Transcript The Anatomy of influence: Using the latest Social

The Anatomy of influence:
Using the latest Social psychology, decision-making,
persuasion, and new brain science research to create
cooperation
Bill O’Hanlon
billohanlon.com
Introduction
Three Small Words
An infomercial copywriter (Colleen Szot) changed the
“call to action” from:
“Operators are standing by; please call now.”; to
“If operators are busy, please call again.”
Sales increased significantly; shattering a 20-year
sales record
Why? You’ll soon find out and know very well.
ONE WORD: Because
Students were waiting in a long line for a busy copy
machine at a major university library
A person comes to the front of the line and asks if he or
she can use the copy machine, with no explanation
75% of people agree to let the person use the machine
In another condition, the person asking adds a phrase
beginning with “because” (sometimes “because I have to
make a some copies”) and compliance increases to 96%
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E. Langer, A. Blank, and B. Chanowitz, (1978). “The mindlessness of ostensibly
thoughtful action: The role of placebic information in interpersonal interaction,”
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36:635-642.
Two Words:
Warm or Cold
Students at Harvard Business School were told they had a guest
instructor and were asked to rate him since he was being considered
for a faculty position
They were all given a description of him, with one slight difference. In
one, he was described as “very warm” and in the other, “rather cold.”
Otherwise, the descriptions were identical. The class got the same
lecture, but at the end, when asked to rate the instructor for possible
hiring as an instructor, the students who had read the description of a
“very warm” person rated him as “good-natured, considerate of
others, informal, sociable, popular, humorous, and humane,” while
those who read that he was “rather cold” rated him as “self-centered,
formal, unsociable, unpopular, irritable, humorless, and ruthless.”
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Reference: Kelley, H.H. (1950). “The warm-cold variable in first impressions of persons,” Journal of
Personality, 18, 431-439.
These influence principles are
based on recent research
Persuasion research
Social influence/social psychology research
Non-rational/non-conscious decision-making
research
The new brain science
The 3 Major Principles
OF INFLUENCE
SOCIAL FOLLOWING
PRIMING
LOSS AVOIDANCE
Influence Principle #1:
Social influence factors
Humans are social animals
Social Comparison, following
and Norms
People tend to look to others, especially a
majority of others, to decide how to behave in
and perceive situations
Any messages that show that many (or most)
others are doing or perceiving a certain way will
influence one’s actions, choices and perceptions
The Hotel Re-Use Studies
Social psychologists, led by Dr. Robert Cialdini,
investigated how the percentage of re-using towels
more than once per stay was influenced by messages
about how others behaved
When a message was left saying it was good for the
environment to re-use towels, a certain percentage of people
re-used
When the message was changed to suggest that most people
re-used towels in that hotel, re-use went up 26%; when it was
more specific (most people who stayed in that particular room
re-used) re-use increased 33%
Goldstein, Noah; Cialdini, R.B.; and Griskevicius, Vladas. (2008). “A room with a viewpoint: using social norms to motivate
conservation in hotels,” Journal of Consumer Research, 13 (2), 214–20.
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Petrified Forest Study
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In an effort to reduce stealing of wood pieces from the
Petrified Forest, officials put up a sign reading:
“Your heritage is being vandalized every day by theft
losses of petrified wood of 14 tons a year, mostly a small
piece at a time.”
The study was suggested when a graduate student
reported that his fiancée, who was usually scrupulously
honest, read this sign and nudged him and whispered,
“We’d better get ours now.”
Petrified forest study
Researchers specially marked wood pieces so they
could measure theft on various trails.
Then they created alternate signs:
“Many past visitors have removed petrified wood from the
park, changing the natural state of the Petrified Forest.”
This sign showed people picking up wood.
“Please don’t remove wood from the park, in order to
preserve the natural state of the Petrified Forest.” This one
showed a lone person picking up wood with a red X
superimposed.
Petrified forest study results
Compared to a control condition (no sign); 2.92%
stolen:
Social following sign: Increased theft to 7.92 % of pieces
stolen.
Lone wolf sign: Decreased theft to 1.67%.
