Human triggers: The Social Laws: Weapons of Influence

Have you ever wondered why is it so easy for some people to get their way through, it seems that they move with some magic wand, bewitching people as they move.

Have you ever wondered why is it so difficult to say no to some people, all you could do is decide at the back of your mind that next time it is going to be a strict no but you still fall into their charm(?) and say yes.

Its not magic but some greater science involved. I read the book Influence- The Psychology of Persuasion recently and the principles resonated with me very highly. I could picture myself in similar situations as cited and wondered how intrinsic these human triggers are.

The book talks about what human triggers are (for the matter of fact, not just humans most living beings have triggers), how these evolved, their importance and six human triggers/principles which help you become Jujutsu warrior.*

The Human trigger system is analogous to stimulus-response system, which has developed over a period of time with repeated situations and responses. It developed as humans moved towards civilised world, and had a code of conduct, some social laws, to guide what is and what is not acceptable in this civilised world. The triggers helped to guide behaviour so that one doesn’t become a social outcast, they also help us from processing the similar input again and again, reducing the number of operations we perform without thinking and letting us concentrate on other things. When you receive a human trigger, the brain comes up with a “click-whirr” response, like a tape playing on a button click. And how eventually these social laws, have been used as weapons of influence for persuasion.

Some classic human triggers:

• Expensive is good (shout out to all females there, not blindly generalising but coming from experience)
• Contract principle: car accessories cost seems to be trivial spend after buying a car 

I would like to talk about these six universal principles, how these are used to become a skilled persuader and how can you defend yourself against them. These will make more sense when we try to understand them with examples.

1. Reciprocation: The give and take 

Have you also been the victims of buying products in supermarket, after being provided with small cubes of certain variety of cheese or chocolates to try (even if you don't really like them). If yes, then you, just like me have been a victim of reciprocation.

The human society works in a honoured network of obligation, a web of indebtedness. We are humans because our ancestors learnt to share their food and their skills in this network. And hence, evolved the systems of trade, aids and gift giving. It means that one person could give something (food, energy, care) to another with the confidence that it was not being lost.

Although, mostly the intent with this rule is to have a fair trade, but this rule being a very powerful one also leads to unfair exchanges. This is because for most of us, it is highly disagreeable to be in state of obligation. It weighs heavily on us and demands to be removed. This internal discomfort and the possibility of external shame makes this rule a strong persuasion weapon.

Boy!! how we hate obligation

How to say No

When encountered with this rule, surrendering or suffering heavy casualties are not the only options.  With the proper understanding of the nature of our opponent we can come from the compliance battlefield unhurt. The idea is to identify the intent of the person initiating the rule, and if the intent is to get unfair/undue advantage, we can    avoid the confrontation with the rule by refusing to allow the requester to commission its force in first place.

2. Commitment and Consistency: Hobgoblins of the mind

One very interesting study about people at racetrack shows that just after placing a bet, they are much more confident of their horse's chances of winning than they are immediately before laying that bet. The reason for this change is another weapon of social influence. Like others, this one also lies deep within us. It is our nearly obsessive desire to be (and to appear) consistent with what we have already done. Once we have made a choice or taken a stand, we will encounter personal and interpersonal pressures to behave consistently with that commitment. Inconsistency is commonly thought to be an undesirable personality trait. Also, like most other forms of automatic responding, it offers a shortcut through the density of modern life.

The consistency force is engaged with commitment. The click-whirr response tape of consistency is played with the commitment button. One very powerful example is the treatment of American POW (prisoner-of-war) by Red Chinese during Korean War. Chinese communists would ask US PoWs for writing relatively innocent statements such as “US is not perfect” or “unemployment is not an issue in a communist country”.  Once they had made remarks along those lines, they got asked for more. To stay consistent, many went to the extent of becoming a collaborator.

It begins with starting small and building over it. However small the action be - it is a commitment. This the very famous foot-in-the-door technique.

The contrast and foot-in-the-door 

How to say No

A foolish consistency is hobgoblin of little minds (by Ralph Walso Emerson).

Ask yourself “Would I make the same choice again?” (had it not been for what I have said or what has been extracted out of me by the compliance practitioner in the near past). If the answer is no, than don’t confabulate the reason for saying yes, just say no and move on.

3. Social Proof: Truth are us

The next one is the principle of Social Proof. One of the means we use to determine what is correct is to find out what other people think is correct. The Asch experiment is a very famous psychology experiment to investigate the extent to which social pressure from majority group could affect a person to conform.

The Asch experiment

This principle also, like others, works in some situations better than the rest. One such situation is uncertainty. The tendency to see an action as more appropriate when others are doing it normally works quite well. As a rule, we will make fewer mistakes by acting in accord with social evidence than contrary to it.The laughter track in comedy shows, bartenders "salting/seeding" their tip jars are all social proof at play. Salesman are taught to spice their pitches with numerous accounts of individuals who have purchased the product. 

