Social Manipulation Tactics

Research on Reciprocation (Regan, 1971) Joe study

2 participants, one was confederate, either came back empty handed or with a coke for the other person ... then asked the person to buy a raffle ticket for him. The participants who he got coke for bought more v. participants who he got nothing this also shows that the favor doesn't have to be asked for for there to be reciprocation - the participants didn't ask for Joe to get them a coke -favor can trigger an unfair exchange, as no one says the favors have to be equal - here the raffle ticket cost more than the coke

Sherman's research on consistency

asked people to predict what they would say if someone asked them to collect money for a charity few weeks later a rep. for a charity asked for volunteers, 700% increase in volunteers

Weapons of influence

humans respond automatically because of psychological principles

Low ball tactic

A two-step compliance technique in which the manipulator secures an agreement with a request (Step 1) but then increases the size of that request by revealing hidden costs (Step 2)

Rushton & Campbell (1977):

British adults were more willing to donate blood if they were approached just after observing a confederate agreeing to donate blood.

Examples of physical attractiveness studies

o Attractive kids (irrespective of their gender) were rated as brighter and more successful than unattractive kids even if they had the same report cards o Physically attractive people earn more money than others who are comparable except for being less attractive o Attractive people are more likely to be hired for a job o Attractive political candidates receive more votes than unattractive candidates o Compared to unattractive males, attractive males were twice as likely to avoid jail and received significantly lighter sentences o Attractive people are more successful at eliciting compliance

Bandura and colleagues (1967; 1968) social validation experiment

o Examined how social validation can help overcome phobias o Looked at pre-school children who were scared of dogs. o Had them watch another child playing with a dog for 20 minutes per day. o After 4 days, 67% of these children were willing to climb into a playpen with a dog.

Jaywalking study (Lefkowitz, Blake, & Mouton, 1955)

o Experimenters walked across the street against traffic dressed in either o A business suit or Casual clothing o FOUND: Three times as many pedestrians followed the experimenter when he was dressed in a business suit than when he was dressed in casual clothing

• Consistency:

o Humans have a fundamental desire to be, and to appear, consistent with their actions, statements, and beliefs Being consistent makes us not have to think about every decision we make

Examples of association:

o Men who saw a car with a female model rated the car more positively than men who saw the same ad without the model o Participants were presented with political statements that they had rated before They were exposed to the statements either while eating or not eating FOUND: the statements that gained in approval were those that had been shown while food was being eaten

How is social validation used in real world?

o Nightclubs and restaurants - quantity = quality, the more people that go, the more we want to go o Tip jar o Laughter

• Cialdini and Vincent et al Zoo reciprocity study:

o Option 1: Chaperone juvenile detention center inmates on a day trip to the zoo - 17% said yes o Option 2: Volunteer as counsellor for these inmates for 2 hrs per week for the next two years - no one said yes o Then after option 2, 51% said yes to option 1

Worchel et al (1975) cookie study:

o Participants in a consumer preference study were given a chocolate chip cookie from a jar and asked to taste the cookie and rate its quality. o The jar either contained 10 cookies or 2 cookies o When there were only 2 cookies in a jar, participants rated the cookies more favorably than when there were 10 cookies in the jar o HOWEVER, the change from abundance to scarcity made the cookies seem EVEN MORE desirable/tasty than when they were always in scarce supply

Four factors determine whether we like someone or not:

o Physical attractiveness o Similarity o Contact and co-operation o Conditioning and association

Goldstein, Cialdini, and Griskevicius (2008) the effect of social validation on conservation behavior:

o Randomly assigned each room to one of two signs: o Standard message: importance of environmental protection o Descriptive norm message: majority of other guests participate in the towel reuse program o FOUND: Significantly higher towel reuse rate in the norm condition than in the standard message condition

Internal motivator

o Short-term: elicited compliance o Long-term: maintained compliance

External motivator:

o Short-term: elicited temporary compliance o Long-term: no longer effective

Conditioning and Association

o We like (and are more willing to comply with) people who are associated with positive feelings or events

rejection-then-retreat"

o charity asks for $100, we say no o then it asks for $25 which seems like a small price to pay compared to the $100 o they really wanted $25 in the first place

