This is the third part of the series on Weapons of Influence, based on Robert Cialdini’s book Influence, Part 1 discussed the principle of reciprocation; Part 2 covered the principle of commitment and consistency.

Social Proof

Birds of a feather, flock together. Or so we’ve been told. In other words, we like to be around people like us and we like to be like them. We also look to others for cues as to how to act. This explains a famous incident in New York where 38 witnesses heard a woman’s scream for help and did nothing. The failure of others to respond is a clue to us that the situation is not serious, we don’t need to respond either. Unfortunately, that cue, often reliable, cost the woman her life in this case. It turns out that you’re much better off if one person sees you being attacked or sees smoke coming from under a door than if a crowd of people do. If you do find yourself in a bad situation and there’s a crowd, use the word "help", look someone in the eye, point at that person and say "You, sir, in the red shirt, please help." General pleas to a crowd tend to go unanswered until one person responds, then the social proof works in the other direction and others will jump in to help.

The effects of social proof go beyond what I would have guessed. For example, in the months after a highly publicized suicide, the rate of airplane and automobile fatalities goes up significantly. This has been observed over long periods in large numbers and with numerous controls. Furthermore, if it’s a murder-suicide, it is more likely for multi-passenger airplane and multiple vehicle automobile fatalities to occur. If it’s a simple suicide, it correlated with single-victim crashes. After adding in numerous controls to the data, researchers were forced to conclude that these increased crashes were secret suicides. In a similar vein, after a heavyweight boxing championship bout, murder rates briefly rise around the country.

Back to how this is typically employed specifically to influence you, Cialdini looks at laugh tracks. Everyone polled says he or she hates canned laughter soundtracks on television shows. And yet, research shows that even though the canned laughter is obviously fake and we say we hate it, we find shows funnier if they include a laugh track because our subconscious mind can’t escape the fact that "others" are laughing so it must be funny. Similarly testimonials, even when it is obviously not a "natural" unsolicited testimonial, influences our decision to buy (and someday I have to tell the story of the Hansen’s soda lady trying to elicit a testimonial from me. I didn’t end up famous).

There are some crazy variations on the influence of social proof. For example, in a study by Kimberlee Weaver of Virginia Polytechnic University, the researchers created two conditions: one where people heard several people express a given opinion once each and one where one person expressed an opinion several times. It turns out, that in both cases, respondents judged opinions to be popular based on the number of times they had heard the opinion, but did not adjust for the fact that in some cases it was actually an opinion expressed repeatedly by one person [1]. So strangely, we sometimes perceive social proof when what we’re really seeing is one persistent loudmouth. That’s a good lesson if you really want to get something done in your community, but it’s not so good if someone just has a big enough budget to broadcast that message at you 12 times per day.

How to Say No. First, remind yourself that the testimonial you’re seeing is quite possibly faked. Large numbers of review sites on the web are laden with fake reviews. If you don’t have a reason to trust the testimonial, don’t. Second, don’t assume that if a lot of people are doing something, they must have information that you don’t (that’s not a person in a diabetic coma who needs help, but a drunk sleeping it off in the gutter). I must say, I don’t think Cialdini has read Kierkegaard, because he grappled with this question over 150 years ago with his famous ruminations on Abraham preparing to sacrifice Isaac, knowing that this was a solitary and unjustifiable act. Kierkegaard believed that only "the crowd" could have executed Christ and that if each person had had to face Christ alone, one at a time, he would never have been crucified. Kierkegaard argued that truth is subjectivity, not objectivity and that when you side with the crowd, you cannot know if your decisions are moral
or true. It doesn’t make them immoral, it’s just that you don’t know. So Kierkegaard’s philosophy implies a simple question: what would I do if I had to make this decision with nobody else around? What would I do if everyone else were doing the opposite of what they are doing now? In other words, if everyone wanted to honor Christ, would I still vote to crucify? If everyone was rushing around in a panic because there was smoke coming from under a door, would I calmly walk past? Are my actions conditioned by the crowd, or by my sense of what I should do in this situation? I think Cialdini finds it impractical to pose such questions every minute of the day and that may be why he doesn’t invoke Kierkegaard. I cite Kierkegaard because I like to pretend I’ve actually read Kierkegaard instead of just heard about him on Jeopardy. Don’t tell Alex Trebeck.

[1]"Everyone Agrees", but Melinda Warner, Scientific American Mind, Aug/Sept 2007 (vol. 18, no. 4), p. 13.

This is the second part of the series on Weapons of Influence, based on Robert Cialdini’s book Influence, Part 1 discussed the principle of reciprocation.

