Steve's Primer on Influence and Persuasion PDF

Adapted From Steve's Primer of Practical Persuasion and Influence Table of Contents 1. Introduction to the Science of Influence and Persuasion 2. Attitude Drives Beh...

Adapted From Steve's Primer of Practical Persuasion and Influence Table of Contents 1. Introduction to the Science of Influence and Persuasion 2. Attitude Drives Behavior 3. Dual Process Persuasion 4. The Cues of Life 5. Stages of Change 6. Attribution Theory 7. Consistency 8. Inoculation Theory 9. Social Judgement Theory 10. Reactance 11. Sequential Requests 12. Message Characteristics 13. Classical Conditioning 14. Reinforcement 15. Modeling…Monkey See, Monkey Do 1  Introduction to Influence and Persausion (The Difference) Influence is our umbrella term. Any time a source deliberately attempts to change a receiver's thoughts, feelings, or behaviors, influence has occurred. Persuasion is under the umbrella as a special case of influence. When a source deliberately uses communication to try and change a receiver's attitude, then persuasion has occurred. Both influence and persuasion concern deliberate change, but diverge because persuasion requires communication (verbal and nonverbal messages) and persuasion seeks attitude change. By contrast influence can procede without communication and may achieve behavior (external) change without gaining attitude (internal) change. One final key word: Attitude. Attitude is a person's evaluation of an object of thought. A person holds up an evaluative (good to bad) yardstick and judges objects against that scale. McDonald’s Restaurant : Good or Bad? Twenty five page library papers: Good or Bad? Repetitive Examples: Good or Bad? Persuasion, not influence, seeks to change attitudes because... Attitudes Drive Behavior Okay, quick review. First, influence occurs when a source deliberately tries to change a receiver. Second, persuasion occurs when a source deliberately uses communication to change a receiver's attitude. Third, an attitude is a person's evaluation of an object of thought. What's the big deal with "attitudes?" I mean, why even define the thing and study it? The answer as we'll develop is simple as ABC. AN ANSWER OR TWO There are two reasons why we should sometimes focus on changing attitudes. First, sometimes we can't directly influence behavior and we have to find a proxy or indirect agent. Second, attitudes play a major role in determining behavior. Let's consider each of these ideas. Free Will or You Can't Make Me. The most direct way to change somebody is influence. Change behavior, right? Behavior is the real deal, the main point, the focus, so why diddle around with things like attitude. Well, a lot of the time, you don't have control over other people's actual behavior. People do have free choice and pretty much do as they please. And we can't make them do what we want by merely stomping our foot or asking pretty please with sugar on top. Furthermore, there might be times when we do have very direct control over someone's behavior ("I’m watching you!"), but the influence lasts only as long as we maintain that control. As soon as we exit the scene, our controlled receivers will revert to prior form and do pretty much as they please. Therefore, if you cannot directly control another person's behavior, then you have to find a better way for getting that behavior. Attitudes Drive Behavior or Maybe I Can Make You. Believe it or not one of the best ways to change other people's behavior is to change their attitudes about the object in question. As we'll develop in this primer and in class, attitudes often drive behavior. If we can change attitudes then we are in position to influence other people's behavior. This is truly fascinating. We can still obtain the behavior we want from others but if that behavior is now driven by attitude rather than control, our lives are much easier. Most obviously, we don't have to be in the room "Watching" the receivers to make sure they produced the desired behavior. They'll do that themselves because their attitude is favorable toward that behavior. Great, we've discovered a secret: Attitudes drive behavior. 2 So, all we must do is figure out how to change attitudes and we're off to the races, sitting there at the track with all those other cool change agents like the folks who invented the Thigh Master (and made over ten million bucks on a big plastic clothespin that has about as much impact on your fitness and appearance as wishful thinking does). But wait, think a moment. There are times when people do not behave consistently with their attitudes. The best (or worst) example of this concerns risky behaviors. Everyone at some point in their lives has performed some stupid, dangerous, or malicious behavior even they knew at the time that the action was stupid, dangerous, or malicious. Just think about peer group pressure. Simply because your buddies were doing "it" or urging you to try "it," not because you had a positive attitude toward the action, you did the risky behavior. So we got a two part problem here. First, we gotta figure out how to change the atttitude. Second, we gotta figure out how to make people use that attitude. This is important. You must see the two steps or else you'll probably fail at persuasion. First get the attitude change. Second, get the attitude to