Manipulation Flashcards
What is reciprocation?
- Reciprocation = we should try to repay what another person has given us.
- Even if gift/favour is unwanted
- Even if we don’t know the person
- tends to overwhelm other factors such as liking
- The “favour” returned doesnt have to be of equal value
- The “Door in the Face” tactic
- If someone makes a concession, we should make one too
Give experimental examples of reciprocity
- “Joe” and a drink: Regan
- Joe leaves and comes back either empty handed or with a coke for both
- Joe then sells raffle tickets
- Results: Participants who received the coke bought more raffle tickets than
participants who did not. Reciprocity overwhelmed the importance of “liking” Joe
- Cialdini et al. Zoo escort (Door in the face technique)
- Chaperone juveniles to zoo 17% compliance
- Volunteer as counsellor for 2 years (0%), or chaperone juveniles to zoo 51% compliance
Why is Reciprocity thought to work?
- Reciprocation is an adaptive mechanism:
- Our sense of obligation has a future orientation - societies function in a network of reciprocity of food and skills: Repaying an unsolicited gift fosters a reciprical relationship
- Desire not to be indebted
- Desire to be seen as socially desireable
Does reciprocity increase follow through rates?
- Miller et al: Small favour vs door in the face conditions
- Volunteer rates: request only 29%, door condition: 76%
- Show up rates: request only 50%, door condition 85%
- Reciprocity increases satisfaction and responsibility towards decisions
What is the contrast principle?
- Our judgement of a person/object will be influenced by the person/object that we compare it to.
- Relates to door in the face reciprocity: after anchoring to a high value option, the smaller seems much less strenuous
- Examples:
- Kenrick & Gutierres: Female students rated as less attractive by males if they were watching “Charlie’s Angels”
- Buying a car: optional extras are offered after the price for a new car has been negotiated
What are some tactics to fight the reciprocity principle?
- Decline the initial favour or gift
- Accept but mentally redefine: gifts/favours/concessions as “sales strategies”
- Turn their weapon of influence against them
What is the Liking manipulation tactic? What four factors determine liking?
- People tend to favour and comply with people that they know and like
- Four factors determine whether or not we like someone
- Physical attractiveness
- Similarity
- Contact and co-operation
- Conditioning and association
What is the Halo Effect? Give some examples of the effect of attractiveness
- The Halo Effect: Tendecy to think that attractive people must also have other attractive qualities
- attractive people more likely to :
- be rated as brighter and more successful, be hired for a job, receive more votes as political candidates, recieve lighter sentences and avoid jail time
- Experimental examples
- Prisoner rehabilitation ( Kurtzburg et al. ) and plastic surgery: 1yr later, those with surgery less likely to return to prison
- Heart Association Fundraiser (Reingen & Kernen): Attractive fundraiser raised 2x the donations as unattractive one
Give examples of research on the effect of similarity, including the mirror and match effect
- The “Mirror and Match” effect:
- Mimickry of customers produces a greater sense of liking and higher tips/purchase rates.
- Emswiller, Deux, and Willitis: asked college students for money for phone call
- people were more willing when the two were dressed similarly
- Burger et al. asked the participant to critique an 8 page essay, manipulated shared birthday
- Participants in the same birthday condition were more likely to comply
(62. 2%) than those in the different birthday condition (34.2%)
- Participants in the same birthday condition were more likely to comply
- Aune & Basil (1994): College campus fundraisers
- doubled contributions received by saying “I’m a student, too”
What is the effect of contact on “liking”?
- The more we are exposed to a person, the more positively we feel toward
him/her- Exceptions: exposure is in unpleasant circumstances, initial impression very negative
- Zajonc’s Mere Exposure Effect
- Repeated exposure to any stimulus makes it more appealing
- The effect is stronger when unaware that one has seen it before
- Bornstein, Leone, & Galley:
- half of participants subliminally exposed to a photo of a confederate
- Those subliminally exposed to the confederate, were more persuaded by the confederate’s opinion
What is the effect of co-operation on “liking”?
- When someone cooperates with us, it engenders feelings of liking (even if we were once enemies)
- Sherif et al Summer camp experiment
- Split boys attending summer camp into 2 groups and created hostility by using competitive tactics
- Then “repaired” relationship using cooperative superordinate goals
- Real world examples
- Car salesmen who “fight” their manager for a better deal for you
- Waiters/waitresses who give you free things despite management’s orders
How do conditioning and association effect “Liking”?
- We like (and are more willing to comply with) people who are associated with positive feelings or events
- Smith & Engel: models
- Men who saw a car with a female model rated the car more positively than men who saw the same ad without the model
- Razran:“The Luncheon technique”
- Participants were presented with political statements they had rated before
- the statements that gained in approval were those that had been shown
while food was being eaten
How can you combat the Liking tactic?
- Think back over your interaction and figure out how they got you to like them
- Separate the person from the product
What is the Consistency-Commitment tactic of manipulation? What two techniques exploit this tactic?
- Humans have a fundamental desire to be, and to appear, consistent with their actions, statements, and beliefs
- Once we make a commitment to a particular choice/option, we tend to stand by it and act accordingly
- Consistency is an efficient heuristic
- Cognitive dissonance: We bring our attitudes in line with our actions
- “The Foot in the Door” technique
- The tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request in order to appear consistent
- The “Low Ball” tactic
- two-step compliance technique in which the manipulator secures an
agreement with a request (Step 1) but then increases the size of that request by revealing hidden costs (Step 2)
- two-step compliance technique in which the manipulator secures an
Give some examples of the consistency/commitment effect
- Sherman: giving to charity
- Asked people to predict if they would give to door knockers
- Few weeks later, sent charity door knocking: 700% increase
- Freedman & Fraser foot in the door
- Ask to put a small drive safely sticker in window (almost all agree)
- 3 weeks later asked to put a 3m sign in front yard 76% of those who agreed to small request agreed
- Real world:
- Filling out your own sales agreement
- Competitions: “Tell us why you like Nespresso in 25 words or less.”
- Diet clinics get people to write down their goal weight and tell it to others