Influence by Robert Cialdini Flashcards
What are the 6 influencing Principles?
ACLRSS
- authority
- commitment
- liking
- reciprocity
- scarcity
- social proof
explain system complexity reduction Pros and COns
People develop a natural bias to making certain decisions to simplify complex situations, it allows for:
Pros
- FAster decision making
- using less energy on decision
Cons
• they are like pre programmed short cuts that can be used to manipulate us. eg price = quality
Explain how reciprocation works. Give 3 examples
When given something for free, people feel obliged to return the favour
Example 1. Hare Krishna flowers at airport
- Free samples at supermarkets
- Guys buying dates expensive drinks or dinners
Explain Concessions and the Rejection and Retreat Technique
People feel more obliged to make a concession to us if we have made a concession to them.
Technique
- Make a big inital request (bigger than you want)
- It will be turned down,.
- Come back with a smaller request (which you always wanted)
- the reciever is more likely to accept as they feel you have comceded something to them
give example of when this Explain Concessions and the Rejection and Retreat Technique may be used
Salesman asking for referrals for other people who may what something that the buyer has said no to.
Explain why Concessions and the Rejection and Retreat Technique works
people feel more part of the agreement. They feel like they produced the concessions and influenced the outcome. So they feel more responsible for the outcome.
Explain how to avoid getting manipulated by Concessions and the Rejection and Retreat Technique
the moment you realize there’s a trick behind the initial gift you can redefine the gift as a sales tactic and free yourself from the reciprocity rule.
Explain Commitment and Consistency 4 points
- The principle of commitment and consistency is that of aligning actions, feelings, values, and beliefs.
- When actions and feelings are dis-aligned for example we feel cognitive dissonance, which is a sensation of mental discomfort.
- In that case, we might change our beliefs to justify our actions, or we will rationalize our actions in a way that will make us feel “good” about ourselves
- Meaning: we convince ourselves we have done the right choice.
Commitment and Consistency Explain the “how are you” manipulation What were the different % of giving?
- Solicitors asking for donations might ask you “how are you” first to make you admit you’re doing fine.
- After you stated aloud you’re good it’s then easier to corner you into aiding those for who are not as well as you are.
- The solicitor would say something like Manipulator: “I’m glad to hear you are well, because I’m calling to see if you’d be willing to make a donation for the unfortunate victims of X for whom things are not going too well”.
- Research by Daniel Howard showed an 18% agreement to people asked if they’d be willing to help the hunger relief program.
- But after asking “how are you feeling this evening” the percentage jumped to 32%.
Commitment and Consistency Explain The foot in the door Technique and self image Give an example
The foot in the door technique uses the Commitment and Consistency principle by starting small and then asking for more after the initial commitment has been done.
- Freedman and Fraser asked homeowners to install a big “drive carefully” billboard on their front lawns. 83% refused.
- But when a different group was asked to put a small 8cm sign and then asked for the billboard, 76% agreed.
Commitment and Consistency Explain The foot in the door Technique and self image Give an example re unrelated commitments
- Astoundingly another group agreed 50% of the times after they had signed a simple petition to “keep California beautiful”.
- Why would they accept a huge billboard after having signed a petition which was not even connected to driving safety?
- It’s because these people changed the way they looked at themselves: they started viewing themselves as active citizens acting in the public interest.
- So when they were asked later to install a huge billboard to (hopefully) help bring down road accidents they complied to stay consistent with their newly formed self-image.
Commitment and Consistency Explain the Low Ball Technique
- Start the ball rolling by giving a great deal or low risk deal,
- then later up the cost at which point other factors can come into play to make is more likely for them to continue with the arrangement
Commitment and Consistency Explain Actions Only Matter: The Chinese Brainwashing
People look at actions to determine personalities more than words.
- The Chinese in their efforts to converts POWs to communism realized that we also look at our own actions to assess who we are.
- So the Chinese built up from small actions to bigger and bigger commitments until they’d bring about full conversion to the communist ideology.
Commitment and Consistency Explain why Written Statements Increase Compliance
It increases the buyers focus on their own degree of commitment and involves a degree of effort on their part.
Commitment and Consistency Explain why Effort Increases Commitment Value Hazing
- People who spend a lot of effort to obtain something tend to value it more highly than if it had been very easy to obtain it.
- Cialdini says that’s the reason why so many groups have hazing and initiation procedures: making it difficult to enter a group makes the group more valuable
Commitment and Consistency Explain why Effort Increases Commitment
Should you give incentives
- Similarly, you are usually well served in giving small or no incentive for the behavior you want to encourage.
- People who had no major incentive feel like they chose and will accept more responsibility.
- This is the same principle of Intrinsic Motivation from Daniel Pink’s Drive.
Commitment and Consistency Explain Commitment Makes Us Take More Risks
An experiment in a beach showed the power of Commitment and Consistency even with the possibility of personal harm.
- Researcher 1 left his radio near to take a stroll and a Researcher 2 stole it pretending it to be a thief.