• Why do we reciprocate?

o cultural forces get us to reciprocate - polite, taught be be polite from a young age - we dont like being indebted o Evolutionary sense to return a favor because it forms a reciprocal relationship o heavy psychological cost if don't repay a favor o we fear that if we don't reciprocate the group will reject you o good for humanity - we pay our debt

Prosocial Behavior:

o evolutionally adaptive because it increases the probability of the survival of the species

Similarity examples:

o people were more willing to give a dime to the experimenter for a phone call when the two were dressed similarly than when they were not o Participants who were in the same birthday condition were more likely to comply (62.2%) when confederate asked the participant to critique an 8 page essay than were participants in the different birthday condition o Salespeople are taught to "mirror & match" the customers o Waitresses who were instructed to mimic their customers received bigger tips

Miller et al. volunteering:

o small request only - 29% showed o Door in face condition: large then small request -76% showed

Validation is most influential when:

o the people validating you are similar i.e. Commercials: "Ordinary people" who give "unrehearsed" testimonies about how good a product is o When we are uncertain about the "correct" course of action

Contrast principle

our judgment of an object will be influence by the object we compare it to Ex. Salespeople usually ask you if you want a belt or tie AFTER you have purchased the expensive suit

The sleeper effect:

the delayed increase in the persuasive impact of a non-credible source

Physical attractiveness halo effect:

we tend to think that attractive people must also have other attractive qualities

Scarcity

what is rare is valuable, what is in short-supply is desirable.

Frenzen & Davis idea:

when deciding whether or not to buy a product, liking for the hostess was twice as important as opinion about the products

Kuntz & Woolcott reciprocity with greeting cards

• Experiment sent out greeting cards to strangers: o Overwhelming number of people responded (117/578 sent a card back)

Bystander effect:

• where the presence of others inhibits helping o witnesses may not have reported the incident because there were other witnesses present who should/would take responsibility o diffusion of responsibility

Examples of mere exposure effect:

♣ When the participant had been subliminally exposed to the confederate, they were more persuaded by the confederate's opinion than a candidate who's photo they had not seen ♣ In politics, there is a strong connection between the amount of media exposure and a candidate's chance at winning

BUT less liking occurs with more exposure if:

♣ there is continued exposure to a person or object under unpleasant situations ♣ our original response to the stimuli is extremely negative

Physical attractiveness and damages: Kukla & Kessler:

♣ when the defendant was better looking than his victim, the victim was awarded $5623 ♣ when the victim was better looking than the defendant, the victim was awarded $10,051

Zajonc's (1968) Mere Exposure Effect

Repeated exposure to any stimulus makes it more appealing - Over 200 studies have confirmed this effect

contact

The more we are exposed to a person, the more positively we feel toward him/her

The foot-in-the-door tactic:

The tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request in order to appear consistent example: Freedman & Fraser (1966) asked Californians to sign a petition to "keep California beautiful" - Then 2 weeks later, they asked these homeowners if they would put a large, ugly "Drive carefully" sign on their front lawn FOUND: Approximately 50% of the people agreed even though the request was unrelated

Co-operation:

When someone co-operates with us, it engenders feelings of liking

Cognitive dissonance

(Festinger) - We bring our attitudes in line with our actions, reason why consistency works

Sherif, Harvey, White etc. summer camp study:

- Split boys attending summer camp into 2 groups (the Rattlers & the Eagles) - Created hostility by using competitive tactics -But then, how do you get them to like each other? -By making them work together (superordinate goals) Split boys attending summer camp into 2 groups, created hostility by using competitive tactics, then made them work together - cooperation

Beware of agreeing to a small request. It can:

-Increase your compliance to a larger, related request. -Increase your compliance to a larger, unrelated request.

why do we fall for the low ball tactic

-The customer made a commitment to buy the car -This commitment was supported by a host of actions -They have already had the pleasure of thinking of the car as theirs

how to fight being manipulated through reciprocation

-just decline -manipulate them back and ask for a bigger request first