Commitment and Consistency

We like to be consistent and honor our commitments. As with reciprocity, under normal social circumstances, these are good traits, but they can be used against us. The famous experiment in this vein was the one where a research accomplice goes to the beach, lays down a blanket and puts out some personal items, including a radio. The accomplice then goes away. A few minutes later, another accomplice comes up and "steals" the radio. The experiment varies between two conditions. In one condition, the original accomplice gets up and leaves without saying anything. In the other condition, that orginal person specifically asks someone to watch his or her stuff. In the first case, four in twenty times the second accomplice could "steal" the radio without challenge. In the second condition, the "thief" was stopped and challenged nineteen out of twenty times. So the challenge rate went from 20% to 95% (p. 59). In other words, people had an overwhelming desire to be consistent with
their prior commitment.

These techniques can be remarkably subtle. For example, when a telemarketer calls it makes a huge difference whether that person says "How are you feeling tonight?" and gets an answer or says "I hope you’re feeling well tonight". The difference is that in the first case, the target has committed publicly to having a good evening (because the response is typically Fine, thanks"). Having publicly committed to doing "fine", it is very hard for the target to shirk on giving money to the earthquake victims in wherever who are so unfine and so in need of help. In the case where the caller simply says "I hope you’re feeling well this evening" no such commitment was extracted and the response rate was less than half (15 vs 33 percent) what it was when the caller asks a question.

Or how about this one. Toy companies advertise items in the runup to Christmas that they have no intention of stocking in sufficient numbers to meet demand. The unwitting parent commits to the present for the pleading child. Since the gift isn’t available, dad buys something of equivalent value for Christmas. But two months later, well there’s that item miraculously on sale. Dad goes and buys it because he feels a commitment to his kid. The toy companies know this and use this technique to prop up sales in January and February.

Companies use essay contests to make you feel good about them. Something as simple as copying out a message in your own handwriting can make you want to follow through on all the nice things you’ve said about that company. Public utilities have gotten people to save lots of energy simply by getting people to commit to saving energy.

It turns out that internalizing the commitment is key. When utilities hold a contest and say that those who save a certain amount of energy will be recognized, people do cut down on energy usage. But when they then call to renege and say the contest is cancelled, it turns out that energy usage falls even further. It seems that this is because people are actually less motivated when they feel they’re doing it for external reasons, and more motivated when they feel they are doing it for themselves. Being the kind of person who likes to be energy efficient is more powerful than being the kind of person who will reduce electricity usage in order to save $5.

There’s one further usage of the commitment and consistency principle that is worth noting. I’ve been taken in by subtler forms of this on many occasions. It’s called the lowball. Essentially, your sleazy used car salesman offers you a price that he knows he can’t really honor. You agree. When it comes time to sign the final papers, the accounting department finds an arithematic "error" or the sales manager notes an "error" in the trade-in value and the salesman sheepishly fesses up to his "mistake". But here’s the thing, you’ve committed to buying the car, and at this point it’s psychologically hard to turn that around, and you buy it anyway, rather than going down the street to where they have it for real at the initial price the salesman offered. The subtler version that takes me in is deciding to buy something that’s on sale. But then I drag my feet and miss the sale. Two months later, I miraculously own it anyway.

How to Say No. When we get caught in these situations, we typically know in our gut that we’ve been had. If the spidey sense starts tingling, ask yourself a simple question: "Knowing what I know now, would I make the same decision as if I had not committed myself?" So in other words, ask yourself, "If I had not shaken the hand of the sleazy used car salesman on the deal, would I buy the car at this price?" "If I had never seen that Marmot Precip jacket on sale, would I still be buying it today at full price?" The key here is to focus in on how you feel in the microsecond after you pose the question, before the rationalizations kick in. That is when you’re most honest with yourself or, as Cialdini says (p. 110): "Accumulating psychological evidence indicates that we experience our feelings toward something a split second before we can intellectualize it."

The cover of Robert Cialdini’s book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion is adorned with a quote that says "For marketers, this book is among the most important books written in the last ten years." That’s probably true, but it’s a little troubling that there is no quote that says "For consumers, this book is among the most important books written in the last then years." In many ways, Cialdini is writing for consumers, not marketers. Each chapter discusses a "weapon of influence", the way it is used against us and finish with a subsection called "How to Say No" (to this particular "weapon of influence"). I think every reader will recognize each weapon, will feel that you already know that is used against you, and will eventually think of a situation where, even with that knowledge, you got sucked in.