drive behavior. Making Attitudes Drive Behavior Now, most of this primer and the course will help with the first problem. There are a lot of different ways to get attitude change. The rest of this chapter will focus on the second problem. How do you get attitudes to drive behavior? I've got the answer. The Conceptual Model of Attitude-Behavior Consistency: The ABCs. To create a conceptual model, we’re going to integrate the thinking of two different researchers. Russ Fazio and Mark Snyder have made a strong case that certain conditions improve the likelihood that people will show attitude-behavior consistency. And, if these conditions are not met, then Fazio and Snyder predict attitudes will not drive behavior. Here's the thinking. The conceptual model of the ABCs says that two factors make attitude drive behaviors: Attitude availability and attitude relevance. These factors are straightforward and obvious. If a given attitude is available (or accessible or active or operative or vigorous or supply your own synonym here), then it is more likely to drive behavior. If a given attitude is relevant (or useful or applicable or pertinent), then it is more likely to drive behavior. Let's dig on availability and relevance. An attitude is available when you can think of it, when you know that you've got an attitude on this topic, and when that attitude is "turned on." The best illustration of this concerns the "priming" paradigm. Priming is essentially a setup activity where you do something that gets a person fired up or poised to think about something. Consider this example. If I want you to have a bad attitude about your dating partner's attractiveness, I will prime you by having you look at pictures of very sexy models first. If I want you to have a good attitude toward your partner's attractiveness, I'll prime you by having you look at pictures of relatively ugly models first. The priming task (viewing pictures of models) activates your attitudes about "attractiveness." Then when I ask you to make a judgment about your partner, those primed attitudes will be available to guide your behavior (and drive how you rate your partner). See the implication? To produce the correct ABCs (attitude-behavior consistency), make sure the attitude is available. Now what was the second factor? Yeah, right. Relevance. An attitude is relevant when it applies to the situation at hand. When you're watching a big football match at the stadium and the crowd is cheering for the home team, your attitudes about this persuasion course will have no impact on whether you join in with the cheer. That attitude and that situation is not relevant. However, when you're in class and you observe other people joining in the class discussion, your attitudes toward the class should determine your communication behavior. (And you'll join right in, huh?) Another obvious implication. Attitudes will drive behavior when the attitude is relevant in the situation. Availability and relevance seem so obvious and simple that no one should even have to say this out loud. Of course attitudes will not drive behavior when you aren't aware of your attitude (not available) or you're aware, but the attitude isn't useful (not relevant). Duh. 3 Well, they are obvious now that we've thought about it, but most people in the real world overlook this simple conceptual model. Most people most of the time think all they have to do is produce the attitude change and then forever onward the receiver will show the desired, attitude-driven behavior. It just ain't so. The real world is littered with instances where people do not show the ABCs. Okay, on a fairly abstract and general level we have a solution to our two part problem. To insure that the attitude change we created actually drives behavior we must also insure that the attitude is available and relevant when we want the behavior. An Application Let's construct a real world application of the ABC Model. We've already done some heavy lifting and created attitude change in a receiver. Now we want to make sure that our hard won attitude change actually leads to behavior change. What do we do? Consider this example. Melanie used to like a high fat diet, but I worked on her with a bunch of powerful persuasion tactics that now produce in her a negative attitude about a high fat diet. How can I make sure her new attitude shows in a new behavior? As we get out of the car in the parking lot at the grocery store I ask her if she saw that story on CNN about the new low fat substitute that the government has just approved. I make it sound natural and conversational so it's no big deal. I get her to talk about the story. If she saw it, great. If not, I can tell her a little about it. Either way, I've activated the attitude and it is now available. And since I'm having this conversation as we're enter the grocery store, the attitude is clearly relevant because she's getting ready to buy food. And if the ABC Model is correct, then all I have to do from here on out is keep my mouth shut and let her attitude guide her behavior. And when she moves through the store, she will automatically be thinking about the fat content of the food she's buying. An Implication This discussion of the ABCs has one very practical implication. Mere attitude change is not sufficient to guarantee the behavior change we desire. We must take an additional step in the real world to obtain the attitude-behavior consistency we seek. We must make sure that the attitude is both available and relevant in a given situation. When these two conditions apply, we'll get our ABCs quite nicely. RECOMMENDED READINGS AND REFERENCES Fazio, R., (1990). Multiple processes by which attitudes guide behavior: The MODE model as an integrative framework. In M. Zanna (Ed.) Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, vol 23, (pp. 75-109). San Diego, CA: Academic Press. Snyder, M. (1982). When believing means doing: Creating links between attitudes and behavior. In M. Zanna, E. Higgins, & C. Herman (Eds.) Consistency in Social Behavior: The Ontario Symposium, vol 2 (pp. 105-130). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. 4  DUAL PROCESS PERSUASION How do you get others to change? Since antiquity, people have tried to answer that question. It is occupied the time and efforts of some of the best minds civilization has produced. Frankly, no one has yet discovered the ultimate and final answer to the question. We truly cannot explain all the causes and consequences of influence. As a result, if you take the time to read widely in this area, you will be struck by the diversity and range of answers that social scientists have given to our question. If you have even taken a moment to scan the chapters of this book, you were probably surprised at the number of different approaches. How can we organize all these different ideas? In this chapter you will find the current answer to this question. The main point of this new approach is aptly suggested by what could be the subtitle of this chapter, "Hmmmm, I'm thinking, maybe." The dual process approach claims that a person's mode of thinking determines influence. We are going to use the Dual Process as our major blueprint in this book, so pay close attention to this chapter. You may want to read it carefully a couple of times to make sure you've got it. ASSUMPTIONS OF THE DUAL PROCESS APPROACH The dual process approach is quite simple and based on four assumptions about people and influence. In this section, we will explain and give examples of the four assumptions. Later, we will put it all together. Assumption 1: There are two relatively distinct modes of thinking that a person may employ. One mode is called the "systematic" mode and the other is called the "heuristic" mode. The systematic mode refers to a person who is carefully and effortfully thinking. The thought process is active, creative, and alert. The heuristic mode, by contrast, is at the other extreme of thinking. Here the person is not really thinking very carefully and instead is skimming along the surface of ideas. They are thinking enough to be aware of the situation, but they are not thinking carefully enough to catch flaws, errors, and inconsistencies in the situation. Assumption 2: Situational and personality variables affect which mode of thinking a person will employ. People are flexible in their thinking and can move back and forth between the two modes. Sometimes we are systematic and other times we are heuristic. The mode we use depends on situational and personality factors. For example, if the situation has strong personal relevance for us (imagine you see a newspaper editorial entitled, "Requiring Senior Comprehensive Exams for ESCEM Students"), chances are we will use the systematic mode of thinking. Now, if the situation has little relevance to us (you see an editorial entitled, "Competency Testing for Lawyers"), chances are you will use the heuristic mode of thinking as you read the editorial. People also have strong individual preferences for particular modes of thinking. Some people have a high need for cognition and typically think carefully about things most of the time. By contrast some people have a low need for cognition and typically think as little as possible about a situation. In between are most people who are more sensitive to situational factors. Thus, our mode of thought can be driven by the situation or our personality predispositions. Note that even people who prefer to be heuristic thinkers can still shift into the systematic mode when the situation calls for it. Assumption 3: Persuasion variables will have different effects depending upon the mode of thinking employed. When people are in the systematic mode, certain things will be very important and influential to them. While reading that editorial on Senior Comprehensives, the systematic thinker will be looking for facts, evidence, examples, reasoning, and logic. We will call these things, "arguments." By contrast, when people are in the heuristic mode, other things will be important. Since arguments (facts, evidence, reasoning, etc.) require a lot of cognitive effort and energy, the heuristic thinker won't use them very much. Instead, easier to process information will be employed. Things like the attractiveness, friendliness, or expertise of the source will be more influential for the heuristic thinker. We will call these things, "cues." 5 This assumption is very important, because it suggests that there is no single factor (or list of factors) that is a surefire path to success. Depending upon the receiver's mode of thinking, some variables will work and others won't. Assumption 4: Influence achieved through