Influence: The Principle of Liking

"Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion" by Robert Cialdini

Liking

• As a rule, we most prefer to say yes to the requests of someone we know and like. This simple rule is used in hundreds of ways by total strangers to get us to comply with their requests.
• By providing the hostess with a % of the take, the Tupperware Corporation arranges for its customers to buy from and for a friend rather than an unknown sales person. In this way, the attraction, the warmth, the security, and the obligation of friendship are brought to bear on the sales setting.
• They understand perfectly how much more difficult it is for us to turn down a charity request when it comes from a friend or a neighbor. The friend doesn't even have to be present to be effective; often just the mention of the friends name is enough.
• The key to the success of this method is that each new prospect is visited by a salesperson armed with the name of a friend "who suggested I call on you." Turning the salesperson away under those circumstances is difficult; its almost like rejecting the friend.
• Shaklee sales manual: "It would be impossible to over-estimate it's value. Phoning or calling on a prospect and being able to say that Mr. So-and-so, a friend of his, felt he would benefit by giving you a few moments of his time is virtually as a sale 50% made before you enter."
• There seems to be a click, whirr response to attractive people. Research has shown that we automatically assign to good-looking individuals such favorable traits as talent, kindness, honesty, and intelligence. Furthermore, we make these judgements without being aware that physical attractiveness plays a role in the process.
• It is apparent that good-looking people enjoy an enormous social advantage in our culture. They are better liked, more persuasive, more frequently helped, and seen as possessing better personality traits and intellectual capacities.
• We like people who are similar to us. This fact seems to hold true whether the similarity is in the area of opinions, personality traits, background or lifestyle. Consequently, those who wish to be liked in order to increase our compliance can accomplish that purpose by appearing similar to us in any of a wide variety of ways.
• Even small similarities can be effective in producing a positive response to another and because a veneer of similarity can be so easily manufactured, I would advise special caution in the presence of requestors who claim to be "just-like-you".
• Many sales training programs now urge trainees to "mirror and match" the customer's body posture, mood, and verbal style, as similarities along each of these dimensions have been shown to lead to positive results.
• The information that someone fancies us can be a bewitchingly effective device for producing return liking and willing compliance.
• We tend, as a rule, to believe praise and to like those who provide it, oftentimes when it is clearly false.
• Apparently we have such an automatically positive reaction to compliments that we can fall victim to someone who uses them in an obvious attempt to win our favor. Click, whirr.
• Although the familiarity produced by contact usually leads to greater liking, the opposite occurs if the contact carries distasteful experiences with it.
• Compliance professionals are forever attempting to establish that we and they are working for the same goals, that we must "pull together" for mutual benefit, that they are, in essence, our teammates.
• "The nature of bad news infects the teller." There is a natural human tendency to dislike a person who brings us unpleasant information, even when that person did not cause the bad news.
• Compliance professionals are incessantly trying to connect themselves or their products with the things we like. The advertiser is betting that we will respond to the product in the same ways we respond to the attractive models merely associated with it.
• Using what he termed "the luncheon technique," he found that his subjects became fonder of the people and things they experienced while they were eating.
• All kinds of desirable things can substitute for food in lending their likable qualities to the ideas, products, and people artificially linked to them. In the final analysis, then, that is why those good looking models are standing around in the magazine ads. And that is why radio programmers are instructed to insert the station's call letters jingle immediately before a hit song is played.
• The students had previously learned that, to be liked, they should connect themselves to good news but not bad news.
• The relationship between sport and the earnest fan is anything but game like. It is serious, intense, and highly personal.
• Isaac Asimov: "All things being equal, you root for your own sex, your own culture, your own locality... and what you want to prove is that you are better than the other person. Whomever you root for represents you; and when he wins, you win.
• Persia's messengers did not have to cause the news, my weatherman did not have to cause the weather and Pavlov's bell did not have to cause the food for powerful effects to occur. The association was enough.
• The results showed that many more home-school shirts were worn if the football team had won its game on the prior Saturday. What's more, the larger the margin of victory, the more such shirts appeared.
• Whenever our public image is damaged, we will experience an increased desire to restore that image by trumpeting our ties to successful others. At the same time, we will most scrupulously avoid publicizing our ties to failing others.

