Weeks 9-12by Mimicker As always, material presented within the post are from lectures of Cialdini and from a book he wrote with Kenrick and Neuberg, "Social Psychology ~ Unraveling the Mystery." Let's start off with Persuasion. But what exactly is Persuasion? Although social scientists have defined persuasion in a variety of ways, we view it as a change in private ATTITUDES or BELIEFS resulting from the receipt of a message. First, let's talk about attitudes and define them. Attitudes are defined as simply "favorable or unfavorable evaluations of particular things." ATTITUDE-BEHAVIOR CONSISTENCY Are our behaviors always consistent with our attitudes? Not always. As I'm sure you know, many people will say one thing, but do another. Several factors influence the likelihood that a person's attitude will be consistent with his or her behavior though, a few of them are: Knowledge: The more knowledge we have about something, the more likely it is our pertinent attitudes and actions are consistent with one another. Two aspects of knowledge intensify the link between attitudes and related actions - the AMOUNT of knowledge acquired on the subject and the DIRECT NATURE of the knowledge. Personal Relevance: One’s attitude on a topic will be a better predictor of one's deeds when the topic is personally relevant. Attitude Accessibility: An attitude is accessible to the degree that is springs to mind quickly. And, a highly accessible attitude is like to stimulate actions that are consistent with it. If you asked each of your friends about their attitudes toward gun control law, you should be able to tell which of them would act consistently with their responses by judging how quickly they offered the responses. Of course, attitudes aren't the only factors that influence actions. In fact, Icek Ajzen and Martin Fishbein claim that attitudes influence action by first influencing a person's BEHAVIOR INTENTIONS (specific aims to act in a certain way) and that these intentions are more likely than the attitudes themselves to predict behavior. In their "theory of planned behavior," these researchers identified two additional factors (besides attitudes) said to influence behavior through their impact on behavioral intentions. First is what they termed SUBJECTIVE NORMS, which refer to a person's perception that IMPORTANT others would approve or disapprove of their behavior in question. The second additional factor said to influence behavioral intentions is PERCEIVED BEHAVIORAL CONTROL, which refers to one's perception of how difficult it is to perform the behavior in question. COGNITIVE RESPONSES: SELF-TALK - Early approaches to attitude change emphasized the importance of the message itself - it's clarity, logic, memorablity, and so on - because it was thought that the target's comprehension and learning of the message content were critical to persuasion. Although this is often true, a valuable insight into what motivates people to change was offered by Anthony Greenwald in the COGNITIVE RESPONSE MODEL of persuasion, which represents a subtle but critical shift in thinking about attitude change. Greenwald proposed that the best indication of how much change a communicator will produce lies not in what the communicator says to the persuasion target, but rather, in what the target says to him or herself as a result of receiving the communication. According to this model, the message is not directly responsible for change. Instead, the direct cause is the SELF-TALK - the internal cognitive responses or thinking - people engage in after being exposed to the message. A great deals of research supports the model by showing that persuasion is powerfully affected by the amount of self-talk that occurs in response to a message, by the degree to which the self-talk supports the message, and by the confidence that recipients express in the validity of that self-talk. Here's a few ways to generate self-talk that will help persuade Positive Self-Talk: You want to find ways to stimulate positive cognitive responses to your message (obviously). Counterarguments: You should think about how to avoid negative cognitive responses - especially counterarguments, which weaken the impact of a persuasive message by arguing against it. Thus, you might want to include in your message some information from an expert, since typically people generate fewer conterarguments against a position if they learn that an expert holds it. Other tactics for reducing counterarguing have also proven affective: Giving people little time to formulate counterarguments or giving them distracting or overburdening tasks that drain their ability to counterargue makes people more susceptible to persuasion. Inoculation and Counterarguing: Factors that stimulate counterarguing decrease persuasion. You can use this fact to neutralize an opponent's message. One clever way to stimulate counterarguing in an audience is to send an UNCONVINCING message FAVORING your opponent's position, which will cause the audience to think of all sorts of arguments against that rival position. Then, when your opponent delivers a strong version of his or her message, the audience will already have a set of counterarguments to attack it. William McGuire has named this the inoculation procedure, because of its similarity to disease inoculation procedures in which a weakened form of a virus is injected into healthy individuals. Although the inoculation procedure offers an ingenious and effective approach, by far the most common tactic for reducing the persuasiveness of an opponent's message is simply to give people direct counterarguments against the strongest arguments of that message. In the advertising area, this tactic can be highly effective. WHY PEOPLE CHANGE THEIR ATTITUDES - Individuals mainly yield to a persuasive message in order to: 1. Hold a more accurate view of the world
