No. 2 Commitment and Consistency
Extracted from: Robert Cialdini – Influence. 6 Weapons of Influence.
In a recent discussion with my son about the fundamental nature of stories, I made a patently wrong rash generalization. Nevertheless, I felt I needed to defend my argument and even gather further evidence and support to prove I was right (although, in hindsight, I was definitely wrong, just don’t tell him that!)
Well, I think it’s partly because there is some competitiveness between us, but it has more to do with Consistency and Commitment.
Consistency is an immensely powerful motive.
When we become inconsistent, changing our mind, making U-turns on decisions, we think we will be perceived as being two-faced, flip-flopping to suit the situation, or even mentally ill. Think of politicians, we ridicule them if they change direction, consistency is highly valued.
But, why do we defend the indefensible? Why is this tendency so difficult to break? Why do we fall into this trap and how do some compliance and influence professionals (salespeople and negotiators) find ways to exploit it?
Firstly, consistency is a mental shortcut. It saves us mental time and energy. We don’t want to re-evaluate the evidence, again and again, so we make assumptions and form beliefs. That may mean behaving in a way that is consistent even if it is contrary to our own best interests.
“There is no expedient to which a man will not resort to avoid the real labour of thinking” Sir Joshua Reynolds.
For exploiters, automatic consistency is a gold mine that enables them to structure their interactions with us so that our own need for consistency will lead to their benefit.
Cialdini tells the story of meeting with a neighbour at a toy store after Christmas in two consecutive years, buying the same toy for their child. Both fathers committed to buying a similar “hot” toy for their sons for Christmas, both children pestered their fathers to get the toy and made them make a promise. Demand was so high that stock ran out and they had to buy alternatives for their child for Christmas, but, when the toy returned to the stores after Christmas they also returned to buy the toy, as they had promised.
Most toy manufacturers dread the period after Christmas because of the massive drop in sales. Having advertised and promoted the latest, hottest, toy heavily before Christmas demand was very high and parents committed to getting the toy for their child. Seeing this commitment, toy manufacturers undersupply the toy pre-Christmas but provided good alternatives which the parent bought. Then the manufacturers would promote the toy again after Christmas knowing that the parents had made a commitment and wanted to be consistent with their promise. So, parents returned to the toy store and bought the hot toy and showed their child that they had stood by their commitment and toy manufacturers had levelled out their post-Christmas sales.
Commitment is the key. The power of consistency is activated by commitment. If you take a stand on something, the chances are that you will follow through with a commitment because you wish t be seen as consistent. It’s easy to see how this can be manipulated.
This desire for consistency and commitment is illustrated by POW’s in the Korean war, where the Chinese found a method to get the US POW’s to become “collaborators” by getting the POW’s to make small seeming insignificant commitments and then building on their need for consistency.
Firstly they would get the POW’s to write something like, “The United States is not perfect”. This was physically written down and then eventually shown to other POW’s. Then they would ask the same POW to make a list of; “problems with America”. This too would be written and shown to others.
Little by little the POW’s began to become more consistent with their own small admissions and gradually began to change their own self-image. Once they began to see themselves as “collaborators” (no doubt helped by the Chinese negotiators) they became consistent with this self-image. The POWs betrayed themselves with small incremental steps and with their own need to be consistent with what they had written.
This is why salesmen often start with a small sale first. The purpose of this is not to profit, it is to get an initial commitment. They are converting a prospect into a customer.
So, when we agree to seemingly trivial requests, we must be aware that we are entering into a commitment that will increase our commitment because of our need to be consistent.
Not only do these small trivial actions influence future behaviour they also influence our own self-image.
This practice is known as “a foot-in-the-door”. Using small commitments to manipulate a person’s self-image. Once your self-image where they want it, you will comply with a whole range of requests that are consistent with this view of yourself.
The Magic Act.
The way we behave tells us about ourselves. |This is one of our primary sources of information about beliefs, values and attitudes. By the very act of writing down their statements, the U.S. POWs were persuaded of their self-image. It provided the physical evidence that the act had occurred. The POW could not retract what was written and also the written statement could be shown to others. This had the effect of persuading the writer that they genuinely believe what was written.
Amway exploited this principle when they asked their employees to write down their goals. They found that something magical happens when people write things down. They also got their customers, rather than the salesman, to fill in a form. This simple act drastically reduced the number of returns they received or people backing out of an agreement during the “cool-down” period.