INFLUENCE: The Principle of Authority

"Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion" by Robert Cialdini

Authority

• Re: Stanley Milgram shock experiment: What could make us do such things? Milgram is sure he knows the answer. It has to do, he says, with a deep-seated sense of duty to authority within us all.
• Milgram: "It is the extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of an authority that constitutes the chief finding of the study."
• We are trained from birth that obedience to proper authority is right and disobedience is wrong.
• We rarely agonize over the pros and cons of authority's demands. In fact, our obedience frequently takes place in a click, whirr fashion with little or no conscience deliberation. Information from a recognized authority can provide us a valuable shortcut for deciding how to act in a situation.
• Once we realize that obedience to authority is mostly rewarding, it is easy to allow ourselves the convenience of automatic obedience. Although such mindless obedience leads us to appropriate action in the great majority of cases, there will be conspicuous exceptions - because we are reacting rather than thinking.
• Once a legitimate authority has given an order, subordinates stop thinking in the situation and start reacting.
• Re: Robert Young Sanka Commercial: Ability to use the influence of the Authority principle without ever providing a real authority. The appearance of authority was enough.
• When in a click, whirr mode, we are often as vulnerable to the symbols of authority as to the substance.
• Compliance professionals who are short on substance: Con artists, for example, drape themselves with the titles, clothes, and trappings of authority. They love nothing more than to emerge elegantly dressed from a fine automobile and to introduce themselves to their prospective "mark" as Doctor or Judge or Professor or Commissioner Someone. They understand that when they are so equipped, their chances for compliance are greatly increased.
• Re Titles: Titles are simultaneously the most difficult and easiest symbols of authority to acquire. To earn one normally takes years of work and achievement. Yet it is possible for somebody who has put in none of this effort to adopt the mere label and receive a kind of automatic deference.
• Our actions are frequently more influenced by a title than by the nature of the person claiming it.
• Highly trained and skilled nurses were not using that training or skill sufficiently to check on a doctor's judgement; instead, when confronted with a physicians directives, they would simply defer.
• Regardless of the type of request, many more people obeyed the requestor when he wore the guard costume.
• Nearly all the pedestrians complied with his directive when he had worn the guard costume, but fewer than 1/2 did so when he dressed normally.
• Motorists would wait significantly longer before honking their horns at a new, luxury car stopped in front of a green traffic light than at an older, economy model.
• People were unable to predict correctly how they or others would react to authority influence. In each instance, the effect of such influence was grossly underestimated. This property of authority status may account for much of its success as a compliance device. Not only does it work forcefully on us, but it also does so unexpectedly.
• Because we typically misperceive the profound impact of authority (and its symbols) on our actions, we are at the disadvantage of being insufficiently cautious about its presence in compliance situations.
• Isn't it fascinating how, when we are whirring along, what is obvious often doesn't matter unless we pay specific attention to it?
• A tactic compliance practitioners use to assure us of their sincerity: They will seem to argue to a degree against their own interests. Correctly done, this can be a subtly effective device for proving their honesty. Perhaps they will mention a small shortcoming in their position or product. Invariably, though, the drawback will be a secondary one that is easily overcome by more significant advantages. By establishing their basic truthfulness on minor issues, the compliance professionals who use this ploy can then be more believable when stressing the important aspects of their argument.
• Who, after all, is more believable than a demonstrated expert of proven sincerity? Vincent the waiter: Much of his profit came from an apparent lack of concern for personal profit. Seeming to argue against his financial interests served those interests extremely well.
  

INFLUENCE: The Principle of Scarcity

"Influence, The Psychology of Persuasion" by Robert Cialdini.

