I’m here to talk to you about the science and practice of influence.
Webster’s definitions of influence is as follows “the act or power of producing an effect without apparent exertion of force or direct exercise of command”
Without apparent exertion of force or direct exercise of command are the key phrases here.
The famous painter Salvador Dali said: “The secret of my influence has always been that it remains secret”.
Influence has been a subject of social psychology for quite a long time. I’ll talk about the Professor Robert Cialdini’s work captured in his book “Influence – Science and Practice”.
Humans develop automatic stereotyped behavior triggered by specific heuristic to save time and energy in decision making.
An example used in the book was a jewelry store owner in a vacation town that mistakenly doubled the price of her turquoise necklaces instead of halving it, and was surprised that they sold much faster. This was because of the shortcut people take in determining quality when no other pieces of information are available, they simply equated price with quality.
Understanding the rules of influence is important not only in what we can leverage in situations where it’s called for and ethical, but also to understand how others uses the rules on us so we’ll recognize them and switch to deliberate decision-making mode.
Since influence is a big topic, I’ve broken my speech to a few parts. I’ll address in part one, the contrast principle and the first two weapons of influence – reciprocity and commitment and consistency.
An important principle in human perception is the contrast principle, which basically states when two things are presented in sequence, and if the second item is fairly different from the first, we will tend to see it as more different than it actually is.
Imagine that I lift up a big piece of rock off the ground, and put it in your hand first. Then I tell you to drop it and hand you a marble. Now if I ask you how much the marble weigh, you would’ve estimated the marble to be lighter than it actually is.
Another neat trick to demonstrate this principle is an experience to do at home. Have three pails of water, one on the left is quite hot, the one in the middle is at room temperature, and the one on the right has ice in it. Now put your left hand into the hot water pail, and at the same time, put your right hand into the ice water pail. After 10 seconds, put both hands in the room-temperature pail. You’ll be amazed by the perceived different in temperature from the same bowl of water.
This is also why sales person always try to show you the most expensive items they have that meet your need, so that a cheaper alternative seems much cheaper by comparison.
The first rule of influence is reciprocity – it says that we should repay, in kind, what another person has provided us. Reciprocity is has 3 characteristic First, it’s extremely powerful, it’s the basis for social exchange and commerce. Secondly, it applies to uninvited first favors. And thirdly, it can result in unequal exchanges.
The first is the direct approach.
If you shop at Costco, you must have noticed all the people there giving out product samples, whether it’s a piece of sausage on stick, or some nuts. I rarely take these, but on the occasion I do take them, I somehow always purchase more of other stuff. Observe yourself sometime, and you’ll notice the pattern as well. What’s interesting was that I did not always buy the stuff they were passing out, but more of other items as if I owed Costco something.
Another form of reciprocity is called rejection then retreat, also known as door in the face. This tactic basically means making an initial request, and when rejected, make a smaller request.
Let me demonstrate. Audience member one, would you spend 8 hours every other Saturday to read to kids? No? How about 2 hour a month?
You see, by making the second request smaller in comparison you invoke both the contrast principle and the reciprocity rule. 2 hour a month compared with 8 hours a week seemed a smaller commitment than it actually it is.
So how do you deal with people applying this reciprocity rule to influence us? Simply rejecting any initial offer or a favor or sacrifice is not the best approach, you never know if the person offering it is sincere.
The more realistic approach to accept the offer initially thus obliging ourselves to return the favor. However, if during a later date that you determined the offer was a compliance tactic, feel free to rid yourself of the obligation, and react to it without regard to the initial offer.
I need to stress again that these compliance techniques should be employed by you in an ethical way, which is to say, not used to exploit people’s behavior or decision for your own benefit. The reason is first, it’s not right. And secondly, that although they work in short-term or one time interaction, repeated application of these techniques will make people uncomfortable around you and sour your relationships in the long run.
So remember the first rule of influence – reciprocity.
I’ll talk about the other rules of influence the next time.