A summary of the entire book, Influence, Science and Practice by Robert B. Cialdini. It is the most recent version, namely, the fifth edition. Written for the examination of Consumer, behavior and influence. TP HvA.
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Toegepaste Psychologie
Consumer Behavior and Influence
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Consumer Behavior & Influence, Fifth Edition
Samenvatting
Influence, Science and practice
Robert B. Cialdini
Inhoudsopgave
1. Weapons of Influence p. 2
2. Reciprocation p. 5
3. Commitment and Consistency p. 9
4. Social Proof p. 15
5. Liking p. 20
6. Authority p. 26
7. Instant Influence p. 30
8. Scarcity p. 32
Hogeschool van Amsterdam
Toegepaste Psychologie
Leerjaar 1
Kwartaal 4 2015
1
, Chapter 1 Weapons of Influence
The noise of turkey chicks (cheep-cheep) activates the mother turkey to care of her chicks,
even when it’s disguised as a fake polecat (the natural enemy of the turkey). But when the
sound is turned off: she will attack the fake polecat. This natural reaction to the cheep-cheep
noise is called fixed action patterns. They can involve intricate sequences of behavior (such
as mating rituals). A fundamental characteristic of these patterns is that the behavior occurs
the same way and in the same order almost every single time. It’s almost like a recorded
tape being played over. When a situation calls for mothering (cheep-cheep noise), a maternal
behavior tape gets played. “Click” and the right tape gets activated; “whirr” and out rolls the
standard sequence of behavior.
There is something that needs to activate the fixed action patterns: the trigger feature.
Often the trigger feature will be just a tiny aspect of the totality. For example: a male robin
(roodborstje) will attack a clump of red feathers when it enters his territory. However, if you
place a perfect replica of a male robin in his territory without the red feathers, he will not
respond. For the robin the trigger feature are red feathers.
Fixed action patterns work almost perfectly all the time. Humans also have fixed action
patterns and although they usually work in our advantage sometimes the tapes are played at
the wrong time. The automatic behavior patterns of humans tend to be learned (instead of
inborn), more flexible and responsive to a larger number of triggers.
A principle of human behavior says that when we ask someone to do a favor, it’s more
successful if we provide a reason. This form of human automaticity is demonstrated in an
experiment by social psychologist Ellen Langer and her co-workers Blank and Chanowitz.
She asked for a small favor to people waiting in line to use a library copy machine: “Excuse
me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox because I’m in a rush?” → 94% complied.
Compared to: “Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox?” → only 60% complied.
So it helps if someone provides a reason. However, a third condition was added saying:
“Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox because I have to make some copies?”
→ 93% complied even though no real reason was given. Just as the cheep-cheep sound, the
word because triggered an automatic compliance response, even when no real reason was
given: click, whirr.
You and I live in a very complicated environment where everything is moving fast. To deal
with this, we need shortcuts because we don’t have the time to deal with everything
separately. We use stereotypes to classify things accordingly to a few key features. It helps
us to think and act fast. These shortcuts and stereotypes are called: judgemental
heuristics. For example: expensive=good or “if an expert says so, it must be true”. The
tendency to respond mechanically is called automatic or click, whirr responding. The
tendency to react on basis of thorough analysis of all the information is called controlled
responding.
Laboratory research has shown that people are likely to deal with information the controlled
way when they have the desire and ability to analyze it carefully. Otherwise when it isn’t
important enough, they are likely to use the easier click, whirr approach. For example:
students at the University of Missouri listened to a recorded speech that supported the idea
that all seniors (last year students) had to pass difficult examinations before they were
allowed to graduate. The issue affected them personally, because they were told that the
examinations could affect their diploma. This news made them analyze the arguments
carefully. However for the other subjects, the issue had little personal importance. They were
told that the exams would not begin until long after they graduated, they had no need to
analyze. This mechanism is very clever: we analyze things more when they’re important.
2
, However, when time is tight, the distractions are large, the emotional arousal is strong, or the
mental fatigue is so deep it forces us into taking shortcuts.
During World War II Thomas Watson was assigned to investigate plane crashes in which
high-ranking officers were killed or injured. A famous air force general named Uzal Ent whose
copilot got sick before a flight got assigned a replacement copilot. During takeoff, Ent began
singing to himself, nodding to a song in his head. The replacement copilot interpreted the
nodding as a signal to lift the wheels, even though they were going much too slowly to fly.
The plane dropped immediately on its belly and during the crash a propeller sliced into Ent’s
back and made him paraplegic (verlamd). Even though the replacement copilot knew they
were going to slow, he lifted the wheels anyway because he thought Ent said so. This
phenomenon is called Captainitis. It seems that despite the clear and strong personal
importance of the issue the copilot was using a shortcut: “if an expert says so, it must be
true”. When feeling overwhelmed by a complicated and consequential choice, we still want a
fully considered analysis of it. An analysis we may not be able to achieve except through a
shortcut: reliance on an expert.
Not knowing what our vulnerabilities are in terms of our automatic behavior patterns, make
us very vulnerable to anyone who does know how they work. To fully understand the nature
of our vulnerability, let’s take another look at the work of ethologists (researchers who study
animal behavior in the natural environment). A group of organisms, called mimics, copies the
trigger features of other animals in an attempt to trick these animals into mistakenly playing
the right behavior tapes at the wrong times. For example, the deadly trick played by the killer
females of one kind of firefly (Photuris) on the males of another firefly (Photinus). Because of
the years of natural selection, the Photinus avoids contact with the Photuris. But because the
Photuris mimics the blinking code from the female Photinus which stands for mating, the
Photinus flies directly into the Photuris’ trap. This killer female Photuris are called profiteers.
Humans also have profiteers who mimic trigger features for our own kind of automatic
responding. Our automatic tapes usually develop from psychological principles or
stereotypes we have learned to accept. Al though they vary in their force, some of these
principles possess a great ability to influence human action. We have been experiencing
them from such a young age, that you and I rarely notice their power. Each principle is a
detectable and ready weapon, a weapon of automatic influence.
There are some people who know very well where the weapons of automatic influence lie
and who use them regularly to get what they want. The secret of their effectiveness lies in the
way that they structure their requests. To do this may take no more than one correctly word
that engages a strong psychological principle and starts our automatic behavioral tapes
(words such as: because or reduced price (korting)). For example we use the Drubeck
brothers, Sid and Harry, who owned a men’s tailor shop in the 1930s. Whenever Sid had a
new costumer trying on suits, he would admit he had a hearing problem and repeatedly
request that the costumer speak more loudly. Once the costumer had found a suit he liked
and asked for the price, Sid would call his brother Harry (the head of the shop) at the back of
the room: “Harry, how much for this suit?” Harry would call back: “For that beautiful, all wool
suit, forty-two dollars.” Pretending not to have heard, Sid would ask again. Once more Harry
would reply: “Forty-two dollars”. At this point, Sid would turn to the costumer and report: “He
says twenty-two dollars”. Many costumers would hurry to buy the suit and go out of the shop
with the expensive=good idea, which eventually attracted more costumers to the store.
There is a principle in human perception, the contrast principle. It affects the way we see
the difference between two things that are presented one after another. Simply put: if the
second item is fairly different from the first, we will tend to see it as more different than it
actually is. So if we lift a light object first and then lift a heavy object, we will estimate the
second object to be heavier than if we had lifted it without first lifting the light one. The
contrast principle applies to all sorts of perceptions: if we talk to a very attractive individual at
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