Instructions of assignment:
1. Watch both videos and complete a 1 ½ page argumentation on each video. It can be done in a word file or PDF file.
Link of videos:
a. https:
youtu.be/Fi0YR3Bl6uk
. https:
youtu.be/Qe73tRTksf0
2. Read the article attached and create a 1 ½ page argumentation.
the SCIENCE of Persuasion
the SCIENCE of Persuasion
Author(s): Robert B. Cialdini
Source: Scientific American Mind , Vol. 14, No XXXXXXXXXX), pp. 70-77
Published by: Scientific American, a division of Nature America, Inc.
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70 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN MIND
PersuasionSCIENCEof
the
By Robert B. Cialdini
Social psychology has determined
the basic principles that govern
getting to “yes”
Hello there.
I hope you’ve enjoyed the magazine so far. Now I’d like to let you in on something of great impor-
tance to you personally. Have you ever been tricked into saying yes? Ever felt trapped into buying some-
thing you didn’t really want or contributing to some suspicious-sounding cause? And have you ever wished
you understood why you acted in this way so that you could withstand these clever ploys in the future?
Yes? Then clearly this article is just right for you. It contains valuable information on the most pow-
erful psychological pressures that get you to say yes to requests. And it’s chock-full of NEW, IMPROVED
esearch showing exactly how and why these techniques work. So don’t delay, just settle in and get the
information that, after all, you’ve already agreed you want.
The scientific study of the process ofsocial influence has been under wayfor well over half a century, begin-
ning in earnest with the propaganda, public in-
formation and persuasion programs of World
War II. Since that time, numerous social scien-
tists have investigated the ways in which one in-
dividual can influence another’s attitudes and ac-
tions. For the past 30 years, I have participated
in that endeavor, concentrating primarily on the
major factors that
ing about a specific form of
ehavior change—compliance with a request.
Six basic tendencies of human behavior come
into play in generating a positive response: recip-
ocation, consistency, social validation, liking,
authority and scarcity. As these six tendencies
help to govern our business dealings, our soci-
etal involvements and our personal relation-
ships, knowledge of the rules of persuasion can
truly be thought of as empowerment.
Reciprocation
When the Disabled American Veterans orga-
nization mails out requests for contributions, the
appeal succeeds only about 18 percent of the time.
But when the mailing includes a set of free per-
sonalized address labels, the success rate almost
doubles, to 35 percent. To understand the effect of
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the unsolicited gift, we must recognize the reach
and power of an essential rule of human conduct:
the code of reciprocity.
All societies subscribe to a norm that obligates
individuals to repay in kind what they have re-
ceived. Evolutionary selection pressure has prob-
ably entrenched the behavior in social animals
such as ourselves. The demands of reciprocity be-
gin to explain the boost in donations to the veter-
ans group. Receiving a gift—unsolicited and per-
haps even unwanted—convinced significant num-
ers of potential donors to return the favor.
Charitable organizations are far from alone in
taking this approach: food stores offer free sam-
ples, exterminators offer free in-home inspections,
health clubs offer free workouts. Customers are
thus exposed to the product or service, but they
are also indebted. Consumers are not the only
ones who fall under the sway of reciprocity. Phar-
maceutical companies spend millions of dollars
every year to support medical researchers and to
provide gifts to individual physicians—activities
that may subtly influence investigators’ findings
and physicians’ recommendations. A 1998 study
in the New England Journal of Medicine found
that only 37 percent of researchers who published
conclusions critical of the safety of calcium chan-
nel blockers had previously received drug compa-
ny support. Among those whose conclusions at-
tested to the drugs’ safety, however, the number of
www.sciam.com 71
S
T
E
V
E
N
A
D
A
M
S
A
P
P
h
o
to
T
i
u
n
e
-R
e
vi
e
w
Free samples
ca
y a subtle
price tag; they
psychologically
indebt the
consumer to
eciprocate. Here
shoppers get
complimentary
tastes of a new
product, green
ketchup.
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those who had received free trips, research fund-
ing or employment skyrocketed—to 100 percent.
