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the word “because” trigger an automatic compliance response from Langer’s subjects,
the contrast principle would suggest: Sell the suit first, because when it comes time to look at sweaters, even expensive ones, their prices will not seem as high in comparison.
The same principle applies to a man who wishes to buy the accessories (shirt, shoes, belt) to go along with his new suit.
“The house I got them spotted for looks really great after they’ve first looked at a couple of dumps.”
the rule for reciprocation.7 The rule says that we should try to repay, in kind, what another person has provided us.
There was a significant tendency for subjects to buy more raffle tickets from Joe the more they liked him.
The beauty of the free sample, however, is that it is also a gift and, as such, can engage the reciprocity rule.
Another consequence of the rule, however, is an obligation to make a concession to someone who has made a concession to us.
the second request could be an objectively large one—as long as it was smaller than the first request—and the technique would still work.
moved in together. Things were never perfect
automatic consistency functions as a shield against thought,
Each of the strategies is intended to get us to take some action or make some statement that will trap us into later compliance through consistency pressures.
The Chinese answer was elementary: Start small and build.
For the salesperson, the strategy is to obtain a large purchase by starting with a small one.
Almost any small sale will do, because the purpose of that small transaction is not profit. It is commitment. Further purchases, even much larger ones,
The tactic of starting with a little request in order to gain eventual compliance with related larger requests has a name: the foot-in-the-door technique.
It can persuade them to change their own attitudes in the direction of the statement. But more important for the purpose of commitment,
There is something magical about writing things down. So set a goal and write it down. When you reach that goal, set another and write that down. You’ll be off and running.
the act of writing down their first judgments caused them to resist the influence of contradictory new data and to remain consistent with the preliminary choices.
Yet another reason that written commitments are so effective is that they require more work than verbal ones. And the evidence is clear that the more effort that goes into a commitment, the greater is its ability to influence the attitudes of the person who made it.
“persons who go through a great deal of trouble or pain to attain something tend to value it more highly than persons who attain the same thing with a minimum of effort.”
Social scientists have determined that we accept inner responsibility for a behavior when we think we have chosen to perform it in the absence of strong outside pressures.
but it won’t get us to accept inner responsibility for the act.
the boys took personal responsibility for their choice to stay away from the robot during that time.
There is no need for the compliance professional to undertake a costly and continuing effort to reinforce the change; the pressure for consistency will take care of all that.
The first sort of signal is easy to recognize. It occurs right in the pit of our stomachs when we realize we are trapped into complying with a request we know we don’t want to perform.
social proof. It states that one means we use to determine what is correct is to find out what other people think is correct.
Usually, when a lot of people are doing something, it is the right thing to do.
The principle of social proof says so: The greater the number of people who find any idea correct, the more the idea will be correct.
In general, when we are unsure of ourselves, when the situation is unclear or ambiguous, when uncertainty reigns, we are most likely to look to and accept the actions of others as correct.
We will use the actions of others to decide on proper behavior for ourselves, especially when we view those others as similar to ourselves.
Once again we can see that social proof is most powerful for those who feel unfamiliar or unsure in a specific situation and who, consequently, must look outside of themselves for evidence of how best to behave there.
increase liking and compliance is to claim that they have backgrounds and interests similar to ours.
As opportunities become less available, we lose freedoms;
less-available item is more desired and valued.
The drop from abundance to scarcity produced a decidedly more positive reaction to the cookies than did constant scarcity.