2. Be consistent within themselves, or
3. Gain social approval and acceptance. Although these three goals don't always operative consciously, in the remainder of this post, we will consider how they motivate people to change. SEEKING ACCURACY - Frequently, people want to be accurate but don't have the time or ability to analyze the evidence closely. What then? They often rely on a difference kind of evidence to help them choose correctly - shortcut evidence of accuracy. This shortcut evidence can be gathered from three sources: credible communicators, others' responses, and ready ideas.... Credible Communicators: Over many years of research, two characteristics of a credible communicator have come up over and over again: they are being an EXPERT, and being TRUSTWORTHY. Expertise: Two thousand years ago, the great Roman poet Virgin offered simply advice to those seeking a shortcut to accuracy: "Believe an expert." Today, most people follow that advice. For instance, when the media present an expert's view on a topic, the effect on public opinion is dramatic. A single expert opinion news story in the New York Times is associated with a 2% shift in public opinion nationwide; when the expert's statement is aired on national television, the impact nearly doubles. Trustworthiness: How can you appear to be trustworthy? You need to convey that you're honest and unbiased. You can do this a couple of ways: Convey the impression that your message is intended not to change attitudes in order the serve your own best interest, but instead to serve your AUDIENCE's best interests by informing them accurately about the issues. Another is trickier: Rather than arguing only in their own favor, make a show of proving BOTH sides to an argument - the pros and cons - which gives the impression of honest and impartiality. Researchers have long known that communicators who present two-sided arguments and who appear to be arguing against their own interests can gain the trust of their audiences and become more influential, especially when the audience initially disagrees with the communicator. Advertisers have hit on one particularly effective way of seeming to argue against their own interests. They mention MINOR weaknesses or drawbacks of their product in ads promoting it. That way, they create a perception of honesty from which they can be more persuasive about the MAJOR strengths of the product. Others' Responses: When people want to react correctly to a persuasive messages but don’t have the motivation or ability to think about it deeply, there is another kind of shortcut they can take. They can observe the responses of others to the message. For example, if under such conditions you heard a political speech and everyone in the audience around you responded enthusiastically to it, you might well conclude that the speech was a good one and become persuaded in its direction. In addition, the more consensus you witnessed among audience members, the more like you would be to follow their lead, even if you didn't initially agree with them. It's for this reason that interrogators are taught to say to a suspect "We believe you are guilty" rather than "I believe you are guilty." Ready Ideas: One shortcut people use to decided the validity or likelihood of an idea is how easily they can picture it or instances of it. This gives communicators a subtle way to get an audience to accept an idea - by making the idea more COGNITIVELY READY, that is, easier to picture or bring to mind. Communicators can use two methods to make an idea more cognitively ready. The first is to present the idea several times. Much research shows that repeated assertions are seen as more valid. Moreover, after an idea is encountered several times, it becomes more family and easier to picture, which makes it seem more true. The second method is having the audience IMAGINE an idea or event. After you have once imagined something, it becomes easier to picture the next time you consider it, thus appearing more likely. The impact of imagining isn't limited to believe it influences behavior too. In one study homeowners were asked to imagine themselves experiencing certain benefits of Cable TV; other homeowners only read about these benefits. Weeks later, the homeowners were given the opportunity to subscribe to cable TV. Those who had imagined themselves enjoying the benefits of cable TV were more than twice as likely to subscribe (47% versus 20%). WHAT AFFECTS THE DESIRE FOR ACCURACY? - Issue Involvement: You probably have opinions on thousands of issues. Although it would be nice to hold accurate views on them all, you are more motivated to be correct concerning those that involve you directly. One study showed how easy it is for advertisers to get you more involved with a topic so that you will pay careful attention to their message. The researchers wore advertising copy - for disposable razors - that either used the self-referencing pronoun YOU exclusively ("You might have thought that razor technology could never be so improved") or did not. Individuals who saw the self-referencing ads thought more thoroughly about the information and were only influenced by it when it contains strong arguments. Can YOU see how YOU could incorporate this device into YOUR next persuasion attempt? Mood: When in a sad versus a happy mood, you will be especially motivated to acquire accurate attitudes and beliefs that pertain to the situation at hand - because of what your mood says about the potential danger of making errors in the immediate environment. Done Deals: Peter Gollwitzer and his coworkers