In the first-year critical thinking course I teach, I set the stage with a point about rhetoric: persuasion is everywhere, and awareness is the first step in thwarting undesired manipulation. So it was with great interest that I listened to the most recent 2-part episode of the Hidden Brain podcast, called simply Persuasion.
Over 98 minutes, the episodes draw on Robert Cialdini’s 45-year psychology career, which includes not just his peer-reviewed research but his years spent undercover in used car sales training sessions. His book, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, expanded and republished in 2021, distills the scientific research into seven principles of persuasion:
- Reciprocation
- Commitment and consistency
- Social proof
- Liking
- Authority
- Scarcity
- Unity
When invoked, each principle exerts significant pressure on the people with whom we communicate. Like all strategies, these persuasive principles can be used either ethically or unscrupulously.
I am imagining using each one of these principles, one per class session, in a roughly five minute activity, to illustrate persuasion in practice.
With cue cards and props, I picture having two volunteers act out a scene, drawn from Cialdini’s book or another source, depicting the principle, and then asking the class to identify what made the scene persuasive. Importantly, I will not explain or define the principles beforehand, but allow the students to cogitate and construct the meaning for themselves.
I plan to write separate posts describing each of Cialdini’s seven types of persuasion, in no particular order.
Reciprocation
One form of influence is encapsulated in the Golden Rule: do unto others as you would have them do unto you. This basic kind of fairness, reciprocity, seems ingrained in human nature. It may be a just way to treat other people, but reciprocity can also be employed for manipulative ends.
Years ago, members of the Hari Krishna sect would occupy airport lobbies, raising money and seeking converts. A very effective tactic was to hand flowers to travelers as “gifts”. Cialdini explains it this way:
They would walk up to people and press a flower into their hands, a passenger in the airport somewhere, and they wouldn’t take it back. And they say, “No, no, no. That is our gift to you. However, if you would like to give a gift to us for the good works of our society, that would be greatly appreciated.” And I remember watching them operate like this and people, they weren’t able to simply walk away with the flower, they felt a need to give back because they had received. The interesting thing was if I followed them, I would see that the first waste container they came to, they would throw the flower with force into the garbage because they didn’t want it. They wanted to be released from violation of the rule for reciprocity. That’s what they paid for.
Notice the last two sentences: the hapless travelers wanted neither the flowers nor to give the donations, but having the former, an intrinsic reciprocity drove them to the latter.
In another example, Cialdini retells a psychology study done by Dennis Regan of Stanford University:
It was a lovely study. And about halfway through he said [to the subject], “Okay, it’s time for a break.” In truth, one of the subjects was a confederate of the experiment. This person said, “Do you mind if I leave the room?” Researcher said, “No, that’s fine.” The confederate left and came back with two bottles of Coca-Cola, one for himself, one for the other subject. He said, “I was thirsty. I got myself a Coke. I thought you might like one as well.” Then the experiment begins again, and at the end, the experimenter leaves the room to go get some materials. And the confederate says to the subject, “I wonder if you could do me a favor, I’m selling raffle tickets and the more I sell, the greater I will be able to get in return and you could win whatever the prize was, I don’t remember, let’s say it was a big screen TV.”
And what Regan did was to look at how many raffle tickets people bought. Those who didn’t get a Coke, there was a control condition where the confederate left the room [and] just returned with nothing, and the experiment began. Bought half as many tickets as those who got the Coca-Cola. Those who received the favor were now going to return the favor by buying twice as many of the man’s raffle tickets in reciprocation.
In that controlled study, as in the case of the Hari Krishnas, the principle of reciprocity is deployed preemptively to foster a certain outcome. With a little thoughtful reflection, one could imagine numerous ways to utilize this reciprocity principle to satisfy their own ends, in both personal and professional settings.
In the classroom
Perhaps the best way to teach the principle of reciprocity would be unannounced. Instead of explaining the principle and building up the activity, placing the class in a simulation of reciprocity in action would force students to interpret the exercise and construct the concept for themselves.
I’ll recruit two volunteers and give them index cards with their lines written. Including a few props, like a few flowers for the Hari Krishna and some travel documents for the airline passenger. After encouraging them to read and act out their parts with creative panache, I’ll ask the rest of the class what was going on in the mind of the passenger that led them to give money to a cause they cared nothing about.