Why
Influence?
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Ellen Langer conducted the following brilliant, fascinating study. She conspired with her university librarian to shut down all but one of the photocopy machines in a busy wing of the library. This quickly resulted in a long line behind the single operating photocopy machine. Over the course of several days, Langer had confederates approach a person at the front of the line with a request to "cut" in line. The confederate's request was carefully worded in three different ways. In the first condition, the confederate said, "Excuse me, may I use the Xerox machine, because I'm late to class?" The form of this question, request + reason, resulted in a 94% compliance rate. In the second condition, a confederate asked, "Excuse me, may I use the Xerox machine?" The structure of this question, a request followed by no supporting reason, resulted in a much lower compliance rate of only 60%. No surprises so far, right? You'd expect a person who gave a reason would get more help. Consider the various styles of panhandlers you've encountered. Were you more likely to help the fellow who said, "Hey buddy, gimme a dollar so I can buy a burger" or the one who said, simply, "Hey buddy, gimme a dollar?"
Heuristics are shortcuts for thinking. They are ways we can get out of a lot of thought, by employing only a very little. Influence practitioners are skilled at preying upon people who use heuristics. Robert Cialdini illustrates the nature of mindless, automatic responses with a description of the shrewd tactics of the saber-toothed blenny, a small fish that preys on aquatic predators much larger than itself.
Cialdini argues that humans respond mindlessly to trigger features as
well, as the following story attests:
Now let me ask you a question. If you were going to spend your valuable, limited cognitive resources understanding either central or peripheral routes to persuasion, which would you choose? You'd want to learn about heuristics, of course, since people operate in an "idling" mode most of the time. And for an understanding of the most fundamental and influential heuristic processes, there's no better starting point than Cialdini's 6 principles of influence . . .
Copyright © 1997 by Kelton Rhoads, Ph.D.
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