have shown that there is a particular time when people are most motivated to be accurate - when they are deciding what to feel, believe, or do. AFTER that decision is made, however, the desire to see things as they really are can give way to the desire to get on with the now-made decision. As Napoleon advised his general, "Take time to deliberate; but, when the time for action has arrived, stop thinking and go in." Unwelcome Information: People choose to believe only what they want to believe, and what usually fits with their self-interest and personal preferences. People see information that contradicts what they prefer as less believable and valid than information that supports these beliefs; as a result, such evidence is less persuasive. For example, people who receive persuasive information that fits with their interest, preferences and position feel content and typically don't expend the cognitive effort to look for flaws. However, those who encounter information that doesn't fit become upset and search it for weakness they can use to form counterarguments. Although it is not necessarily harmful to scrutinize and resist information at odds with one's preferred traits and believe, it can be self-destructive if overdone. Expertise and Complexity: How swayed are you by experts? In one study, they found that highly expert witness testimony was more successful in swaying the jury when he spoke in COMPLEX, DIFFICULT-TO-UNDERSTAND terms. Why? The study’s authors think that when the expert used simply language, people could judge the case on the basis of the evidence itself. They didn't need to use his expertise as a shortcut to accuracy. However, when his testimony was too obscure to understand, they had to rely on his reputation as an expert to tell them what to think. These results suggest an interesting but discomforting irony: Acknowledge experts may be the most persuasive when people can't understand the details of what they are saying! BEING CONSISTENT - In social psychology, there is something called the CONSISTENCY PRINCIPLE, which states that people are motivated toward cognitive consistency and will change their attitudes, beliefs, perceptions, and actions to achieve it. We will first examine the two main consistency theories - balance and cognitive dissonance - that have guided the investigations of persuasion researchers. BALANCE THEORY - The balance theory states that we all prefer to have harmony and consistency in our views in the world. We want to agree with the people we like and disagree with those we dislikes; we want to associate good things with good people and bad things with bad people; we want to see things that are alike in one way as alike in other ways too. Such harmony creates a state of cognitive balance in us. But if our cognitive state of balance is out of balance - for example, when finding ourselves disagreeing on an issue with one of our very good friends - well experience an uncomfortable tension. To remove this tension, we will have to change something... for example by either changing our stance on the issue or our stance on the friend. COGNITIVE DISSONANCE THEORY - Like balance theory, this theory's basic assumption is that when people recognize an inconsistency among their attitudes, believes, or behaviors, they will feel a state of uncomfortable psychological arousal (termed COGNITIVE DISSONANCE) and will be motivated to reduce the discomfort by reducing the inconsistency. Before dissonance theory came to prominence, persuasion theorists had focused mainly on changing attitudes and beliefs first, assuming that these shifts would then cause behavior change. Although this sequence often occurs, one of the valuable contribution of dissonance theory has been to show that the reverse can also occur - changing a behavior first can spur an individual to change related attitudes and beliefs in an attempt to keep them consistent with the action. Counterattiduinal Behavior: A counterattidunal action - behavior that is inconsistent with an existing attitude - will produce change in that attitude only when there is insufficient justification. (i.e. no strong additional motivation for taking the action.) It is for this reason that contrary behavior leads to attitude change principally when the actor feels that he or she has had FREE CHOICE in performing it. For example, if you signed a petition supporting a disliked politician because your boss at work insisted on it, you would not be likely to feel a strain to become more positive toward the politician because you would probably see yourself as having little choice in the matter, given your boss's strong pressure. When potent external forces take away one's sense of personal choice in counterattitudinal behavior, dissonance rarely results. Postdecisional Dissonance: Another source of dissonance is postdecisional dissonance, which is the conflict one feels between the knowledge that he or she had made a decision and the possibility that the decision may be wrong. In general, soon after making a decision, people come to view their selections more favorable and all the alternative selections less favorable; this is particularly so when they feel highly committed (personally tied) to the decision. SALIENCE OF THE INCONSISTENY - If, as we suggested, people change their attitudes and believes to be rid of an inconsistency, then aspects of the situations that make the inconsistency salient (prominent) to them should produce greater change. One way to make an inconsistency salient is through the use of the Socratic method, an approach for shifting a person's position on a topic by posing questions that reveal hidden contradictions between it and the person's position on related