We all think we aren’t going along
with the crowd
Why do you have to be a nonconformist like
everybody else? - James Thurber
You are unique; just like everybody else. Bumper sticker
Perceptual acuity Test
Choose the line,
A, B, or C, that
matches the line
without a letter
under it
Asch perceptual studies
Subjects were put in a room and told they were
being tested for perceptual acuity
Unbeknownst them, there were three
confederates of the experimenter in the room
They were shown three lines of various lengths
and asked which of the three a fourth line
matched. It was very obvious.
Asch perceptual studies
When three subjects all gave the wrong answer, the
subject also gave the wrong answer 75% of the time
But when even one of the subjects dissented, even
giving another incorrect answer (even if that dissenter
was shown to be visually impaired), the subject gave
the correct answer almost all the time
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Asch, Solomon. "Effects of Group Pressure upon the Modification and Distortion of Judgment," in Groups,
Leadership, and Men, ed. by Harold Guetzkow (Pittsburgh: Carnegie Press, 1951), pp. 177-190
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Asch, Solomon, (1955). "Opinions and Social Pressure," Scientific American, 193:31-35.
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Allen, Vernon and Levine, John, (1971). "Social Support and Conformity: The Role of Independent Assessment of
Reality," Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 7: 48-58.
Gazing skyward study
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Stanley Milgram had a person in NYC gaze
skyward; most people ignored him. When he was
joined by 3 others gazing skyward, 4 times as many
people also stopped and looked up.
Milgram, S.; Bickman, L. and Berkowitz, L. (1969). “Note on the drawing
power of crowds of different sizes,” Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 13:79-82.
Mirror Neurons
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The ice cream cone and the monkey
Gallese, V., Fadiga, L., Fogassi, L., & Rizzolatti, G. (1996). “Action
recognition in the premotor cortex,” Brain, 119:593-609.
Fogassi, L., & Ferrari, P.F. (2007). “Mirror neurons and the evolution of
embodied language,” Current Directions in Psychological Science, 17,
136–141.
Subtle social mimicry
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A researcher subtly mimicked half the subjects while
asking them survey questions, then “accidentally”
dropped some pens; those who had been mimicked
were 2-3 times more likely to pick up the pens as those
who hadn’t
Van Baaren, Rick; Holland, Rob; Kawakami, Kerry; and van Knippenberg, Ad. (2004) “Mimicry
and Prosocial Behavior,” Psychological Science, 15, 71-74.
Subtle social mimicry
37 Duke students tried out what was described as a new sports drink, Vigor, and
answered a few questions about it. The interviewer mimicked about half the
participants.
The mimicry involved mirroring a person’s posture and movements, with a one- to
two-second delay. If he crosses his legs, then wait two seconds and do the same,
with opposite legs. If she touches her face, wait a beat or two and do that. If he
drums his fingers or taps a toe, wait again and do something similar. The idea is to
be a mirror but a slow, imperfect one. Follow too closely, and most people catch on.
By the end of the short interview, those who were mimicked were significantly more
likely than the others to consume the new drink, to say they would buy it and to
predict its success in the market. In a similar experiment, the psychologists found
that this was especially true if the participants knew that the interviewer, the mimic,
had a stake in the product’s success.
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Chartrand, T.L., & Bargh. J.A. (1999). “The Chameleon effect: The perception-behavior link and social interaction,” Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 76, 893- 910.
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Chartrand, T.L., Maddux, W.W., & Lakin, J.L. (in press). “Beyond the perception-behavior link: The ubiquitous utility and
motivational moderators of nonconscious mimicry.” In R. Hassin, J. Uleman, & J.A. Bargh (Eds.), Unintended thought 2: The new
unconscious. New York: Oxford University Press.
Subtle social mimicry
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At Stanford, a computer figure, an avatar, was
programmed to mimic the movements and
gestures of study participants. If the avatar’s
movements were immediate and precise, people
picked up on them, but if they were slightly out of
sync (delayed 4 seconds) people did not pick up
on them and rated the avatars as warm and
convincing.
Bailenson, J., & Yee, N. (2005). “Digital chameleons: Automatic assimilation of
nonverbal gestures in immersive virtual environments,” Psychological Science, 16,
814–819.
