Don't Be Fooled

Influence is a powerful tool. So powerful that author Robert B. Cialdini, Ph.D., refers to “weapons” of influence in his book The Psychology of Persuasion. In our daily activities most of us are selling something. Obviously if you are in sales, you are selling your company’s products or services to customers. But internal sales are a fact of life, whether you perceive the efforts as such or not. If you’re the CFO with responsibility for developing a corporate budget, that proposal must be sold to the executive committee. The product you offer needs to gain acceptance. If the concept of selling or the connotation of the word ‘sales’ bothers you, think of the concept of persuasion. Influence is the psychology of persuasion.

Many (or all) of us not only sell and need to persuade others to accept our ideas but we are also ‘sold to’ by others. We are customers. As a leader, your success will hinge on the acceptance of your mission’s values and goals by all stakeholders: customers, associates, vendor-partners and investors.

In this article I’d like to discuss some of the weapons of influence used in persuasion. If you employ these methods, I caution you to be careful to consider your integrity and the potential effects. Used as manipulation techniques, they can have uncomfortable negative consequences on a relationship when discovered. As the possible recipient of these weapons being used against you, to be ‘forewarned is to be forearmed.’ You may not choose to use these weapons but there’s great value in recognizing if someone is attempting to use them on you. Since there is a psychological basis for the effectiveness, we are vulnerable just because the way our brains are wired. Responses may be subconscious or automatic without the opportunity for conscious control.

Civilization has been able to advance by increasing the number of operations we can perform without thinking about them. Think about driving to work and how unconscious you are in following the route. Since we employ automatic behaviors, and this is just the way our mind works, we become vulnerable to anyone using techniques to stimulate this behavior. Here’s an example from an experiment by Professor Ellen Langer. She had people try to break in line of people waiting to make photocopies. When the intruder asked to cut in line they were typically denied. But when the intruder said, “Excuse me, I have five pages to copy. May I use the copy machine because I’m in a rush?,” the experimenter was allowed into line 93 percent of the time. Researchers determined that the word “because” triggers an automatic response even when the subjects were given no subsequent reason to comply. Obviously everyone in line was there to make copies.

Here are some weapons of which to beware:

Reciprocation. The rule of reciprocation says that we should try to repay, in kind, what another person provides to us. We feel obligated to the future repayment of favors. One effective use of this technique is when a charity organization sends in the mail, unsolicited, a pack of return address labels with your name on it. I know for me, it’s hard to throw those labels away or use them without making a contribution. Gifts are another example. Due to accepted social norms there is pressure surrounding the gift. There is an obligation to give, an obligation to receive and obligation to repay. The receiver feels indebtedness. The rule of reciprocation demands that one sort of action be reciprocated by a similar sort of action. You can diffuse negative effects by remembering that the rule says that favors be met with favors. It does not require that tricks be met with favors.

Commitment and Consistency. We all fool ourselves from time to time in order to keep our thoughts and beliefs consistent with what we have already done or decided. The mind feels comfortable this way. Consistency is typically perceived as a value versus inconsistency. Stubborn consistency allows us a very appealing luxury. We don’t have to think that hard about a subject any longer if we just accept a previous conclusion. While thinking is hard work, ignoring changes in circumstances may have undesirable results. Sir Joshua Reynolds said “There is no expedient to which a man will not resort to avoid the real labor of thinking.” Think about that for a while if you can. We all know people who will hide behind their position defended by the rationale of consistency to protect themselves from the potentially troubling consequences of thought.

Authority. There is a famous experiment conducted by Professor Stanley Milgram after WWII designed to test how far someone will go in “following orders” of an authority figure. The participant was instructed to administer electric shocks to a subject if a wrong answer was given. (The participant did not know that no shocks were actually transmitted but the subject acted as though in discomfort or pain.) The voltage was (falsely) increased with each additional wrong answer. Even though the participant observed the subject (actor) was in increasing agony, prompting by the leader to just “follow the instructions” resulted in continuing shocks administered. The subject followed the directions even though the subject appeared near death with the high voltage. What is frightening is that the subjects were not a bunch of chosen sadists. They were just like you and me represented by a cross-section of ages, occupations and education levels. The reason for the action, Milgram says, has to do with a deep-seated sense of duty to authority within each of us. The subject did not have the ability to defy the wishes of the boss in the study. One conclusion is that “it is the extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of an authority.”

A typical example of this principle is when actors are used to pitch products. Years ago, Robert Young played Dr. Marcus Welby on TV. He had such strong recognition of authority that viewers would actually write to Dr. Welby for medical advice! Later when Young appeared in commercials for Sanka, we believed his authority automatically that decaffeinated Sanka was the best choice of coffee for us. Con men know the following: “the outward signs of power and authority frequently may be counterfeited with the flimsiest of materials.”

In the uniform industry we can readily understand that clothing can trigger a mechanical compliance to authority. In an experiment by psychologist Leonard Bickman, a young man, dressed in street clothes, requested that passersby pick up a discarded paper bag. The requests were later made with the same man dressed in a security guard uniform. Regardless of the request, many more people obeyed the requester when he was wearing the uniform. A more subtle example would be the wearing of a well-tailored business suit. Research has demonstrated more people will follow or be influenced by someone well-dressed even when the same information is offered.

To counteract the automatic influence of authority you may want to ask some test questions: 1) Is this authority truly an expert or are you just assuming the veracity? Seek evidence of the authority’s credentials and the relevance of those credentials to the topic at hand. 2) How truthful can we expect this expert to be here? Try to determine what the expert stands to benefit from our compliance. One test you can try is to argue against your own interests and see what kind of response you get. You need to check for reliability and validity. Are the answers consistent over time and can you count on the accuracy of the information?

You may want to think about your automatic reactions because you want to be successful in applying your values and intelligence while attempting to lead, influence and persuade. The minds works in some automatic ways as a result of natural factors based on our anthropology and survival requirements. Our increased awareness of these factors will both protect us from being fooled and enable use of these tools in an appropriate manner.

Joseph Greco is president of Greco Apparel. Visit them on the web at www.grecoapparel.com