Subtitle: The Psychology of Persuasion
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Interesting Links
Interesting People
Books Mentioned
Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely
Win Bigly by Scott Adams
Thinking Fast & Slow by Daniel Kahneman
The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg
Atomic Habit by James Clear
PreSuasion by Robert Cialdin
Episode Transcript
Episode Introduction
Hello and welcome to the TLDR Show, a podcast where I distill the knowledge of books just for you. I am your host Abdelrahman and I am very excited to have you with me. For today's episode, we continue our series on Human Nature. In last the episode, we covered Predictably Irrational and saw how irrational we really are. Today we will discover the 6 principles of persuasion. But, not to change this podcast from Too long didn't read to Too long didn't listen, I split this book into two parts. In this episode, we'll cover the first 3 principles of persuasion.
So, without further a due, let us dive into our second book, Influence, subtitled the Psychology of Persuasion by Robert B. Cialdini.
Influence Introduction
This book discusses the psychology of compliance, on how we say yes and get influenced. One of the fascinating things about this book is how Dr. Cialdini got his knowledge about the topic. Instead of only relying on experiments, he went and joined persuasion professionals, salesmen, recruiters, advertisers, etc. He joined their programs, read their manuals, and interviewed them to learn their secrets.
From all his work, he found six main principles of influence, the principle of reciprocation, commitment & consistency, social proof, authority, liking, and scarcity.
We will discuss each one of them, see how it works, how do professionals use it and how can we protect ourselves from being influenced into making irrational decisions.
Weapons of Influence
[1:39] But before going into the six weapons of influence, let us explore the core idea that these principles are built on. In several species, including humans, there are what are called Fixed-action Patterns. The idea here is that there is a whole sequence of actions that automatically get started by a trigger. It is almost as if there is a tape within us that plays the moment a trigger is introduced (a click and whirl action). This concept connects to the idea of the Moist Robot framework, which we also mentioned in the previous episode. As a refresher, It says that humans can be programmable into doing specific actions using the correct methods. We will discuss it further in Win Bigly by Scott Adams.
Now, let me give you an example of how these Fixed-action Patterns or the automatic tape works. Turkey mothers will protect and care for their little chicks based on the sound of "cheep-cheep". The funny thing is, the looks and the smell of the little chicks do not matter. So, scientists did an experiment where they stuffed a polecat, which is a natural enemy for turkeys, and put it next to the turkey mother. As expected, the turkey mother attacked it. Now, remember what was our trigger for turkey mothers? It's the cheep cheep sound. Next, the scientists put a recording device into the polecat that played the "cheep-cheep" sound. The moment the trigger was introduced, the turkey mother played the automatic tape within itself and started taking care of the stuffed polecat which it was attacking a moment ago.
Now, if you are thinking, these are animals and things like these are expected, you need to remember what we learned from our last book, Predictably Irrational, and how irrational we really are. An example from the previous episode for an automatic tape is free items. It triggers us into seeing more upside than downside and not question whether we actually need the free item.
These fixed action patterns are some kind of a shortcut for our brains. Our brains cannot process all the new and complicated information from the world, so they create shortcuts or patterns, to optimize the process.
This idea is explored in Thinking Fast & Slow by Daniel Kahneman, an author, psychologist, and Nobel prize winner. He proposes that we have two working systems in our brains, system 1 and system 2. System 1is the shortcut system that we use for automatic responses and actions like remembering your name, doing simple multiplication, and driving if you're a good driver. System 2 is used for complicated actions and responses. Remembering a classmate's name from 10 years ago, doing complicated math, or when parking parallel in a busy street. The thing about system 2, is that it’s a lazy one and isn’t usually turned on. The fixed action patterns are registered in system 1 and we’ll see how these influence principles exploit these automatic responses.
The Reciprocation Principle of Persuasion
[4:22] Our first weapon of influence is the Reciprocation rule. It says that if someone did you a favor, you will repay them. If someone bought you a gift for your birthday, you would remember to buy them one later. If you helped a friend at work, they will be on the top of your list to ask for help next time.
This reciprocity is a unique characteristic of human societies, and no society does not have this rule. In the earlier human societies, when resources were scarce, the reciprocity rule played a major role in building the social code and allowed for societies to prosper and grow using mutual sharing of resources. Since repayment is always expected when giving something.
The most fascinating example in my opinion from the book is of relief aid sent by Mexico to Ethiopia in 1985. It was to help them with food supply and economic problems. Now, what do you think the Ethiopians did in return? The Ethiopian Red Cross sent the money back to help the victims of an earthquake in Mexico City in that same year. Even though they needed that aid money. When a journalist investigated, he found out that, back in 1935, so 50 years before the earthquake, Mexico sent aid to Ethiopia when Italy was trying to invade them. And now the Ethiopians are repaying their debt despite their urgent need. This in my eyes is a fascinating story.
