1. Weapons of influence
Click, whirr
A turkey acts like an automaton whose maternal instincts are under the automatic control of a single
sound (‘cheep-cheep’ sound). Ethologists have begun to identify regular, blindly mechanical patterns
of action in a wide variety of species. These are called fixed-action patterns which can involve
intricate sequences of behaviour, such as entire courtship or mating rituals. A fundamental
characteristic of these patterns is that the behaviours comprising them occur in virtually the same
fashion and in the same order every time. Click and the appropriate tape (pattern) is activated; whir
and out rolls the standard sequence of behaviours.
Not the situation as a whole is the trigger to activate the tape; rather, it is a specific feature, the
trigger feature. Often, this feature will be just one tiny aspect of the totality. Trigger features can
trick lower animals into reacting in ways wholly inappropriate to the situation. However, we should
realise two things. First, the automatic, fixed-action patterns of these animals work very well most of
the time. Second, we have our preprogramed tapes too; although they usually work to our
advantage, the trigger features that activate them can dupe us into playing the tapes at the wrong
times.
This parallel form of human automaticity is aptly demonstrated by Ellen Langer. A well-known
principle of human behaviour says that when we ask someone to do us a favour, we will be more
successful if we provide a reason for it. People simply like to have reasons for what they do. The
word because followed by a reason, made a big difference. However, it was not important what the
reason was. Perhaps the common “because … just because” response of children asked to explain
their behaviour can be traced to their shrewd recognition of the unusual amount of power adults
appear to assign to the word because.
Although some findings showed that there are many situations in which human behaviour does not
work in a mechanical, tape-activated way, researchers are convinced that most of the time, it does.
People who are unsure of an item’s quality often use the stereotype ‘expensive = good’. In the
example, price alone had become a trigger feature for quality, and a dramatic increase in price alone
had led to a dramatic increase in sales among the quality-hungry buyers.
There are a couple of important differences between this kind of automaticity in humans and lower
animals. The automatic behaviour patterns of humans tend to be learned rather than inborn, more
flexible than the lock-step patterns of the lower animals, and responsive to a larger number of
triggers.
Betting the shortcut odds
People often translate the rule “you get what you pay for” to mean expensive = good. This had
worked quite well for people in the past, since normally the price of an item increases along its
worth; a higher price typically reflects higher quality. In the example of the turquoise jewellery, they
were playing a shortcut version of betting the odds. They were counting on just one feature to
indicate its worth – the one they knew to be usually associated with the quality of any item. In the
long run, over all the past and future situations of their lives, betting those shortcut odds may
represent the most rational approach possible.
In fact, automatic, stereotyped behaviour is prevalent in much human action, because in many cases,
it is the most efficient form of behaving, and in other cases it is simply necessary. In order to deal
with the rapidly moving and complex environment that we live in, we need shortcuts. We can’t
,recognise and analyse all the aspects in each person, event, and situation we encounter in even one
day. Instead, we must very often use stereotypes, our rules of thumb, to classify things according to a
few key features and to respond without thinking when one or another of these trigger features is
present.
Sometimes the behaviour that unrolls will not be appropriate for the situation, because not even the
best stereotypes and trigger features work every time. From all indications, we will be relying on
these stereotypes to an even greater extent in the future. As the stimuli saturating our lives continue
to grow more intricate and variable, we will have to depend increasingly on our shortcuts to handle
them all.
Psychologists call these mental shortcuts judgemental heuristics, allowing for simplified thinking that
works well most of the time but leaves us open to occasional, costly mistakes. Another shortcut rule
is “If an expert said so, it must be true”. There is a tendency in our society to accept unthinkingly the
statements and directions of individuals who appear to be authorities on the topic. We frequently
ignore the arguments and allow ourselves to be convinced just by the expert’s status as “expert”.
This tendency to respond mechanically to one piece of information in a situation is what we have
been calling automatic or click, whirr responding. The tendency to react on the basis of a thorough
analysis of all the information can be referred to as controlled responding.
People are more likely to deal with information in a controlled fashion when they have both the
desire and the ability to analyse it carefully. In one study, those subjects with no personal stake in the
topic were primarily persuaded by the speaker’s expertise in the field of education, paying little
attention to the strength of the arguments. Those subjects for whom the issue mattered personally,
ignored the speaker’s expertise and they were persuaded primarily by the quality of the arguments.
However, the writer of this article suggests that even when the issue matters personally, people will
still make use of shortcuts when they don’t have the cognitive condition to operate mindfully.
Captainitis is a good example for this; frequently, an obvious error made by a flight captain was not
corrected by the other crew members and resulted in a crash, because, despite the personal
importance, the crew members were using the shortcut “If an expert says so, it must be true” rule in
failing to attend or respond to the captain’s disastrous mistake.
We want our advisors to take a complex approach to personally important topics for us. When
feeling overwhelmed by a complicated and consequential choice, we still want a fully considered,
point-by-point analysis of it – an analysis we may not be able to achieve except, ironically enough,
through a shortcut: reliance on an expert.
The profiteers
Maybe we know very little about our automatic behaviour patterns precisely because of the
mechanistic, unthinking manner in which they occur. One of their properties is that they make us
terribly vulnerable to anyone who does know how they work. One group of organisms, often termed
mimics, copy the trigger features of other animals in an attempt to trick these animals into
mistakenly playing the right behaviour tapes at the wrong times. The mimics then exploit this
altogether inappropriate action for their own benefit.
In the struggle for survival, nearly every form of life has its mimics – right down to some of the most
primitive pathogens. Humans too have profiteers who mimic trigger features of automatic
responding. Our automatic tapes usually develop from psychological principles or stereotypes we
have learned to accept. Although they vary in their force, some of these possess a tremendous ability
to direct human action. People rarely perceive their power.
, Some people know very well where the weapons of automatic influence lie and these people employ
them regularly and expertly to get what they want. The secret lies in the way that they structure
their requests, the way that they arm themselves with one or another of the weapons of influence
that exist in the social environment.
Jujitsu
There is a principle in human perception, the contrast principle, that 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. On its own, for
example, it would not be seen so heavily. If we are talking to a very attractive individual at a party
and we are then joined by an unattractive individual, the second will strike us as less attractive than
he or she actually is. The point is that the same thing can be made to seem very different depending
on the nature of the event that precedes it.
The great advantage of this principle is not only that it works but also that it is virtually undetectable.
Those who employ it can cash in on its influence without any appearance of having structured the
situation in their favour. Sales personnel would sell a suit first, because when it is time to look at
sweaters, even expensive ones, their prices will not seem as high in comparison. When the
inexpensive product is presented first and followed with an expensive one, as a result, the expensive
item will seem even more expensive.