Take-Away
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You probably already mirror people naturally, but
you might be able to improve your skill at gaining
rapport if you attend to people more closely.
Listen to and watch them as they speak and
interact with you.
Neurological Empathy
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When study participants are asked to imagine how they would
feel in reaction to emotion-laden familiar situations, including
painful events, and to imagine how another person would feel
if she was experiencing the same situations, common neural
circuits are activated both for the self and the other.
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Another study using fMRI showed that when children and
adults attend to other people in pain, the neural circuits
underpinning the processing of first-hand experience of pain
are activated in the observer.
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Decety, J., & Lamm, C. (2006). “Human empathy through the lens of social
neuroscience,” The Scientific World Journal, 6, 1146-1163.
Decety, J., Michalska, K. J., & Akitsuki, Y. (2008). “Who caused the pain? An fMRI
investigation of empathy and intentionality in children,” Neuropsychologia, 46, 26072614.
Jackson, P. L., Brunet, E., Meltzoff, A. N., & Decety, J. (2006). “Empathy examined
through the neural mechanisms involved in imagining how I feel versus how you feel
pain,” Neuropsychologia, 44, 752-61.
Take care how you use Social
Norm messages
Women’s Voices, during the 2004 presidential
campaign, sent out 1 million postcards with this
message: “Four years ago, 22 million single
women did not vote.”
Oops! Voter turnout for single women was
especially low that year, even lower than in 2000.
Take care how you use Social
Norm messages
An anti-littering campaign ad showed people
waiting for a bus. After the bus left, it showed the
empty bus stop with lots of litter. Then it cut to a
poster of the well-known pervious anti-littering
ad, with a Native American on horseback with a
tear running down his cheek. The message said:
Back by popular neglect.
The inadvertent message was: “Littering is
common and the social norm.”
Take Care how you use
Social Norm messages
California households’ energy use were monitored and then doorknob
cards were delivered to each house telling them how their energy use
compared to the norm (some had used more than average and some
less).
Over the next few weeks, those households who had had above
average usage reduced their consumption by 5.7%; but those whose
usage was below average increased their consumption by 8.6%.
[Don’t worry, they figured out how to fix this “middle magnet” by
putting smiley faces on the cards or those whose energy use was low
and frowny faces on the cards of those whose usage was high.]
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Schultz, P. W.; Nolan, J.M.; Cialdini, R.B; Goldstein, N.J.; and
Griskevicius, V. (2007). “The constructive, destructive, and
reconstructive power of social norms,” Psychological Science, 18:429434.
Modeling
Albert Bandura’s Social Learning Theory posits
that people learn from one another, via
observation, imitation, and modeling.
Famous for the Bobo Doll studies, which showed
social learning through modeling.
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Bandura, A. (1986). Social Foundations of
Thought and Action. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice-Hall.
Bobo Doll Studies
Bandura made a film of one of his students beating up a doll that
bounced back up after being punched. The woman punched the
clown, shouting “sockeroo!” She kicked it, sat on it, hit with a little
hammer, and so on, shouting various aggressive
phrases. Bandura showed his film to groups of
kindergartners. They then were let out to play. In the play room
were several observers with pens and clipboards in hand, a
brand new Bobo doll, and a few little hammers.
Most of the kids beat the daylights out of the Bobo doll. They
punched it and shouted “sockeroo,” kicked it, sat on it, hit it with
the little hammers, and so on. They imitated pretty closely what
they had seen.
Responding to criticism that Bobo dolls were supposed to be hit,
he even did a film of the young woman beating up a live
clown. When the children found the live clown in the other room
after watching the film, they proceeded to punch him, kick him,
Social Proof
Testimonials
Indirect evidence of popularity (It sold out last time;
Billions served)
Success stories about others
Statistics that show a majority of people are doing
something desirable:
97% of visitors do not take pieces of wood from the
Petrified Forest
93% of Americans are on time with mortgage
payments in the midst of economic crisis
A SIMPLE USE OF SOCIAL
FOLLOWING/NORMS
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“Studies have shown that most people get and
feel better after they come to therapy.”