Reciprocity includes more than gifts and favors;
it also applies to concessions that people make to
one another. For example, assume that you reject
my large request, and I then make a concession to
you by retreating to a smaller request. You may
very well then reciprocate with a concession of you
own: agreement with my lesser request. In the mid-
1970s my colleagues and I conducted an experi-
ment that clearly illustrates the dynamics of recip-
ocal concessions. We stopped a random sample of
passersby on public walkways and asked them if
they would volunteer to chaperone juvenile deten-
tion center inmates on a day trip to the zoo. As ex-
pected, very few complied, only 17 percent.
For another random sample of passersby,
however, we began with an even larger request: to
serve as an unpaid counselor at the center for two
hours per week for the next two years. Everyone
in this second sampling rejected the extreme ap-
peal. At that point we offered them a concession.
“If you can’t do that,” we asked, “would you
chaperone a group of juvenile detention center in-
mates on a day trip to the zoo?” Our concession
powerfully stimulated return concessions. The
compliance rate nearly tripled, to 50 percent, com-
pared with the straightforward zoo-trip request.
Consistency
In 1998 Gordon Sinclair, the owner of a well-
known Chicago restaurant, was struggling with a
problem that afflicts all restaurateurs. Patrons fre-
quently reserve a table but, without notice, fail to
appear. Sinclair solved the problem by asking his
eceptionist to change two words of what she said
to callers requesting reservations. The change
dropped his no-call, no-show rate from 30 to 10
percent immediately.
The two words were effective because they
commissioned the force of another potent human
motivation: the desire to be, and to appear, con-
sistent. The receptionist merely modified her re-
quest from “Please call if you have to change you
plans” to “Will you please call if you have to
change your plans?” At that point, she politely
paused and waited for a response. The wait was
pivotal because it induced customers to fill the
pause with a public commitment. And public com-
mitments, even seemingly minor ones, direct fu-
ture action.
In another example, Joseph Schwarzwald of
72 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN MIND
L
U
IS
M
.
A
L
V
A
R
E
Z
A
P
P
h
o
to
Public
commitment
of signing
a petition
influences
the signer
to behave
consistently with
that position in
the future.
FAST FACTS
Persuasive Techniques
1
Six basic tendencies of human behavior come intoplay in generating a positive response to a request:
eciprocation, consistency, social validation, liking, authority
and scarcity.
2
Knowledge of these tendencies can empower con-sumers and citizens to make better-informed deci-
sions about, for example, whether to purchase a product o
vote for legislation.
3
The six key factors are at work in various areas aroundthe world as well, but cultural norms and traditions
can modify the weight
ought to bear by each factor.
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Bar-Ilan University in Israel and his co-workers
nearly doubled monetary contributions for the
handicapped in certain neighborhoods. The key
factor: two weeks before asking for contributions,
they got residents to sign a petition supporting the
handicapped, thus making a public commitment
to that same cause.
Social Validation
On a wintry morning in the late 1960s, a man
stopped on a busy New York City sidewalk and
gazed skyward for 60 seconds, at nothing in par-
ticular. He did so as part of an experiment by City
University of New York social psychologists Stan-
ley Milgram, Leonard Bickman and Lawrence
Berkowitz that was designed to find out what ef-
fect this action would have on passersby. Most
simply detoured or
ushed by; 4 percent joined
the man in looking up. The experiment was then
epeated with a slight change. With the modifica-
tion, large numbers of pedestrians were induced to
come to a halt, crowd together and peer upward.
The single alteration in the experiment incor-
porated the phenomenon of social validation. One
fundamental way that we decide what to do in a
situation is to look to what others are doing o
have done there. If many individuals have decided
in favor of a particular idea, we are more likely to
follow, because we perceive the idea to be more
co
ect, more valid.
Milgram, Bickman and Berkowitz introduced
the influence of social validation into their street
experiment simply by having five men rather than
one look up at nothing. With the larger initial set
of upward gazers, the percentage of New York-
ers who followed suit more than quadrupled, to
18 percent. Bigger initial sets of planted up-look-
ers generated an even greater response: a starte
group of 15 led 40 percent of passersby to join in,
nearly stopping traffic within one minute.
Taking advantage of social validation, re-
questers can stimulate our compliance by demon-
strating (or merely implying) that others just like
us have already complied. For example, a study
found that a fund-raiser who showed homeown-
ers a list of neighbors