In the context of a possible stroke, you cannot afford to worry about the awkwardness of overestimating your problem. Otherwise, it is all too easy for everyone in the crowd to conclude that someone else should help, will help, or has helped.
MONKEY ME, MONKEY DO
Does not matter; the psychological impact of the actions of these individuals must have been potent. In fact, the heavy-handed exploitation of the principle of social proof can be traced throughout the history of one of our most venerable art forms: grand opera.
From a Former Racetrack Employee
In the same way, we must look up and around frequently when concentrating on the evidence of the crowd. Without this simple protection against misleading social proof, our prospects may well parallel those of the highway interchanges and the North American buffalo: Crash.
LIKING
The Friendly Thief
What's interesting is that the customers seem to be fully aware of the sympathy and friendship pressure that the Tupperware party embodies. Other compliance professionals have found that the friend doesn't even have to be present to be effective; often just the mention of the Robert B.
Physical Attractiveness
Apart from this qualification, however, it is clear that good-looking people enjoy a huge social advantage in our culture. It is therefore little wonder that the halo of physical attractiveness is regularly exploited by compliance professionals.
Similarity
A study conducted in the early 1970s found that young people tended to dress in “hippie.” When the researcher was dressed in the same way as the student, the request was granted in more than two-thirds of the cases; but if the student and applicant were dressed differently, the dime was issued less than half the time.
Compliments
An experiment done with men in North Carolina shows how helpless we can be in the face of praise. The men in the study received feedback about themselves from another person who needed a favor from them.
Contact and Cooperation
At the beginning of Bad Cop's performance, his partner, Good Cop, sits in the background. I hate these lying bastards!' Moments later, Good Cop actually says something on behalf of the suspect.
Conditioning and Association
They gave us a lesson in the negative side of the association principle. Some of the strangest of such behavior takes place in the big arena of sports.
From a Chicago Man
So our appropriate response is a conscious effort to focus solely on the benefits of the deal and the car Dan has for us. This reader is not the only one who can attest to the power of the pressure embodied in MCI's Calling Circle idea.
AUTHORITY
Directed Deference
Let me out” — the results were the same as before; 65 percent of the subjects faithfully performed their duties through the maximum shock. The extreme degree to which subjects in Milgram's condition paid attention to the wishes of authority was documented in another version of the basic study.
CONNOTATION, NOT CONTENT
The doctor prescribed ear drops for the right ear of the patient, who was suffering from pain and infection there. Objectively, it makes no sense to fall for the comments of a man who we know is just an actor who used to play a doctor.
Titles
Second, they wanted to examine the problem in the context of a serious medication error—the gross prescription of an unauthorized drug to a hospital patient. Finally, they wanted to see what would happen if they physically removed the authority figure from the situation and replaced it with an unknown voice on the phone, offering only the flimsiest evidence of authority – the purported title of “doctor”.
Clothes
Give him a dime!” The applicant then turned a corner and walked away, so that the applicant was out of sight when the pedestrian reached the meter. It is noteworthy that the two types of authority clothing that the above research shows to be influential - the security guard uniform and the business suit - are deftly combined by confidence men in a fraud called the bank examiner scheme.
Trappings
Compared to the actual findings of the experiment, the students consistently underestimated the time it would take them to honk at the luxury car. But in addition to increasing the percentage of his tip, Vincent's maneuver also put him in a favorable position to increase the size of the table order.
From a Young Businessman
In the next two weeks, I received two more calls from the seller, each asking me to drop my two hundred dollar bid to sign a sale to a customer. He said this was an old trick designed to get sellers like me to drop their asking prices super low, giving the sellers huge profits when they finally sold the car.
SCARCITY
The Rule of the Few
Perhaps the simplest use of the scarcity principle is in the “limited quantity” tactic, where the customer is told that a particular product is in short supply and cannot be guaranteed to last. The idea is to dangle a carrot in front of the buyer's face and then take it away.”
PSYCHOLOGICAL REACTANCE
The second response to the law was more subtle and general than the deliberate resistance of the smugglers and hoarders. Fortunately, the results of the few studies that have been done on this topic are very consistent.