The reciprocation rule is a very powerful one. None of us wants to be the one that does not pay back our social debts and the Ethiopian example is a case on a society scale.
Since it is an automatic tape that will play in our mind, when the conditions are met, someone will always try to exploit it. When we look into the reciprocity rule, we can see the mechanisms behind it are psychological in nature.
This makes it extremely overpowering. If someone, did you a favor, there is a high chance that you will repay them regardless of how much you liked them.
Another feature of reciprocation is how it triggers unfair exchanges. Rationally, we will think that we usually repay favors with favors of equal or close value or effort. However, in some cases, we get influenced to give back more than we receive.
Let us look at an example from the book and break it down. There was a religious group that used to stop passengers in airports, give them a flower or a book, and they insist it is a gift. After the passengers accept it, the members will ask for a donation. Most passengers complied and gave them some money. But what is interesting was that majority of the passengers just throw the flower or the book in the trash as soon as they left and the members of the religious group knew they will do this. So they went and collected the flowers from the trash to be reused again.
Now, this example can be broken into the three main steps of deceiving reciprocation. The first is the unwanted receiving by the passengers. The second step is the triggering of the automatic tape, where their mind registers the receiving of the book or flower as a favor that needs to be repaid. The final step is the unfair exchange, where despite having no use for the flower or book and not supporting the cause of the religious group, the passengers gave some money back.
Concession as a different give and take
[7:22] A different form of the reciprocity rule and a more subtle one is the concession or compromise version, aka the rejection-then-retreat technique. Here, instead of favor for a favor, there is a concession for a concession. My younger brother used it on me successfully many times. Here is how it goes.
He will come to me and make a huge request that he knows I will reject. After I reject him, he will make a smaller one, which is the one he really wants. In my mind, two things will click. One, the relativity or the contrast principle will work and make me see his second request smaller. Two, the reciprocity or concession rule, in this case, will play, and I will usually end up making a concession, by accepting his second request since he made one for me in the form of giving up on his first request.
This technique is used in negotiations, where one party will start with high demand. This is anchoring which we discussed in our first episode. And when they get rejected as expected, they concede to a relatively smaller demand, that the other party will probably agree to.
The key here for you is to have your first demand high enough that you think it will not be accepted, but not totally unrealistic that it backfires. If you get it, then hallelujah. If not, then you retreat to the second demand.
You can use this when negotiating for a salary raise when choosing which place to go to on a date, or even to trick your elder brother into complying.
Protecting ourselves Against Reciprocity
[8:52] Now that we understand how the reciprocity rule works, we need to know how to protect ourselves from it.
Whether it is this rule or the other ones, the first step is understanding the technique and see it coming.
For reciprocity, the straight solution is for you is to reject any initial unwanted favor or concession. But we cannot just go around rejecting everyone’s favor since it will be our loss.
A second solution is to accept favors like usual. If it was genuine, then great. If, however, it was used to trick us to do a bigger favor or sell us on something, then just reframe the favor as a sales pitch and act accordingly.
A third solution is when favors are genuinely done to us, but you're struggling with how to repay. Let me provide an example. If your work colleague did you a personal favor like driving you somewhere or getting some stuff for your house. Later you were asked to evaluate their performance at work. Naturally, we would feel inclined to repay their favor by giving them a better rating. However, the reciprocity rule demands that we repay what others had given or done to us. But the key point is the repayment is to be done in a kind and of relatively equal value.
So, if your colleague did a personal favor, repay them with a personal one. If it is a small one, repay with relative cost or effort.
How not lose on good favors?
The last two points on reciprocation are how not to lose on good favors and how to optimize the reciprocity rule.
When you do anyone a favor, especially big ones and they thank you afterward, don’t just say no problem or I will do it for anyone. This would be you losing on potential favor and relation with them. Instead, reply with something like "I know you'd do the same for me."
And the good news is there is no time limit to ask for repayment. Remember the Ethiopian story.
To increase your chances of triggering reciprocity, your favor should be meaningful, unexpected, and customized for your receiver.
The Principle of Commitment and Consistency
[10:41] With the first weapon of influence out of the way, let us go to No 2, commitment and consistency. Like reciprocity, our desire to be consistent after committing comes from deep within us. No ones like people whose actions do not match their believe or like to jump sides in discussions without being consistent.
This automatic tape of commitment and consistency serves as a shortcut in our lives. Usually, once we made our minds on a matter, we tend to stick with it and not really think hard about it. This automatic tape has its obvious benefits. None of us wants to rethink every decision and idea we encounter. We sometimes must make a rule that will save us from the other 100 decisions. In a way, this rule shields us from thinking and reasoning everything. An example of this rule includes going to the same supermarket to buy groceries. We probably went the first time, saw it was good, and stuck with it. This principle also connects to self-herding which we discussed in the previous episode of predictably Irrational.
