Influence: my one paragraph summary
I’m fascinated by humans, why we think the way we do and act the way we do. So I took a much postponed journey to influence, one of the best work on human psychology.
Dr. Caldini in the book states that the mother turkey responds to the sound of its chicks that makes the click burr sound. This is the only indicator of whether the mother turkey would cuddle or kill anything in its front. So and stuffed cat embedded with a speaker to make the sound would be cuddled and a chick that doesn’t make the sound would be pecked to death. This happens because she needs a shortcut for responding to her chicks while she concentrates her limited mental capacity on other things and it works just fine for the turkey. Humans are way smarter but in this age of information overload we also need shortcuts to navigate through the myriad of information facing us. So we too are susceptible to the click burr response to the right elements:
- Reciprocation: we tend to want to reciprocate actions e.g when given a gift. It’s a social obligation.
- Consistency & Commitment: as humans we tend to want to follow our previous ideals and be stubborn headed to any chosen path or commitment no matter the outcome.
- Social Proof: we tend to find comfort in what everyone else is doing hence we do it too.
- Liking: we comply with people we like, people who like us and are like us.
- Authority: we look to authority figures as a shortcut for how to act and behave. Almost mindlessly following what they say regardless of how much sense it makes.
- Scarcity: apparent scarcity creates an increased desire for a thing. No matter what the thing is. We just want it more.
The fault in our stars is that some compliance professionals know of this rigid pattern and exploit it our detriment.