Questions to ponder
How can you use this social following/social
norms principle in your work?
How have you been inadvertently using social
comparisons and norms ineffectively?
What is one small shift you can make in the way
you work that reflects what you have learned or
clarified in this section?
RECIPROCITY
This is another social phenomenon
People feel obliged to return the favor if they are
given something by someone
Free samples or gifts
Acts of kindness
Reciprocity
A waiter brought a piece of candy to each diner at a
table at the end of the meal; compared with a nocandy condition, tips increased an average of 3.3%.
In another condition, the waiter brought two pieces of
candy to each diner; tips went up 14.1%.
In the final condition, the waiter gave each diner a
piece of candy, then as he was leaving the table,
pulled more candy out of his pocket and gave each
person another piece of candy. Tips increased 23%.
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Strohemtz, D.B.; Rind, B.; Fisher, R. and Lynn, M. (2002). “Sweetening the till: The use of
candy to increase restaurant tipping,” Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 32: 300-309.
What Makes a Difference with
reciprocity
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Gifts/favors are more valued when they are
perceived as:
Significant
Unexpected
Personalized
Liking
This is another social phenomenon
People are more likely to be influenced by people
they like
People they see as similar to themselves are
usually liked better
Compliments and praise increase liking for the
praiser
Similarity
One experiment showed that people were more likely
to do things (loan some money or sign a petition) for
people who dressed/looked like them
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Emswiller, T.; Deaux, K.; and Willits, J.E. (1971). “Similarity, sex, and requests for small
favors,” Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 1:284-291.
Suedfield, P.; Bochner, S; and Matas, C. (1971). “Petitioner’s attire and petition signing by
peace demonstrators: A field experiment,” Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 1:278283.
Another experiment showed that people were more
likely to buy insurance from a person who was like
them in terms of age, religion, politics, and cigarettesmoking habits
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Evans, F.B. (1963). “Selling as a dyadic relationship: A new approach,” American
Behavioral Scientist 6:7:76-79
Take Away
•
Find as many commonalities as you can with the
people with whom you work and find a way of
letting them know about those commonalities
Psychotherapy outcome
research
The quality of the therapeutic relationship and
working alliance accounts for 30% of the positive
results in psychotherapy
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Hubble, M. A., Duncan, B. L., & Miller, S. D. (Eds.) (1999).
The heart and soul of change: What works in therapy.
Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association.
Lambert, M. J. (1992). “Psychotherapy outcome research:
Implications for integrative and eclectic therapists.” In J. C.
Norcross & M. R. Goldfried (Eds.), Handbook of
psychotherapy Integration. (pp. 94-129). New York:
Basic Books.
Compliments
Men in a study were given three kinds of statements by
someone who needed a favor from them
Positive
Negative
Neutral
The person who gave the men pure positive praise
was better liked, even when the men knew the praise
was untrue and the person wanted a favor from them
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Drachman, D.; deCarufel, A.; and Insko, C.A. (1978). “The extra
credit effect in interpersonal attraction,” Journal of Experimental
Social Psychology, 14:458-467.
The Kind of Compliment Can
Matter
Carol Dweck and colleagues gave children a fairly simple puzzle
and told half the kids a comment that told them they were smart
and the other half that they must have worked hard to solve the
puzzles.
Then they offered them a choice of simple or challenging puzzles.
90% of the kids who were praised for effort chose the difficult
puzzles;
A majority of the kids who were praised for intelligence chose
the easier ones.
Then all the kids were given some difficult puzzles. Then some
that were about as easy as the initial ones.
The “work hard” kids did 30% better than they had in the initial
scores, while the “intelligence” kids scores declined by 20%.
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Cimpian, A. et. al (2007). “Subtle Linguistic Clues Affect Children’s
motivations,” Psychological Science, 18:314-316.
Recency
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Several studies have shown that whatever the most recent or last
part of an experience is tends to color and strongly influence our
overall memory or sense of that experience. A particularly
graphic example involves people who were undergoing
proctological exams. Patients were divided into two groups:
1. Standard proctological exam;
2. The scope (or digit) was left in but not moved for an extra
minute at the end (sorry for the pun) of the exam.