Like all the automatic tapes in our life, usually, consistency works pretty well. However, sometimes it can be exploited and become disastrous.
Now, what is the trigger that starts the consistency tape? The answer is commitment. The tactic used here is simple. Start with very minimal small commitment and then consistency will kick in and large requests can happen. One of the ways to magnify the effect of commitment is writing the commitment down and then making it public. These two are some of the main steps in building any habit. When we go through the Power of Habit and Atomic Habit books, we will discuss them in detail.
Let us take an example of how a small commitment can do long-lasting consistency. In the mid-60s, an experiment was done where a volunteer will go to houses and ask to allow a public service billboard to be installed in their lawns. The billboard was huge and will ruin the view of the house. So, as expected only 17% accepted the idea. However, a different group had a surprising 76% acceptance rate. The difference was that, for the second group, they made a small commitment two weeks ago. A different volunteer came and asked them to put a small 3-inch square sign that reads “Be A Safe Driver”, which the majority accepted.
The reasoning as explained by the scientists is a fascinating one. I quote "What may have occurred is a change in the person’s feelings about getting involved or taking action. Once he has agreed to a request, his attitude may change, he may become, in his own eyes, the kind of person who does this sort of thing, who agrees to requests made by strangers, who takes action on things he believes in, who cooperates with good causes."
What they are telling us is how even a small commitment can result in changes in one’s self-image. There are few factors at play here, one is the small action of signing the paper accepting to put the small sign. Two, the daily reminder of the sign itself as they see it. The last factor is the social image produced by it. when the neighbors see the sign and start to build a certain image and as a result, it pushes for even greater change in the self-image of the person who put the sign. In the next episode, we will discuss another example of how this self-image alteration, or as Scott Adams calls it, self-hallucinations are at play when it comes to topics such as recycling.
One of the tactics that use the commitment principle is "Throwing a Lowball". The TLDR version is that an advantage is offered, and just before the deal is sealed, but commitment had been established - it is taken off.
In sales, it usually goes like this. You get a very nice offer for a car, for example, much lower than the rest of the dealers. You start with finalizing the deal and maybe they give you the car to test for a day. All of this build your sense of commitment to the car. Then, oops, an "error" is discovered. A mistake in the accounting/ or an essential item will be missing, or they find another reason to justify that they need to increase the price. The new price can be the average market value or sometimes even a bit higher. This is the lowball, aimed at your commitment to the car.
Another example that I encounter on weekly basis is when I go to the farmers’ market. When I stop at any stall to check the vegetables. Even if they aren’t that good, there’s always a small feeling of telling me to just buy anything. It is as if my mind registers the stopping and checking as my commitment that I need to follow on with.
Protecting ourselves Against Commitment and Consistency
Now that we saw how this principle works, let us discuss how to protect ourselves against it. As with most of our automatic tape, consistency is generally good. However, the automatic reaction can be exploited and the good news is there is a way of protecting ourselves.
As cheesy as it sounds, the signal is your gut and heart feeling. Whenever we are cornered in a compliance situation, there is a faint feeling inside that tells us, something is off here. Give it a second and analyze the situation. Ask yourself "Knowing what I know now, If I went back in time, will I make the same choice?", and use the answer as your guiding star.
The Social Proof Principle of Persuasion
[15:41] Now, let us dive into the 3rd weapon of influence, the weapon of social proof. To put it simply, it is our use of what other people think to determine whether an action or an idea is correct or not. It relates to the idea of herding which we mentioned in the previous episode. The example was that a line of people in front of a restaurant would make us think that it is probably a good one.
In advertisements, when they say a product is the fastest-growing, or a certain celebrity endorses their product, they want us to think that others already approve of it. Rating systems for movies or products online are a form of social proof.
Amazing use of social proof was done in a study with children who were afraid of dogs. Every day, they watched videos of kids around their age playing around with dogs for 20 minutes. And after only 4 days, 67% of them were willing to play with dogs. This powerful influence can be used as a therapy for different phobias.
The power of social proof works best when we are uncertain, or our confidence is shaken. There, our minds tend to look for the shortcut of social proof to make a decision.
Pluralistic Ignorance
[16:49] This brings us to one of the scariest parts of this rule. It is referred to as "pluralistic ignorance", in my own words that would be the silence or ignorance of the group. Let me tell you a story that explains it.
In 1964, a woman was stabbed three times and killed on the street while 38 people witnessed her death from their homes. When the witnesses were interviewed, some said they just don't know why they did not call the police. At the time, the media took this incident as a sign of how cold the societies of cities had become. However, when psychologists looked at it, they found profound reasons.
