Influence

“Influence: the psychology of persuasion”

By Robert Cialdini

(A summary)

Cialdini outlines how human beings usually respond, without thought, to an array of triggers --
and provides many examples of how these triggers are used by marketers, con men and political
advocates. He calls the triggers "weapons of influence."

Cialdini, a professor of psychology at Arizona State University, took up the study of weapons of
influence because he is a natural patsy.
“For as long as I can recall, I've been an easy mark for the pitches of peddlers, fund-raisers, and
operators of one sort or another. True, only some of these people had dishonorable motives. The
others -- representatives of certain charitable agencies, for instance -- have had the best of
intentions. ...[T]his long-standing status as sucker accounts for my interest in compliance: just
what are the factors that cause one person to say yes to another person?”

And so, like the good academic that he is, he did some research and created a matrix of categories
to explain why we can be gulled into doing things we might not choose if we thought about it.

He first explains both animals and humans do have automatic responses to triggering events or
sounds that can seem pretty irrational. For example, a male robin defending its territory will
attack an inanimate clump of robin-redbreast feathers. However, he will ignore a full-size, life-
like, stuffed robin, if the breast feathers are replaced by ones that are not red. A very precise
trigger is required to set off the behavior; and, if the trigger is present, the behavior follows, even
though there is not even a facsimile of a bird.

We humans follow similar patterns. Cialdini describes an experiment in which students were
asked to try to cut into a line at a photocopy machine. If they simply asked to cut ahead with no
reason given, they were accommodated 60 percent of the time. If they asked to cut in "because I
am in a rush," they got a "yes" 94 percent of the time. But, incredibly, if they asked to cut in
"because I have to make some copies," they got agreement 93 percent of the time. That is, the
magic word was "because" -- the reason given did not have to be even semi-rational. Clearly
some kind of conditioned response had been triggered. (Cialidini calls these occasions of
compliance click, whirr! moments, referring to the sounds of a tape deck. Since tape decks are
increasingly rare, I'm going to simply refer to them as compliance triggers.)

When we encounter a compliance trigger, we will probably do what we are conditioned to do

without thinking about it. This is not a bad thing. We developed these triggers because they serve
useful social functions. Mostly, they actually help us move through the day more smoothly than if
we had to think about all our actions.

You and I exist in an extraordinarily complicated stimulus environment, easily the most rapidly
moving and complex that has ever existed on this planet. To deal with it, we need shortcuts. ...
Without [shortcuts] we would stand frozen -- cataloging, appraising, and calibrating -- as the time
for action sped by and away.

Obviously people who want to influence our behavior study and use compliance triggers
constantly. Those who use them well get an additional benefit:

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Even the victims themselves tend to see their compliance as determined by the action of natural
forces rather than by the designs of the person who profits from that compliance.

So what are these triggers? Here is Cialdini's list:

1. Reciprocation. People are more willing to comply with requests (for favors, services,
information, concessions, etc.) from those who have provided such things first.
2. Commitment/Consistency. People are more willing to be moved in a particular direction
if they see it as consistent with an existing commitment.
3. Authority. People are more willing to follow the directions or recommendations of a
communicator to whom they attribute relevant authority or expertise.
4. Social Validation. People are more willing to take a recommended action if they see
evidence that many others, especially similar others, are taking it.
5. Scarcity. People find objects and opportunities more attractive to the degree that they are
scarce, rare, or dwindling in availability.
6. Liking/Friendship. People prefer to say yes to those they know and like.

Reciprocation

If someone does a favor for you, you'll probably try to return it. You'll feel obliged. As an
experiment, a behavioral researcher sent Christmas cards to a group of complete strangers. Back
came a flood of reciprocating cards, though none of the people sending the cards knew the
researcher. The rule of reciprocity is a very strong compliance trigger.

Professor Cialdini insists:

“[H]uman societies derive a truly significant competitive advantage from the reciprocity rule, and
consequently they make sure their members are trained to comply with and believe in it. Each of
us has been taught to live up to the rule and each of us knows about the social sanctions. . .
applied to anyone who violates it. ... Because there is general distaste for those who take and
make no effort to give in return, we will often go to great lengths to avoid being considered one of
their number.”

When we feel indebted, we'll act against our own interests to escape our disapproval of ourselves
for breaking the reciprocity rule.

We feel obligated to give back even if we never ask for the favor. That is, someone else can
initiate a relationship of obligation without our asking for it. Charities that send us free labels
printed with our names and addresses count on this. So do homeless people who wash our car
windows while we fill our gas tanks. We will sometimes try to stop the disquieting tickle caused
by indebtedness by doing foolish or dangerous things, such as lending our cars to people we
know are bad drivers. (I know; I lost a car that way.)