Similarly, many companies get their prospective customers to write a slogan, which is normally used as a testimonial. It’s why “likes” help to endorse involvement. The aim is to get as many people as possible liking the product.
We are all susceptible to the image we think others have of us and the image we have of ourselves. What we think of how others think of us often affects how we think of ourselves. For instance, when we hear that we are considered by others as charitable, we are more likely to give generously to charities than before we heard this. Most of us adjust our image according to how others perceive us to be.
The Public Eye.
Whenever we take a stand that is visible to others, we engender a need to be consistent, or at least to seem to be consistent. Consistency is seen as a desirable personality trait. It is rational, assured, trustworthy and sound. The more public the position we adopt the more reluctant we would be to drop it. In the studies of Deutsch and Gerrard, they show that the more public we make a commitment, the more we feel we have to be consistent, even if, as Deutsch and Gerard showed, those judgements are later proved to be wrong. Those who had written down their commitment were much less inclined to change. Just writing down your commitment and showing it to someone is sufficient to make you feel the need to be consistent.
The Extra Effort.
Written commitments take more effort to produce than verbal commitments. The more effort that goes into a commitment, the greater is its ability to bind us to behaviour consistent with 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 minimum effort” Aaronson & Mills.
This degree of difficulty is an act of survival for a group. The greater the barriers to entry and the greater the difficulty, the greater membership of that group will be valued. It binds together members and increases the chances of survival. The degree of difficulty builds cohesion and camaraderie. We often see this in military groups like the SAS and in university fraternities and sororities.
The Inner Choice.
Commitments are most effective in changing a person’s self-image and future behaviour when they are active, public, and effortful. When we attain or achieve something by huge effort, we cannot believe that that effort was in vain and therefore we own what we have done and commit to it. It would not do to send soldiers out to fight a war on our behalf, only to tell them that their effort was worthless and of no value.
Social scientists have determined that we accept inner responsibility for behavior when we think we have chosen to perform in the absence of external pressures. That is why often there are no large rewards for this kind of behaviour. Large rewards may be seen as the “reason” we did it and therefore we have not committed of our own free will, we have been induced to do it rather than owning it for ourselves.
This is equally true of a strong threat; it may produce immediate compliance but is unlikely to produce long-term commitment. This clearly has implications for rearing children. Heavy threats may produce immediate compliance but won’t produce ownership of the actions.
In a study by Jonathan Freedman, young boys were threatened with severe consequences if they played with a specific, interesting toy (a robot). They immediately complied. But when they returned 6 weeks later without the Freedman there, they immediately went to play with the robot. A strong threat was successful while the boys thought they may be caught and punished.
In a second test, Freedman warned another set of boys not to play with the robot because “it is wrong to play with the robot” with no threat to frighten the boys. When these boys returned 6 weeks later and were given the freedom to play with any toy they wanted, very few chose the robot. The threat had taught the boys that it was unwise to play with the robot when there was a threat of punishment, , which conversely made it more desirable. Yet those boys who were told it was wrong had taken ownership for themselves. It became their personal choice. Strong threats take away responsibility for actions.
For compliance professionals (salespeople and negotiators, i.e. everyone), commitments that produce inner change are the most desirable. The effects are lasting and become applicable to other behavioural situations. Once an inner change has happened it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy and requires practically no additional effort to reinforce the change.
This is often played out in what is called “throwing a lowball” and is often used by car salesmen. The objective is to get a prospect to decide to buy from the dealership. So, a low, discounted price is offered first which gets the prospect to commit to buying and then “something goes wrong”, an error and the discounted price is not available, or the inflated price of the trade-in can’t be offered.
The advantage offered induces a favourable purchase decision; then, sometime after the decision has been made but before the bargain is sealed, the original purchase advantage is deftly removed. This is a highly effective sales strategy to get a customer to commit to a sale first.
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of the little minds” Ralf Waldo Emerson.
It is the unconscious automatic nature of consistency that leads us astray in the hand of a compliance professional. However, we need it because without consistency our lives would be chaos. It sometimes leads us to poor choices when we are trapped into complying with a request that we know we don’t really want to perform.
Once we have made a small commitment people tend to make justifications to support the commitment and they are willing to commit themselves further for the sake of consistency.
Even when we are aware that our desire to be consistent may be leading us into false arguments we find it hard to not commit, especially if you want to win an argument with your son.
6 Weapons of Influence:
Commitment and Consistency,
Social Proof,
Liking,
Authority
Scarcity