The first one is simple, since they are many people looking at the incident, the responsibility is divided between the whole group. So, each person felt less guilty.
The second one is the complex reason. Before I told you the story, I was talking about how our mind will go to social proof when faced with confusion. And this is exactly what happens here. In situations like these, everyone will be questioning themselves. For example, Is this person on the sidewalk having a heart attack or just drunk? Is that guy a friend of hers or someone who is harassing her? Was this just now someone screaming or just having fun?
When such confusion arises, we look around for clues and see what others are doing. What we tend to forget is that everyone else is having the exact confusion and looking for others to do something. Ironically, the idea of safety in numbers or a public place can be completely wrong.
To test this idea, scientists did an amazing experiment. They staged an emergency in front of individuals and groups and saw how each reacted. In the case of an emergency with individual witnesses, 85% offered help. Guess what is the percentage when a group witnessed the emergency. Only 31%.
To wrap things up on pluralistic Ignorance, there are two key conditions. One, there has to be a group of strangers witnessing and two there should be uncertainty and confusion about whether this is a dangerous situation.
A practical piece of advice from this for you, If you find yourself needing help in a public busy area, the best tactic is to break these two conditions. Choose an individual and communicate your emergency clearly to them.
The Werther Effect
[19:09] Besides uncertainty, the other important factor in the social proof is similarity. We are more inclined to agree with a group that is similar to us. This's why advertisers use actors of the same demographic as their target customers.
Now there is also a scary side to this factor of similarity. In the US, it was observed that the number of fatal car and commercial airplane crashes increased substantially when a suicide story had been recently published in the local newspaper. This observation points out something called the "Werther Effect". The story starts with Johann Von Goethe, the famous German poet, and novelist. He wrote a novel titled "The Sorrows of Young Werther". In this novel, the main character named Werther commits suicide. The novel was a huge hit for Goethe, but it also started a wave of suicide across Europe, to the degree that some countries banned the novel.
Let us go back to our modern-day, Professor Philips, a sociologist at the University of California traced the increase in fatal accidents to the aftermath of publishing a suicide story. Here are some chilling findings:
The increase in fatal accidents rates occurred only in places where the story was publicized.
There was a connection between the age of both the suicide and the victims of the fatal accident.
One of his conclusions was that these victims were probably suicidal, and the publicized story was the final push. Some chose to commit the act straightforwardly. Others were less direct with choosing the accidents as their way.
The publication of the stories and discussion in the main news gave the suicidal individuals social proof for doing it.
These findings are a testimony to how individuals can have their state of mind-altered without them even realizing it.
An interesting question that popped in my mind, if suicidal news had such an impact, to what degree would sharing success and positive news create a positive impact?
Protecting Ourselves Against Social Proof
[21:07] Now, with how integral social proof is in our lives, it is extremely hard to protect ourselves against it. This becomes harder, as we realize how useful it is in our daily lives. Just like the autopilot in an airplane, it helps us navigate unknown situations with relative ease. However, it is not a perfect system, and sometimes as we saw, it can lead to huge problems.
So, the question is, how do we make the best out of social proof while avoiding its errors?
Just like any autopilot system, the key is the inputted data. If the data is correct, the system will work properly, and vise-versa. There are two kinds of situations in which incorrect data will be problematic to our social proof autopilot.
The first is when the information provided is intentionally falsified, to create a certain image or impression. A good example is the laughter tracks in any TV comedy show, which I personally hate. They are put there to create a sense of humor and fun in the hopes of making you think the same.
Similar to the other weapons of influence, the key is to understand the tactic. Whenever we realize that false information is being provided whether it is in a TV show or a live product testimony from random people, disconnect the autopilot and understand that there is some manipulation and evaluate the situation accordingly.
The second situation is a tricky one. Here, it is that there's wrong information, but the lack of information is the issue. It is when we follow the crowd's actions, or when we act as a herd. The "pluralistic ignorance”, is an example where we assume and follow the crowd direction. The best protection against this one is knowing about it and the re-examining of situations when we are just following a crowd.
And hopefully, our autopilot will not crash us.
Book Conclusion
[22:54] To wrap things up, I hope that now, you have a better understanding of how the reciprocity rule works and the steps of deceiving reciprocation. We also saw how powerful small commitments may have long-lasting effects. And the scary sides to social proof in both Pluralistic Ignorance and the Werther effect.
In the next episode, we'll continue our discussion of persuasion weapons by covering the principles of liking, authority, and scarcity. And as a bonus, at the end of that episode, I'll have a short story of mine to help you see how these weapons work in real life.
As always, make sure to check the website at tldr-show.com for the show notes, links to social media, and the extra good stuff.
Till next time, be curious, be critical.
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