Skilled negotiators use the reciprocity trigger to get their way. Their opening move may be to try
to sell you a very expensive product or ask for an oversize sum as a donation; when they back
down from their initial gambit, you feel you have been given a favor and become willing to spend
more than you ever planned. When the reciprocity trigger sends you down this compliance path a
couple of remarkable things follow, both counterintuitive: 1) although you've been manipulated,
you feel you had a responsible part in making the agreement and want to fulfill it; and 2) you are
likely to get satisfaction from whatever you agreed to.

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Though Ciardini goes to considerable length to show that we are all sometimes patsies for the
reciprocation trigger, he says we don't have to let automatic response rule our actions. The answer
is not only to follow our contrarian instincts, to throw away the unwanted address labels or to
push away the homeless window washer. It is also to recognize the offerings, address labels,
cleaner windows, or approval of our status as what they are: efforts to create obligation.

“To engage in this sort of arrangement with another is not to be exploited by that person through
the rule for reciprocation. Quite the contrary, it is to participate fairly in the 'honored network of
obligation' that has served us so well, both individually and societally, since the dawn of humanity.
However, if the initial favor turns out to be a device, a trick, an artifice designed specifically to
stimulate our compliance with a larger return favor, that is a different story. Our partner is not a
benefactor but a profiteer.”

That is, insincere favors create no obligation. Sadly, surrounded by so many con games, we all
must become more and more practiced at making that crucial distinction. This is not good for us,
but neither is being taken for suckers by our better instincts.

Commitment and Consistency

Professor Cialdini calls these compliance triggers "the hobgoblins of the mind." They are
powerful motivators.

“We all fool ourselves from time to time in order to keep our thoughts and beliefs consistent with
what we have already done or decided. ... In most circumstances, consistency is valued and
adaptive. ...The person whose beliefs, words, and deeds don't match may be seen as indecisive,
confused, two-faced, or even mentally ill. On the other side, a high degree of consistency is
normally associated with personal and intellectual strength.”

It's pretty easy to figure out which side of that dichotomy we want to put ourselves on.

But automatic consistency can be a trap. Once we've adopted an opinion, we'll come up with
reasons to stay with it rather than risk painful re-evaluation. To take the obvious example, liberals
marvel at the loyalty of Bush supporters as their guy blunders from failure to criminality. But how
many of us, when John Kerry's nomination became a fact, struggled to believe that he was not
just some boring establishment stiff?

As anyone who has ever mobilized people for action knows, the consistency trigger begins to
work after people make an initial commitment. Cialdini reports some ingenious experiments that
support this. I particularly enjoyed the story of the folks living in an affluent neighborhood who
were set up by an enterprising researcher. He sent students door to door, asking that they put up a
3"x3" sticker that read "Be a safe driver." Most did.

Three weeks later he sent back another student with a different task -- would they place a large
public service billboard on their lawns? "To get an idea of just how the sign would look, they
were shown a photograph depicting an attractive house, the view of which was almost completely
obscured by a very large, poorly lettered sign reading DRIVE CAREFULLY." Fully 76 percent of
those who had put up the sticker agreed to have the thing on their lawns! Putting up the sticker
had implanted the idea of themselves as people who were active campaigners for public good and
they now eagerly complied to preserve that self image.

Cialdini is frightened by the power that the weapons of consistency and commitment can
exercise.

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“It scares me enough that I am rarely willing to sign a petition anymore, even for a position I
support. Such an action has the potential to influence not only my future behavior, but also my
self-image in ways I may not want. And once a person's self-image is altered, all sorts of subtle
advantages become available to someone who wants to exploit that new image.”

I think this insight somewhat dates this book; since the 1960s when this behavioral research was
done, many of us have become much more reluctant to make the small commitment that can trap
us into a larger one. One obvious example is that many less of us will respond to pollsters at all.
We fear, with some reason, that we are just being pushed. (Interestingly, Cialdini reports research
that showed that just getting a statement from interviewees that they would cast a ballot
measurably raised the likelihood they would subsequently vote.)

Authority

Cialdini summarizes what he is his talking about like this:

• Authority. People are more willing to follow the directions or recommendations of a

communicator to whom they attribute relevant authority or expertise.

This author is clearly distressed by the consequences when people follow authority by rote. He
describes at length the notorious Milgram experiment which revealed that most randomly
selected subjects would "harm" another person if urged on by an authority. He also looks at the
case of the train crew that followed an order to mow down protester Brian Willson, cutting off his
legs -- and then sued Willson for causing them mental anguish by failing to get out of the way.
But as with all the compliance triggers, this one exists because it serves useful social purposes:

“Conforming to the dictates of authority figures has always had genuine practical
advantages....Early on, these people (for example, parents, teachers) knew more than we did,
and we found their advice beneficial....As adults, the same benefits persist for the same reasons,
though the authority figures now appear as employers, judges, and government leaders. Because
their positions speak of superior access to information and power, it makes great sense to comply
with the wishes of properly constituted authorities. It makes so much sense, in fact, that we
often do so when it makes no sense at all.”

