I’ve been asked to elaborate on the work of Dr Cialdini; so I’ll use the summary information from his book, to try to précis his ideas over the next few days.

Robert B. Cialdini PhD is Professor of Psychology at Arizona State University, and has spent many years investigating and researching persuasion techniques. This culminated in his writing the book “Influence: Science and Practise”, which details his six basic social and psychological principles, these form a foundation of several indirect persuasion strategies.

According to sociologists and anthropologists, one of the most widespread and basic norms of human culture is embodied in the rule for reciprocation. The rule requires that one person try to repay, in kind, what another person has provided. By obligating the recipient of an act to repayment in the future, the rule for reciprocation allows one individual to give something to another with confidence that it is not being lost. This sense of future obligation within the rule makes possible the development of various kinds of continuing relationships, transactions, and exchanges that are beneficial to the society. Consequently, all members of the society are trained from childhood to abide by the rule or suffer serious social disapproval.

The decision to comply with another’s request is frequently influenced by the Reciprocity rule. One favourite and profitable tactic of certain compliance professionals is to give something before asking for a return favour. The exploitability of this tactic is due to three characteristics of the rule for reciprocation:

1. The rule is extremely powerful, often overwhelming the influence of other factors that normally determine compliance with a request.

2. The rule applies even to uninvited first favours, thereby reducing our ability to decide whom we wish to owe and putting the choice in the hands of others.

3. The rule can spur unequal exchanges; to be rid of the uncomfortable feeling of indebtedness, an individual will often agree to a request for a substantially larger favour than the one he or she received.

Another way that the rule for reciprocity can increase compliance involves a simple variation on the basic theme: Instead of providing a first favour that stimulates a return favour, an individual can make an initial concession that stimulates a return concession. One compliance procedure, called the rejection-then-retreat technique, or door-in-the-face technique, relies heavily on the pressure to reciprocate concessions. By starting with an extreme request that is sure to be rejected, a requester can then profitably retreat to a smaller request (the one that was desired all along), which is likely to be accepted because it appears to be a concession. Research indicates that aside from increasing the likelihood that a person will say yes to a request, the rejection-then-retreat technique also increases the likelihood that the person will carry out the request and will agree to such requests in the future.

Our best defence against the use of reciprocity pressures to gain our compliance is not systematic rejection of the initial offers of others. Rather, we should accept initial favours or concessions in good faith, but be ready to redefine them as tricks should they later be proven so. Once they are redefined in this way, we will no longer feel a need to respond with a favour or concession of our own.

You might also enjoy reading:-

• Influence: Part 2 – Principle of Commitment & Consistency
• Influence: Part 4 – Principle of Liking
• Advanced psychological pickup theory
• Influence: Part 3 – Principle of Social Proof
• Influence: Part 5 – Principle of Authority

Posted by Jonathan in Psychology

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