Scarcity

• Something that, on its own merits, held little appeal for me had become decidedly more attractive merely because it would soon become unavailable.
• People seem to be more motivated by the thought of losing something than by the thought of gaining something of equal value. Homeowners told how much money they could lose from inadequate insulation are more likely to insulate their homes than those told how much they could save.
• Pamphlets urging young women to check for breast cancer through self-examination are significantly more successful if they state their case in terms of what stands to be lost (e.g. "You can lose several potential health benefits...") rather than gained (e.g. "You can gain several potential health benefits...")
• As a rule, if it is rare or becoming rare, it is more valuable.
• "I see you're interested in this model here, and I can understand why; it's a great machine at a great price. But, unfortunately, I sold it to another couple not more than 20 minutes ago. And, if I'm not mistaken, it was the last one we had. ......then...... Do I understand that this is the model you want and if I can get it for you at this price, you'll take it? (Another unit would then magically be left in the back)
• One theatre owner, with remarkable singleness of purpose, had managed to invode the scarcity principle 3 separate times in just 5 words: "Exclusive, limited engagement ends soon!"
• A variant of the deadline tactic is much favored by some face-to-face, high pressure sellers because it carries the purest form of decision deadline: right now. Customers are often told that unless they make an immediate decision to buy, they will have to purchase the item at a higher price or they will be unable to purchase it at all.
• Can't come back tactic: It is to "keep the prospects from taking the time to think the deal over by scaring them into believing they can't have it later, which makes them want it now."
• Because we know that the things that are difficult to possess are typically better than the things that are easy to possess, we can often use an item's availability to help us quickly and correctly decide on its quality.
• Secondary source of power: As opportunities become less available , we lose freedoms and we hate to lose freedoms we already have.
• According to the theory, whenever free choice is limited or threatened, the need to retain our freedoms makes us desire them (as well as the goods and services associated with them) significantly more than previously. So when increasing scarcity - or anything else - 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.
• We show the strong tendency to react against restrictions on our freedoms of action throughout our lives.
• When our freedom to have something is limited, the item becomes less available and we experience an increased desire for it. However, we rarely recognize that psychological reactance has caused us to want the item more; all we know is that we want it. Still, we need to make sense of our desire for the item, so we begin to assign it positive qualities to justify the desire.
• Almost invariably, our response to the banning of information is a greater desire to receive that information and a more favorable attitude toward it than before the ban.
• Possibility that especially clever individuals holding a weak or unpopular position can get us to agree with that position by arranging to have their message restricted. The most effective strategy may not be to publicize their unpopular views, but to get those views officially censored, and to publicize the cencorship.
• 50% of students received "a book for adults only, restricted to those 21 and over." 50% received the same book with no such restriction. Those who learned of the age restriction: 1. Wanted to read the book more. 2. Believed that they would like the book more.
• Censoring & Banning: People involved came to want the restricted item more and, as a result, came to feel more favorable toward it.
• Compared to the customers who got only the standard sales appeal, those who were also told about the future scarcity of beef bought more than twice as much. But the real boost in sales occurred among the customers who heard of the impending scarcity via "exclusive information." They purchased six times the amount that the customers who received only the standard sales pitch did.
• The fact that the news carrying the scarcity of information was itself scarce made it especially persuasive.
• When the cookie was one of the only two available, it was rated more favorably than when it was one of ten. The cookie in short supply was rated as more desirable to eat in the future, more attractive as a consumer item, and more costly than the identical cookie in abundant supply.
• Department stores holding a bargain sale toss out a few especially good deals on prominently advertised items called loss leaders. If the bait has done its job, a large and eager crowd forms to snap it up. Soon, in the rush to score, the group becomes agitated, nearly blinded, by the adversarial nature of the situation. Humans and fish alike lose perspective on what they want and begin striking at whatever is being contested.
• Extreme caution is advised whenever we encounter the devilish construction of scarcity plus rivalry.
• Do we value more those things that have recently become less available to us, or those things that have always been scarce? In the cookie experiment the answer was plain. The drop from abundance to scarcity produced a decidedly more positive reaction to the cookies than did constant scarcity.
• This pattern offers a valuable lesson for would-be rulers: When it comes to freedoms, it is more dangerous to have given for a while than never to have given at all. And should these now established freedoms become less available, there will be an especially hot variety of hell to pay.
• And when these now-established freedoms were threatened, the people lashed out the way a dog would if someone tried to take a fresh bone from its mouth.
• Freedoms once granted will not be relinquished without a fight.
• The parent who grants privileges or enforces rules erratically invites rebelliousness by unwittingly establishing freedoms for the child.
• People see a thing as more desirable when it has recently become less available than when it has been scarce all along.
• The cookies made less available through social demand were rated the most desirable in the study. --> No only do we want the same item more when it is scarce, we want it most when we are in competition for it.
• The feeling of being in competition for scarce resources has powerfully motivating properties.
• "Goosing 'em of the fence can work devastatingly well. The thought of losing out to a rival frequently turns a buyer from hesitant to zealous.
• Barry Diller: Even the "miracle mogul" was no match for the right mix of competition and scarcity.
• Our typical reaction to scarcity hinders our ability to think. When we watch something we want become less available, a physical agitation sets in. Especially in those cases involving direct competition, the blood comes up, the focus narrows, and emotions rise. As this visceral current advances, the cognitive, rational side retreats. In the rush of arousal, it is difficult to be calm and studied in our approach.
• Cognitive processes are suppressed by our emotional reaction to scarcity. In fact, this may be the reason for the great effectiveness of scarcity tactics. When they are employed properly, our first line of defense against foolish behavior - a thoughtful analysis of the situation - becomes less likely.
• The joy is not in experiencing a scarce commodity, but in possessing it. It is important that we not confuse the two.
• Each prospect who was interested enough to want to see the car was given an appointment time - the same appointment time. This little device of simultaneous scheduling paved the way for later compliance because it created an atmosphere of competition for a limited resource.
• Re selling a car: The trap snapped surely shut as soon as the 3rd two o'clock appointment arrived on the scene. According to Richard, stacked-up competition was usually too much for the first prospect to bear. He would end the pressure quickly by either agreeing to Richards price or by leaving abruptly. In the latter instance, the second arrival would strike at the chance to buy out of a sense of relief coupled with a new feeling of rivalry with that... that... lurking newcomer over there.

Epilogue

• Where we are rushed, stressed, uncertain, indifferent, distracted, or fatigued, we tend to focus on less of the information available to us. When making decisions under these circumstances, we often revert to the rather primitive but necessary single-piece-of-good-evidence approach.
• With the sophisticated mental apparatus we have used to build world eminence as a species, we have created an environment so complex, fast-paced, and information-laden that we must increasingly deal with it in the fashion of the animals we long ago transcended.