Read how we get sucked into reciprocal relationships unknowingly » »

We as humans tend to key on contrast and judge value by the relationship of one thing to another. If we can find a comparable, we always do. The way Starbucks got us to buy $4 cups of coffee (er, you, anyway, since I have never bought a coffee a Starbucks, but I have bought a double chocolate cream frappucino) was to make the experience difficult to compare to Dunkin Donuts. Euro-style tables, funny names, funky music, soft lighting, all contributed to an ambiance sufficiently different to make the comparison difficult. Tough economic times, have made people more willing to see coffee as coffee and refuse to pay for the experience (that and, of course, the fact that the Starbucks experience has become mundane itself, just like Dunkin’ Donuts).

We all know that from personal experience, but I have been seeing it a lot more clearly since reading Dan Ariely’s fun book Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions and the interesting, though a bit more stodgy Robert Cialdini book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. So here’s where it gets interesting. Savvy marketers know that we judge value by contrast and relationship. So the Economist offers subscriptions for the following rates (or did when Ariely did his study):

1. $59 for the online-only subscription.
2. $125 for the print-only subscription.
3. $125 for the print and online subscription combined.

What’s going on there? Why even bother to offer option 2? Simple. It isn’t clear which is the better deal between $59 for the online subscription or $125 for the print subscription, but there’s no question which is the better deal between the print-only and the print and online option. Because of that and because those two are obviously comparable — different offers at the same cost — we key in on those two options. When Ariely showed the offer to MBA students at MIT, only 16% went for the online-only subscription, none went for the print-only option and a whopping 84% signed on for the combo. The deal was too good to pass up. But, and this is where it gets really really interesting, what if you eliminate the print-only subscription? After all, not a single person wants it anyway, so it’s not really an important part of the offer, right? Well when he offered only two choices, the online version and the combo (options 1 and 3 in other words) to MBA students, with no “decoy” offer, 68% opted for the internet-only option. So in other words, by focusing the comparison on the $125 option, they shifted from a measly 32% willing to pony up $125 to a whopping 84%. That’s the power of contrast! We are just not wired as humans to think in absolutes, which is usually a good shortcut as historically, evolutionarily (and in most life-threatening situations) we have very few choices and choosing quickly has advantages. In the modern marketplace, though, it’s a different story.

Cialdini has all sorts of examples where the contrast principle is used to influence our decisions. Brunswick pool tables instructed salesmen to start by showing the most expensive pool tables “just to see what the high-end features are” and then bring people down the price ladder. Result: a big increase in the amount people were willing to spend because the mid-range tables now seemed cheap. Some clothing retailer figured out that if a man comes in to buy a suit, always sell the suit first and the accessories second. After making the big purchase, what’s another $20 for a tie? But if they choose the tie first, they’ll go for the $10 tie instead.

This is also why discounts, coupons, MSRPs on cars that nobody pays, and “$97 value, yours for only $27″ work even if nobody in the history of humanity would consider paying $97 for the piece of junk that really isn’t even worth $27. Even though in our rational mind we know with certitude that the list prices are absurd and nobody pays them, they anchor us on high prices and we compare the sales price to the high price put in our mind because we are wired to compare. This is so subtle and so powerful that if you simply ask people what the last two digits of their social security number are, this will actually influence how much they are willing to pay for something later. Those with higher numbers are actually willing to pay more because the higher number is still stuck in their mind and that provides the mental anchor at that moment. In the absence of a meaningful comparison, they are simply comparing the last two numbers they have heard and that makes a price seem reasonable or unreasonable depending on what has become set as their anchor.

So as a consumer, you need to really think about what comparisons you make implicitly, without thinking about it. And as a merchant, of course, you need to think about what comparisons your customer is making.

Quick test: you are about to ask someone for a favor or to give you something. What’s the magic word?

Without hesitation any child can tell you that it’s please. But in fact there is another magic word. Consider this study reported in Robert Cialdini’s book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (p. 4). People standing in line were asked in three different ways whether or not the person asking the question could cut in line. Here is the question, followed by the response rate in each case.

Frankly, I find it sort of surprising that 94% of the people said yes to because I’m in a rush which is barely a reason ("I’m in a rush because my plane leaves in one hour and I need to get this copied before I get to the airport" is a reason). But the amazing thing is that there’s such a huge difference between no because at all and one that adds no information whatsoever (obviously the person wanted to make copies).

It occurred to me that I should subtitle pages "Please read this because I wrote it" as in "The Magic Word (please read this because I wrote it)."