topics. Socrates, the author of this method, felt that once the discrepancies were made obvious, the person would try to eliminate them. Research on persuasion has supported Socrates' prediction: Most people react to messages that reveal their inconsistencies by moving toward consistency. In fact, an effective way to get people to perform socially beneficial acts is to make salient the discrepancy between what they value and what they do. ----------------------- ^---- Alright, all the above was about "Persuasion." But now we will move onto "social influence." What's the difference between the two? Well, "social influence" is defined as a change in behavior caused by real or imagined pressure from others. Defining influence as a change in behavior distinguishes it from "persuasion," which as we discussed refers to a change in private attitudes and beliefs and which may not necessarily lead to behavior change. ----------------------- THE "FOOT-IN-THE-DOOR TECHNIQUE - The term foot-in-the-door refers to door-to-door salespeople getting one foot in the door as a way to gain fully entry. It's a very simple concept... if you want someone to comply with a large request that you know people would usually would say no to, you start with small requests that you know they would say yes to, and work your way up to the large requests. For instance, if you wanted to borrow $20 from your friend, it would be best to start with a small amount, like $5, and the chances of him saying yes to $20 would be increased. PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION BY CIALDINI - To study compliance, or behavior change that occurs as a result of a direct request, Cialdini enrolled in training programs of a broad range of professions - sales, advertising, fund raising, public relations, recruitment, and so on - leaning the same lessons that successful influence practitioners regularly pass on to trainee. Through it all, he found six widely used and successful principles of influence, to which we'll refer throughout this post, they include: -RECIPROCATION. People are more willing to comply with requests (for favors, services, information, and concessions) from those who have provided such things first. Because people feel an obligation to reciprocate, Cialdini found that free samples in supermarkets, free home inspections by exterminating companies, and free gifts through the mail from marketers or fund raisers were all highly effective ways to increase compliance with a follow-up request. For example, according to the Disabled American Veterans organization, mailing out a simple appeal for donations produces an 18% success rate, but enclosing a small gift - like personalized address labels - boosts the success rate to 35% -COMMITMENT/CONSISTENCY. People are more willing to be moved in a particular direction if they see it as consistent with an existing or recently made commitment. For instance, high-pressure door-to-door sales companies are plagued by some buyers' tendency to cancel the deal after the sales-person has left and the pressure to buy is no longer present. In training sessions Cialdini attended, several of the door-to-door sales companies claimed that they had significantly reduced this problem with a trick that heightens the customer's sense of personal commitment to the same: Rather than having the sales representative write in the details of the contract, they have the customer do it. -AUTHORITY. People are more willing to follow the direction or recommendations of someone they view as an authority. So automatic is the tendency to follow an author, Cialdini noted, that many times advertisers try to - and do - succeed merely by employing actors dressed to look like experts (scientists, physicians, police officers, and so on). -SOCIAL VALIDATION. People are more willing to take a recommended step if they see evidence that many others, especially similar others are taking it. Manufacturers make use of this principle by claiming that their products are the fastest growing or largest selling in the market. Cialdini found that the strategy of increasing compliance by providing evidence of others that had already complied was the most widely used of the six principles he encountered. -SCARCITY. People find objects and opportunities more attractive to the degree that they are scarce, rare, or dwindling in availability. Hence, newspaper ads are filled with warning to potential customers regarding the folly of delay: "Last three days." "Limited time offer." "One week only sale." One particularly single-minded movie theatre owner managed to load three separate appeals to the scarcity principle in just five words of advertising copy that read, "Exclusive, limited engagement, ends soon." -LIKING/FRIENDSHIP. People prefer to say yes to those they know and like. If you doubt that this is the case, consider the remarkable success of the Tupperware Home Party Corporation, which arranges for customers to buy its products not from a stranger across a counter, but from the neighbor, friend, or relative who has sponsored a Tupperware party and gets a percentage of its profits. According to interviews done by Cialdini, many people attend the parties and purchase the products, not out of a need for more containers that go pfffft when you press on them but out of a sense of liking or friendship for the party sponsor. DOOR-IN-THE-FACE TECHNIQUE - Rather than starting with a small request designed to get a yes and then advancing to the desired favor (as we saw in the "foot-in-the-door" technique), someone using the door-in-the-face technique begins with a large request intended, of all things, to get the target person to say no! After the target rejects the first request, however, the