Those patients who experienced the longer exam were more
willing to undergo the procedure again in the future. Ending on a
good note makes a difference in how the whole (sorry again)
experience is remembered.
Redelmeier, D., and Kahneman, D. (1996). “Patients’ memories of painful
medical treatments: Real-time and retrospective evaluations of two minimally
invasive procedures,” Pain, 116:3-8.
Take Away
End sessions on a neutral or positive note;
people are more likely to schedule another
appointment
Compliment people on their efforts rather than
just praise them generally
Influence Principle #2:
perceptual priming/biases
PRIMING
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CONTEXTUAL PRIMING
PERCEPTUAL PRIMING
CONCEPTUAL PRIMING
LINGUISTIC PRIMING
Associative priming
For example, dog would prime cat; dog would prime
log and frog
Semantic priming
For example, dog would prime wolf
Happiness influences Up to 3
degrees of separation
Emotions such as happiness, seem to be contagious. In contrast to
behaviors (like smoking or obesity), people must have direct contact
with others (even by proxy) to “catch” the emotions in a social network.
People who are happy and have friends, or friends of friends, tend to be
happier. The amount of influence:
Next door neighbor 34%
Friends 25%
Close living sibling 14%
Spouse 8%
People at the center of the “happy” social network tend to be happiest
(vs. people on the periphery. The more people one is connected to, the
happier.
Happiness spreads more readily than unhappiness.
Fowler, James and Christakis, Nicholas. (2008). “Dynamic spread of
happiness in a large social network: longitudinal analysis over 20 years
in the Framingham Heart Study,” British Medical Journal, 337:a2338.
anchoring
Whatever numbers or words are mentioned
before something is asked will strongly influence
the answer or response to that question or
request
Anchoring
The experimenter had students write down the last two
digits of their social security number
Then they were asked whether they would pay that
amount for several items that were to be auctioned
The social security numbers influenced what students
bid; For example, for ne item, students with the highest
numbers bid highest (e.g. $56 average for the highest)
and those with the lowest numbers bid the lowest ($16
average)
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Ariely, D.; Loewenstein, G.; and Prelec, Drazen. (2003).
“Coherent arbitrariness: Stable demand curves without stable
preferences,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 118(1):73-105.
Take Away
You might suggest that many people successfully
resolve their issues within 4 to 6 sessions (the
research indicates this is true)
Non-conscious influences and
priming
Exposing people to biased words and phrases
influences their subsequent performance
Interspersal
Milton Erickson’s method of non-verbally
emphasizing certain words or phrases
Learn to rephrase problem words or phrases into
solution/longing words or phrases
For example, if someone is dealing with
chronic pain, you might say, “I know you’d
really like to find a way to feel more
comfortable.”
RESPONSE PRIMING
Milton Erickson’s “YES SET”
NO SET
AUTHORITY
People give credibility and are more swayed by
people who are perceived as authorities
Milgram’s Shock experiments
Milgram’s Shock experiments
The experimenter told subjects they must shock the “learner”
when he got the answer wrong; if the “teacher” balked, the
experimenter merely told him he must go on
•65% complied and went all the way to Danger: severe shock
Almost all subjects went to 300v
•Even when the subjects heard the “learner” groaning, yelling in
pain, pounding on the wall and finally stopped responding
•Even when the subjects had previously heard the subject
mention he or she had a heart condition
Milgram, Stanley. (1963). “Behavioral Study of Obedience,”
Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67:371-378.
HOW TO SHOW
AUTHORITY
Clothing/dress
Degrees
Knowledge/skill displays
Accomplishments/portfolio
Settings/furnishings
Evidence of results
Value Attribution
People make judgments about the value of things
or people based on information provided by
others or by context or trappings
Diagnosis bias
When primed with a diagnostic label, we often
ignore facts, data and perceptions that don’t fit
with this diagnosis
The Power of Labels
Researchers interviewed a large number of potential
voters and told 50% of them, based on their survey
responses, that they were “above average citizens
likely to vote and participate in political events.” The
other half were told they were about average.
