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Resistance and Persuasion Lectures Summary
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Resistance and persuasion lecturesLectures summary
, Lecture 1.
“Resistance is the most important element in the persuasion process”
“To understand and be successful at persuasion, you need to understand resistance”
What is resistance:
• A reaction against change: “I don’t like it”, “I don’t believe it”, “I won’t do it”
• The ability to withstand a persuasive attack
• An outcome: not being moved by pressures to change
• A motivational state: motivation to oppose and counter pressures to change
Lecture 2.
‘Chugging’ means charity mugging (street fundraisers).
Social influence techniques
Influence agents, from who persuasion is part of their profession, they carefully embed their request
in a scripted technique. Most of these techniques start with one or some initial request(s) before the
target request is posted (don’t ask for money right away) – Sequential request techniques:
- Foot- in-the-door
o Start with a couple of smaller requests followed by a larger target request
- Door-in-the-face
o Start with a larger request, and then make the requests smaller
- Lowball
o An item is initially offered at a lower price than one expects in order to get the buyer
to commit; then, the price is suddenly increased
- Disrupt-then-reframe
o one disrupts a traditional request script and then follows this with a new framing of
the request
People are more willing to comply with a request when it is preceded by this warm-up period.
These techniques are based on a based psychological principle; a mental short cut (heuristics) when
we need to make a decision (weapons of influence). People also have a strong tendency to comply
with request from people we like or trust (e.g., experts or authorities). All persuasion tactics make us
use mental short cuts (heuristics): automaticity is the cornerstone of all influence techniques. They
put us in a state of mindlessness in which we automatically seem to slip in these automatic action
patterns and guides us into compliance.
The foot-in-the-door technique is built upon the strong tendency that we have to be consistent in
our behaviors.
The door-in-the-face technique works because when people decline a large initial request, a smaller
request feels more like a concession/favor (reciprocity).
People tend to fall back on automatic behavior when we are not motivated or not able to process all
the information that we could have used to make a decision.
Self-control is the basic ability that we have as humans to actively control our emotions, thoughts
and behaviors. Self-regulation is the performance of self-control.
, Limited-resource model of self-control: after you use your self-control resources on a certain task,
the resources will be temporary depleted. Can be called ego depletion, resource depletion, or self-
control depletion. These resources can be trained, like a muscle.
When you perform an active self-control in thought, emotions, or behavior, this will deplete your
self-control resources, which means that you have less resources left for a second task.
When you actively respond to the initial questions of an influence technique, this perhaps depletes
our mental resources. When our self-control is low, we are more likely to comply to the target
request because we are more likely to rely on decisional heuristics; consistency, reciprocity,
authority, liking, etc.
Foot-in-the-door is the most effective when initial request is highly involving:
- Cognitively demanding operations
- Active self-presentation, or both
Answer demanding questions or present yourself in a favorable way are all processes that require
self-control. So, high-level intellectual processing depletes self-control resources. Also, self-
presentation depletes self-control resources.
When people are depleted, they are more likely to use or rely on heuristics which makes us more
complained with the target request.
When people are depleted, they show less resistance to persuasion. When self-control is lowered,
we don’t engage in rational thinking anymore, we don’t weigh all our options, we don’t evaluate
arguments but go with the flow (heuristics). This is different for each individual.
The because heuristic means that depleted people ‘buy’ any argument, weak or strong.
Resistance to persuasion may depend on our ability (self-control) to control our responses.
Motivation is also in important factor.
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