I’ve been reading the Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini, and it contains fascinating insights into behaviors I’ve seen but couldn’t explain.
1. Reciprocity: “I did something for you, now you do something for me.”
2. Contrast: “The deluxe model is $500, but this one is only $300.”
3. Concession: “If you won’t buy it, how about just giving me a referral?”
These rules combined into a “rejection-then-retreat” tactic are particularly effective at getting people to agree to your suggestion.
Cialdini posits that the drive to reciprocate is such an effective tool for cooperation human societies that we internalize strong motivations not to break the rule. So leading off an interaction by doing a small favor for the other person puts significant pressure on them to reciprocate. If you then ask for something in return, you can dictate the manner of their reciprocation.
The contrast rule (similar to anchoring) suggests that we evaluate options in relation to their temporal and spatial surroundings. So showing someone a $100 appliance then a $300 appliance will make them think the $300 one is pricy. But showing the $500 appliance before the $300 item makes the latter seem inexpensive.
A concession in this context is backing down from a high initial request to something more reasonable. This triggers both the reciprocity and contrast, so the requestee has a strong compulsion and bias toward agreeing to the second lower request.
These sociological and psychological phenomena can be combined to create the rejection-then-retreat tactic. The seller opens with a high initial price (but not so outlandish as to seem in bad faith), which the buyer rejects. Then the seller concedes some ground by offering a lower price (their target all along). At this point the buyer is fighting their own compulsion to reciprocate the concession, as well as perceiving the second price to be more reasonable.
Starting a rejection-then-retreat scenario off with a small gift like lunch or a drink only adds to the reciprocity pressure!
In the next section, we’ll learn how to extract and enforce commitments, even new year’s resolutions…