The ones who were labeled “above average” were
15% more likely to vote in an election held a week later
and also saw themselves as better citizens.
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Tybout, A.M. and Yalch, R.F. (1980). “The effect of experience:
A matter of salience,” Journal of Consumer Research, 6:406-413.
The Power of Labels
Researchers told some schoolchildren that they
seemed like the kind of students who “care about good
handwriting.”
Those kids subsequently spent more of their free time
practicing handwriting, even when they thought no one
was watching them.
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Cialdini, R.; Eisenberg, N.; Green, B.; Rhoads, K.; and Bator, R.
(1998). “Undermining the undermining effect of reward on
sustained interest,” Journal of Applied Social Psychology,
28:249-263.
Diagnosis bias
Bandura study; subjects shock others when they
make mistakes
When subjects overheard experimenter tell
assistant:
1.“They’re here.”
2.“They seem nice.”
3.“They’re like animals.” [Significantly more
shock given]
Revisiting Two Words:
Warm or COLD
Students at Harvard Business School were told they had a guest
instructor and were asked to rate him since he was being considered
for a faculty position
They were all given a description of him, with one slight difference. In
one, he was described as “very warm” and in the other, “rather cold.”
Otherwise, the descriptions were identical. The class got the same
lecture, but at the end, when asked to rate the instructor for possible
hiring as an instructor, the students who had read the description of a
“very warm” person rated him as “good-natured, considerate of
others, informal, sociable, popular, humorous, and humane,” while
those who read that he was “rather cold” rated him as “self-centered,
formal, unsociable, unpopular, irritable, humorless, and ruthless.”
•
Reference: Kelley, H.H. (1950). “The warm-cold variable in first impressions of persons,” Journal of
Personality, 18, 431-439.
Self-Diagnosis
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In a recent study, Carol Dweck and colleagues found
that people who believe personality can change were
more likely than others to bring up concerns and deal
with problems in a constructive way. Dweck holds the
view that a fixed mind-set can foster a categorical, allor-nothing view of people’s qualities; this view tends to
lead to ignoring festering problems or, at the other
extreme, giving up on a relationship at the first sign of
trouble.
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Blackwell, Lisa S. , Trzesniewski, Kali H., Dweck, Carol Sorich.
(2007). “Implicit Theories of Intelligence Predict Achievement
Across an Adolescent Transition: A Longitudinal Study and an
Intervention,” Child Development, 78(1):246–263.
Diagnosis Bias: Context and
Clothing signals matter
Joshua Bell, one of the top violinists in the world,
gave a free performance in a Metro DC station in
2007. He was there for 45 minutes, playing in
blue jeans and a baseball cap. He played several
Bach pieces on a violin worth $3.5 million.
Very few people even stopped and listened; he
got $32 in tips
Several days before, Bell had played to a sold
out audience in Boston at an average ticket price
of $100.
Von Restorff Effect
Take a look at this paragraph. What stands out
for you?
Application: Anything you can do to make the
message you want remembered to stand out
from the rest of the message will probably help.
Think Different
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Think different think different think different think
different think different think different think
different think different think different think
different think different think different think
different think different think different think
different think different think different think
different think different think different
Von Restorff Effect
Also called the “isolation effect,”; it holds that we
are more likely to remember the unusual or what
stands out in a larger context
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Von Restorff, H. (1933). “Über die Wirkung von Bereichsbildungen
im Spurenfeld (The effects of field formation in the trace field),”
Psychologie Forschung, 18, 299-34
The Serial Position Effect
Certain items are more likely to be remembered
than others
Thos in the first part of a list or experience; and
those most recent (or the last part of the list or
experience)
Murdock, B.B., Jr. (1962) “The Serial Position Effect of Free Recall,”
Journal of Experimental Psychology, 64, 482-488.
The Ziegarnik (Zajonc) Effect
Discovered by a social psychologist
(Zeigarnik/sometimes spelled Zajonc) when the
waiter at a group table remembered the
interrupted order but not the others
An interrupted task will be remembered
more/longer than a completed task
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Zeigarnik, B. (1967). On finished and unfinished tasks. In W. D. Ellis
(Ed.), A sourcebook of Gestalt psychology. New York: Humanities
press.