- Only 4 out of 20 people it was tried on to stop him.
- But when Researcher 1 asked to “please watch his things” 19 of the 20 people it was tried on became ran after the thief.
Commitment and Consistency
Explain why Commitment and Consistency works
Cialdini says the Commitment and Consistency principle works because it’s
• valuable and adaptive.
Consistency is another way to
• reduce complexity
• and mental load by offering a shortcut.
You commit to something
- *• and don’t have to think about it anymore.**
- *Inconsistency instead**
• raises our mental load and is commonly thought to be
• an undesirable trait.
Commitment and Consistency
Overcoming Commitment and Consistency Tricks
Cialdini says you will likely feel a knot when you’re being tricked with Commitment and Consistency tactics.
: “knowing what I now know, if I could go back in time, would I make the same
choice?”.
Cialdini says that the split of a second before our rational mind takes over we will get the real feeling about our choice.
Social Proof
Explain Social Proof
Social Proof is looking to see what others are doing, thinking, saying etc
If its ok for them, its ok for me
The greater the degree of similarity you feel to the other people the greater the degree of influence it can have
What other people think and do is one of the ways we use to find out what’s correct.
Social Proof
Explain Pluralistic Ignorance and Letting People Die
Cialdini draws attention to a highly publicized instance in which a woman was let die without help in spite many had heard
her screaming.
It happens for two reasons:
1. “Distributed responsibility”, such as the more people around the less each single one feels responsible
2. We’re not always sure if an emergency is always an emergency and that’s when we look at how other people
react to assess the situation.
Social Proof
Explain the SPiral of Silence situation
When nobody reacts it’s a sort of Spiral of Silence situation where everybody is taking everyone’s inaction as a cue they
shouldn’t act either. This phenomenon is called Pluralistic Ignorance.
An experiment found out indeed that a researcher faking a seizure received help 85% of the times when there was a single
bystander and 31% with five bystanders.
Basically, people don’t help when they’re unsure if it’s an emergency and when they’re unsure if it’s their responsibility.
Liking
Explain how liking works re influence
We prefer to say yes to the requests of someone we like.
Liking
Name the 5 subheading for liking
- Physical Attractiveness
- Similarity Influences people
- Praise Influences People
- How associations influence us
- Association and Sportsfan
Liking
Explain Physical Attractiveness
We assign to good looking individuals characteristics such as talent, kindness, honesty, and intelligence.
Attractive people are voted more, receive more money in compensations, get hired more, and are twice as likely to avoid prison sentences.
And, interestingly enough, most people are little nor aware at all their decisions have been swayed by physical attractiveness.
Liking
Explain Similarity Infuences People
The more simialrities we have with people even on superficial levels can influence us, eg their name, what they were, do they have similar interests
Mirroring peoples actions can do this as well.
Liking
Explain Praise Infuences People
We love flattery and albeit we might know the flatterer has second motives we tend to believe praise anyway and we tend
to like those who provide them even when the praise is false.
Liking
Explain How Associations Infuence Us
People have a natural tendency to associate us with the news we bring even when we’re not responsible for that news.
Positive news = positive association;
negative news = negative association.
Liking
Explain How Associations Infuence Us 2 with models and celebrities
Ads using models and celebrities created a positive glow around the product even if the association wasn’t relevant, it just needs to be positive
eg a brand ambassodor, eg adam gilchrist for resimed
Liking
Explain Association and Sportsfan
It’s indeed people low on the feeling of personal accomplishment that seek compensation through their teams.
Cialdini says it’s similar for name-droppers and groupies. It’s the same drive of seeking accomplishment outside of
ourselves.
Authority
Explain why authority works
Authority works because, like most other psychological triggers, it has several practical advantages for us.
It made sense to listen to authorities like parents and teachers.
They both knew better and held control of our rewards and punishments.
Authority
Explain examples of authority with:
- Height
- Uniform
- Status Symbols
- People tend to link size to importance, taller is better
- Suits and uniforms are symbols of authority and people are more likely to follow
- Status symbols command respect eg, luxury cars where honked less at lights that cheap cars
Authority
How to build trust with a minor flaw
Pint out a minor flaw to show you are very honest, then move onto the major positive traits
Scarcity
Explain the cookie experiment
A famous experiment of supply and demand on product ratings gave to 200 undergrads a jar with 2 cookies and a jar with
10 cookies.
The cookies from the small jar were rated higher, more pleasurable to eat in the future and even of higher estimated value.
A second experiment gave a jar of 10 cookies, a jar of 2 cookies and a jar of 10 cookies then replaced by a jar of 2.
The swapped 2 cookies jar was the highest rated. Indeed we want most what has become scarcer rather than what has
always been scarce.
A third experiment shows that cookies who became scarce because of social demand were rated the highest of all.
The sub-communication, in this case, is that we are in competition for a scarce resource.
Salespeople exploit this principle all the times with fabricated demand and competition.
Scarcity
Explain how it works re losing vs gaining
And people are more motivated by the thought of losing something than gaining something.
