influence #1

in the turkey world if a chick makes cheep-cheep sound. it’s mother will care for it. if not mother will ignore. interestingly when a stuffed polecat with recorded cheep-cheep sound approached mother turkey not only accepted it but gather it underneath her. this is called fixed action pattern and it fundamentally occurs in same sequence. it is like pattern were recorded on tape. situation calls for courtship. the courtship tape get played. note it’s not the whole thing, but some trigger feature.

the trigger feature that activate them can dupe us into playing them at wrong time. for example when we ask someone to do us a favor we will be more successful if we provide a reason. and the trigger here is because. and generate automatic compliance response.

there is a strong but sad parallel in the human jungle. and our automatic tape usually develop from psychological stereotypes.

the trick is with the proper execution the manipulator hardly need a muscle to strain. all that require is to trigger great store of influence and direct it towards intended result, the gravity, leverage, momentum will do the job and the manuplation will appear natural.

the experiment of warm and cold water shows the power of contrast principle. the advantage is it’s virtually undetectable. it also work other way around. if you show less price item first. expensive one will look more expensive. the logic behind setup property.

rule #1 - the old give and take

the old built in social idea was you could give away any variety of resource without really giving it away. the other person will feel obligated. seems like a good rule.

in todays world it can use to affect compliances or buying yes. when people owe other people it doesn’t matter ( simply overwhelm the factor of liking ) whether they like him or not, they felt a sense of obligation to repay. like the case of hari-krishna temple. free sample as a gift. or it can be in the form of gum with letter ( you don’t really have to pay back ).

although it is the obligation to repay constitute the essence of reciprocity, it is the obligation to receive that makes it so easy to exploit. it reduce the ability to choose from whom we wish to be indebted. and social politeness makes it more easy to exploit. for the exploiter like joe with coke bottle. notice the asymmetry, all the genuine free choices were his. initial favor, return favor….

another angle is we can easily be manipulated into unfair exchange by those who wish to exploit the rule. generally small first favor generate large returns. one important reason is clearly unpleasant feeling of being indebtedness. most of us find it highly disagreeable to be in the state of obligations. so we are willing to pay larger return to get out of the psychological burden of debt. another reason is social disliking. and this combination of reality of internal discomfort and possibility of external shame create heavy psychological debt.

reciprocal concessions -