Influence Principle #3:
Loss aversion/avoidance
Loss Aversion/Avoidance
People are very driven to avoid loss
Lost opportunities
Loss of freedom
Loss Aversion/Avoidance
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Experiment done many times
Professor holds an auction among MBA students for
a $20 bill
Bids can start anywhere, but the rules say that the
top bidder wins the $20 bill and the second highest
bidder must also pay the amount he or she bid
The $20 bill has been sold to the highest bidder for
more than $20 every time the auction is held; the
highest bid was for $204
TakeAway
When introducing interventions and suggesting
change, link lack of compliance with possible loss
E.g., “If you walk away from this marriage now
and don’t give everything you’ve got, you may
find yourself regretting it later.”
Influence Principles #5:
Misc.
Commitment and Consistency
Once people verbally or otherwise commit to some
position, they are much more likely to act
consistently with that committed position
Commitment and Consistency
• Once restaurant owner decreased no shows for dinner
reservations from 30% to 10% by changing what the
receptionist said from “Please call if you have to
cancel,” to “Will you please call if you have to cancel?”
and then waiting for a yes response.
• When people verbally commit to something, they are
more likely to follow through.
From Goldstein, Noah; Martin, Steve; and Cialdini , R. (2008).Yes:
50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive. NY: Free
Press.
Commitment and Consistency
The foot in the door technique:
Small actions/commitments open the door lead
to bigger ones
Would you put this in your
window?
Would you put this in your
Front Yard?
Would you put this in your
Front Yard?
Commitment and Consistency
One researcher set a blanket with a radio on the beach,
listened to the radio for a few minutes, then went for a
stroll on the beach
A second researcher pretended to be a thief who took
the radio and began to run away with it
Very few (4 out of 20) onlookers stopped the “thief” until
the next condition, in which the first researcher asked
the onlooker to “watch my stuff.”
Then, 19 of the 20 onlookers ran after the “thief,”
snatched the radio out of his hand, and, in some cases,
restrained him until the owner returned
Moriarty, T. (1975). “Crime, consistency, and the responsive bystander,” Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 31:370-376.
Take Away
Get people to publicly, verbally and with small
actions, commit to some course of action or
value that would be good for them and in the
direction in which you are trying to lead them
They are much more likely to follow through if
they do
The Paradox of choice
Too many choices often leave people
overwhelmed and paralyzed
The Paradox of Choice
Researchers discovered that for every ten additional
retirement fund options employees were offered,
participation rates dropped almost 2%; For example,
when 2 funds were offered, participation rates were
75%; when 59 funds were offered, participation rates
were 60%
Iyengar, S.S.; Huberman, G.; and Jiang, W. (2004). “How much
choice is too much?” Contributions to 401(K) retirement plans,” In
Mitchell, O. and Utkus, S. (eds.). Pension Design and
Structure: New Lessons from Behavioral Finance. pp. 83-96.
Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
The Paradox of Choice
When consumers were offered samples of jams at a
supermarket and their subsequent purchases were
tracked (using coupons), those who were offered
samples from 24 different jams bought only 3% of the
time; those who were offered 6 jams bought 30% of
the time.
Iyengar, S.S. and Lepper, M. R. (2000). “When choice is
demotivating: Can one desire too much of a good thing?,”
Journal of Pesonalityand Social Psychology, 79:995-1006.
The Paradox of Choice
When Procter and Gamble reduced the number of
versions of Head and Shoulders shampoo from 26 to
15, sales increased 10%.
Osnos, E. (1997, September 27). “Too many choices? Firms cut
back on new products.” Philadelphia Inquirer, D1/D7.
TAKEAWAY
When offering interventions, keep the number of
options small
What have you learned?
•
What will be one thing you take away from this seminar and can
use right away?
•
What do you want to explore more?
Bill O’Hanlon
•
223 N. Guadalupe #278
•
Santa Fe, NM 87501
•
www.billohanlon.com
•
[email protected]
•
www.paidpublicspeaker.com
•
www.getyourbookwritten.com