Social proof is also a very powerful phenomenon, it can move from a harmless laughter track to rise in number of deaths after one story of suicide.

How to say No

Social Proof equips us with a very useful auto-pilot mode. Yet there are problems with auto-pilot mode if the flight information locked into the control mechanism is wrong. Our best defence against the disadvantages of auto-pilot mode are to recognise when the data is in error. If we can become sensitive to situations where the social proof automatic pilot is working with inaccurate information, we can disengage the mechanism and grasp the controls when we need to.

4.  Liking: The friendly thief

As a rule, we most prefer to say yes to the requests of someone we know and like, which seems natural as well. However, what is surprising is that this rule is applicable to total strangers also, and is exploited by people to get us to comply to their requests.

Physical attractiveness, similarity, compliments, contact and cooperation are some of the factors that contribute the likeliness factor of people we know, as well as strangers.
We make unconscious assumptions like good looking equals good. For example, a study of the Canadian federal elections found that attractive candidates received more than two and a half times as many votes as unattractive candidates, despite this, voters do not realise their bias. 

Another example is where similarity was  the means of increasing liking. I was once involved in a minor road accident (disclaimer: I am not a bad driver), and when the other party and I realised we both belong to same religion, the matter was resolved very amicably. 

How to say No

Because liking can be increased by many means, it is pointless to devise specific counter tactics to combat each of the myriad versions of the various ways to influence liking. Besides, many of the factors leading to liking, for example physical attractiveness, work unconsciously. So we need a general approach. Rather than trying to recognise and prevent the action of liking factors, we let them work. Our vigilance is not towards the things that produce liking but towards the fact that undue liking has been produced. The time to react is when we realise out liking towards the practitioner more than it should be under the circumstances. 

5. Authority: Directed deference

How many of us ever question the prescription written by a doctor. The doubt/questions are even lesser if the doctor is a senior doctor. Similarly, questioning our teachers was always a far-fetched possibility. 

People follow the lead of the credible, knowledgeable, experts.We are trained from birth that obedience to proper authority is right and disobedience is wrong. From parents and schools to legal, military and political system, everywhere we find this essential message.

Conforming to the dictates of authority figures has always had genuine practical advantages for us. It allows the development of sophisticated structures for resource production, trade, defence, expansion and social control that would otherwise be impossible. We are often also vulnerable to symbols of authority  like titles, certificates, clothes (uniforms).

There is one very interesting case of "rectal ear ache". A physician ordered ear drops to be administered in right ear of a patient suffering pain and infection there. On the prescription the doctor abbreviated right ear to read "place in R ear". Upon receiving the prescription, the duty nurse promptly put the required number of drops into patient's anus. Such (😮) is the power of Authority.

How to say No

A fundamental form of defence against this problem is a heightened awareness of authority power. With Authority in picture, the trick is to be able to recognise when authority promptings are best followed and then they should be resisted. The questions one should ask, "Is this authority truly an expert?", "How truthful can we expect the expert to be here?". The answers to these kind of questions should help us navigate the authority principle.

6. Scarcity: The rule of the few   

With the luxury of time that today's age provides us, I think for most of us online shopping is a boon. I really liked a cool new feature on one of the shopping sites where they would also show how many of a particular item are left, and more often than not, I was impulsively buying things with "only few left" blinking against them.

This human trigger, is called the scarcity principle. Any opportunity seems more valuable to us when its availability is limited. The idea of potential loss clicks the trigger of the want. In fact, people seem to be more motivated by the thought of losing something than by the thought of gaining something of equal value. 

It is the scarcity principle that makes coin collections or stamp collections so valuable, because, as a rule, if it is rare or becoming rare, it is more valuable. Like the other weapons of influence, the scarcity principle also is one of our brains shortcut to correctly derive the quality based on availability. It is important however to note that its the drop from high/moderate availability to scarcity that triggers this human behaviour and not a manipulated constant scarcity.

The scarcity of time 😇  

How to say No

Like all other laws, the first step is awareness. However, in case of scarcity principle knowing the causes and workings of scarcity pressures may not be sufficient to protect us as the cognitive process of "knowing" gets suppressed by the emotional reaction to scarcity. Here, you would have to use the arousal of these emotional reactions itself as our cue. When we confront the scarcity pressures, we must also ask ourselves as to what is it we want from item.  If it is just the benefits of possessing something rare, or the actual utility of the item. Take a informed decision based on the answer to this question.

*Jujutsu is a Japanese martial art and a method of close combat for defeating an armed and armored opponent in which one uses no weapon or only a short weapon.

"Jū" can be translated to mean "gentle, soft, supple, flexible, pliable, or yielding." "Jutsu" can be translated to mean "art" or "technique" and represents manipulating the opponent's force against himself rather than confronting it with one's own force