Cialdini's proposed counterweight to the authority compliance trigger is simple: we need to learn
to ask ourselves: "is this authority truly an expert?"

The professor then suggests a second question, "how truthful can we expect the expert to be
here?" Is a compliance professional/salesman/expert/authority aiming to trick us?

Social Validation

We're all suckers some of the time. And many of those times it happens because we feel
uncertain, look around, see what others are doing, and do the same. Cialdini reminds us that
looking for what he calls "social validation" or "social proof" may lead us astray, but as with all
the compliance triggers he discusses, this instinct can be helpful to us in times of uncertainty.

“Usually, when a lot of people are doing something, it is the right thing to do. ...the problem comes
when we begin responding to social proof in such a mindless and reflexive fashion that we can be
fooled by partial or fake evidence.”

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His examples of minor occasions when we are manipulated by social validation includes joining
in with sitcom laugh tracks, being moved to tip by the bartender who displays a jar full of dollars,
and emulating the lists of donors thanked during pledge drives.

Following our instinct to base our behavior on social proof can however lead to genuinely bad
consequences. Cialdini discusses the notorious case of the 1964 murder of Catherine Genovese:
"for more than half an hour, thirty eight respectable, law-abiding citizens in Queens watched a
killer stalk and stab a woman in three separate attacks." Why didn't anyone intervene or at least
call the police? Newspapers agonized over the question for weeks, accusing urban society of
becoming newly "cold" or apathetic. Social psychologists propose a different explanation:
Genovese got no help because, in a confusing situation, all thirty eight witness thought first,
someone else is doing something, and second, since I don't see or hear others intervening, I must
be misconstruing that woman's screams, she must not need help. The search for social validation
in an unfamiliar and threatening situation froze the observers.

Cialdini describes finding himself at risk in such a situation: after an auto accident in a busy
intersection in which both he and the other driver were injured, cars began to simply pull around
their stopped vehicles. He roused himself, although bloody and disoriented, to point to particular
drivers saying "You! Call the police;" "You! Call an ambulance." etc. He reports that "not only
was [their] help rapid and solicitous, it was infectious. After drivers entering the intersection from
the other direction saw cars stopping for me, they stopped and began tending the other driver."
Understanding how to use the instinct most of us have to do what we see others doing got the
professor and the other driver to the hospital promptly.

Following the prompting of social proof can also get people killed. Cialdini ascribes the
willingness of 910 members of the Reverend Jim Jones' Peoples Temple to commit mass suicide
in its Guyana colony in 1978 to their isolation in an environment where their only mooring was
the behavior of other members.

Scarcity

When Cialdini names "scarcity" a weapon of influence, a compliance trigger, he is not talking
about starvation. He is referring to the fact for most of us, most of the time, "opportunities seem
more valuable to us when their availability is limited."

What is going on? As with the other weapons of influence, we're applying shortcut reasoning to
avoid having to expend energy making choices:

“...Because we know that the things that are difficult to possess are typically better than those that
are easy to possess, we can often use an item's availability to help us quickly and correctly
decide on its quality. ...

[Additionally,] as opportunities become less available, we lose freedoms; and we hate to lose the
freedoms we already have....So, when increasing scarcity...interferes with our prior access to
some item, we will react against the interference by wanting and trying to possess the item more
than before.”

The notion embedded in this that "freedom" equals the "opportunity to possess" certainly
describes our capitalist culture of greed and maximized consumption of material goods. Cialdini
insists he is describing a behavior pattern that governs our actions well beyond getting and

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spending.

He gives two interesting examples of how laws regulating people's behavior inspire scarcity-
triggered responses. The city of Kennesaw, Georgia, passed an ordinance requiring residents to
own a gun; local gun sales soared. But the buyers were not residents! They were out-of-towners
attracted by the publicity about the law. Kennesaw citizens who had opposed the gun law
remained quietly, but Cialdini says "massively," noncompliant. They weren't going to let some
City Council make them own a gun.

Likewise, when Miami banned sale and possession of phosphate-based detergents, residents took
to smuggling in supplies and hoarding. When their attitudes were surveyed and compared with
those of people in Tampa where phosphate products were both readily available and legal, Miami
residents also thought that phosphate containing products were gentler, more effective in cold
water, better whiteners, more powerful on stains, and poured better.