requester retreats to the desired favor. By retreating from a large first favor to a smaller one, the requester appears to make a concession to the target, who - through the norm of reciprocity - feels obligated to provide a return concession by agreeing to the reduced favor. THAT'S-NOT-ALL TECHNIQUE Related to the door-in-the-face technique but somewhat different, is the that's-not-all technique. An important procedural difference between the two techniques is that in the that's-not-all tactic, the target person does not turn down the first offer before a better second offer is provided. After making the first offer but before the target can respond, the requester betters the deal with an additional item or price reduction. One reason this technique works is that the target person feels a need to reciprocate the receipt of the improved deal. DISRUPT-THEN-REFRAME TECHNIQUE - Consider the problem facing Charlie, a door-to-door solicitor selling greeting cards at an excellent price. Part of his difficulty is that most customers feel resistant when asked to buy anything by someone who appears uninvited at their door, because they view the event as a potential scam. If Charlie could somehow disrupt the customers' perception of his offer as a scam and replace it with a more favorable conception of the offer, that should increase purchases by decreasing customers’ resistance. One way to do this is to say something confusing designed to disrupt customers' initial representation of the event and then quickly to reframe the event in favorable terms. For example, Charlie when selling his cards, instead of saying "They're $3. It's a bargain", could instead say "These cars sell for 300 pennies... that's $3. It's a bargain." In one experiment, when salesmen used these exact lines... the latter one pushed the success rate from 35% to 65%.... by disrupting the customers' typical, resistance-laden thinking (by saying "300 pennies") about door-to-door sales, it allowed the salespeople to strike swiftly and reframe the exchange as a bargain while the patrons were confused. REACTANCE THEORY - According to reactance theory, we all value our freedom to decide how to act. When something (such as social pressure) threatens to take away that freedom, we often respond by doing the opposite of what we are being pressured to do. For instance, one study found that drivers who returned to their parked cars were slower at leaving their parking spaces if another driver was waiting to take the space. In addition they moved even more slowly if the waiting driver honked to pressure them to leave faster. BEING CONSISTENT WITH COMMITMENTS - Restaurant owners typically face a big problem with callers who make reservations but fail to appear. Tables that could have been filled by paying customers stand empty, causing substantial economic loss. However, Gorgon Sinclair, who was the proprietor of Gordon's restaurant in Chicago, hit on a highly effective technique. He instructed his receptionist to stop saying, "Please call us if you change our plans," and to start asking, "Will you call us if you change your plans?" and to wait for a response. As a result, his no-show rate dropped from 30% to 10%. What is it about this subtle shift that leads to such a dramatic difference? The receptionist specifically asks for and waits for the customer's affirmative response. By inducing customers to make a personal commitment to a behavior, this approach increases the change they will perform the behavior. THE LOW-BALL TECHNIQUE - Someone using the low-ball technique first gets a commitment from another by offering a good deal, then - after the commitment is obtained - raising the cost of completing the deal. This tactic can be particularly effective. Why though? After making an active choice for something, people see it more positively and are reluctant to relinquish it. This is especially the case when they think they have come to own something, because once they have taken "mental possession" of an important object, it becomes part of their self-concept. THE BAIT-AND-SWITCH TECHNIQUE - Like the low-ball technique, the bait and switch works by first getting people to commit to a desirable arrangement. Once the commitment is in place, they are willing to accept a less attractive arrangement - one they would have likely bypasses before being tricked into making a commitment. THE LABELING TECHNIQUE - Another way to induce commitment to a course of action is to give a person a label that is consistent with the action, a procedure called the labeling technique. Two researchers tested this out by interviewing 162 voters and, at random, told half that, according to their interview responses, they were "above-average citizens likely to vote and participate in political events." The other half were told that they appeared to be average in these actives. As a result, those give the above-average label not only saw themselves as better citizens than those given the average label, but also they were more likely to vote in a local election held a week later. --------------------- Alright, that's it. This was the final of my Cialdini posts... hope you enjoyed them. This week, I'm not going to write up how I see this relating to PU... but if you have noticed, many of the already current techniques on mASF use these principles. And, when I field test some tactics/techniques that use these principles, I'll be sure to post them... and I hope you'll post some of your own too. Have a good summer guys! Mimicker Live Pickup Videos This article was originally posted on FastSeduction.com. You may find more articles by Mimicker in the Archive Search or the Poster Zip Archives.
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