the systematic mode is more persistent over time, more resistant to change, and more predictive of behavior than influence from the heuristic mode. When people are thinking systematically, if they are influenced, it is more likely to stick precisely because they thought about it more carefully, fully, and deeply. For heuristic thinkers, however, any influence is likely to be rather short lived, simply because they did not really think that much. Now, here's a real interesting point. This assumptions says nothing about magnitude differences. There is no claim made that the systematic path leads to more attitude change or influence compared the heuristic path or vice versa. This means that regardless of path, we can get the same amount of change in a receiver. Thus, in the immediate, short term situation, whether the receiver is systematic or heuristic, whether we provide arguments or cues, we can still get the same magnitude or amount of influence. This is very important to remember. Both paths lead to the same amount of influence. Persistence, resistance, and prediction, however, favor the systematic path. A VISUAL DISPLAY Let's take the assumptions and arrange them in a visual display. Central Route Peripheral Route Thinking Mode systematic heuristic Influence Tool arguments cues Magnitude equal equal Persistence longer shorter Resistance stronger weaker Prediction higher lower ARE THERE REALLY ONLY TWO MODES? The assumptions of the dual process approach make it sound like there is this little mental switch inside us that moves us from one track to another. Are there really only two modes of thinking? Is there nothing in between? These are interesting questions and most current research seems to say that there are only two modes with nothing in between. This approach certainly simplifies the theory and, believe it or not, there is some pretty good evidence to suggest that people really do have only two modes of thought. This leaves open another interesting possibility. Maybe there are only two modes of thought, but is it possible to use both modes at the sametime? That is maybe people use both systematic and heuristic thinking with arguments and cues. The answer to the question appears to depend upon the time frame we're looking at. Over a long period of time (like during an advertising campaign that runs several weeks) it is obvious that people would engage in both systematic and heuristic thinking, but at different time periods. Thus, the first time a person sees an ad, it might be processed heuristically. But, then later, when that person is in the market to buy the advertised product, the processing mode might shift to systematic. However, when you shorten the time period of the experiment, the research record is mixed. Some researchers have found limited evidence of "dual processing" where people use both arguments and cues. 6 For our purposes, we will stick with the basic assumption: Two modes, systematic or heuristic, one at a time. HOW DO YOU SHIFT MODES? This is a $64,000 question. We realize that systematic thinkers want arguments and heuristic thinkers want cues. We also know that systematic thinkers, if they are influenced, will show changes that are more persistent, resistant, and predictive. How do we get people to be systematic thinkers? First of all, a lot of research and simple common sense indicates that most people most of the time are in the heuristic mode. They are sometimes called, "cognitive misers." Less politely, it means that people are lazy thinkers who do not want to expend the energy needed to think carefully and effortfully about something. If you don't believe me and think that people are instead usually systematic thinkers, I have a task for you. Put down this book right now and go over to the TV. Turn it on and watch only the commercials for awhile. For the overwhelming majority of ads, how much thinking do you have to do? That's right, not much. Now, if people were usually in that systematic mode, advertisers would not show the kind of commercials we see. Ads are long on cues and short on arguments. People think enough to meet the minimum demands of the situation. That is the status quo and it means we spend most of our time as heuristic thinkers. But as teachers, we have a different agenda. We want our students to change and we want that change to last. That means systematic thinking, which returns us to the $64,000 question. Quite surprisingly, there are many ways to get systematic thinking. I will describe two. They are relevance and comprehension. Perhaps the most important factor in causing systematic processing is the relevance of the issue to the receiver. When people believe the situation is personally important to them, they are much more likely to systematically think about it. If the situation holds little relevance, they will stay in the heuristic mode. Thus, you must demonstrate how the issue is meaningful and relevant to your students if you want them to by systematic thinkers. In other words, your students must be motivated to think. The second factor is comprehension. This is such an obvious consideration that it seems silly to mention it. But the fact is many influence efforts fail simply because receivers could not comprehend the appeal. When a source presents information that is complex, dense, abstruse, recondite, esoteric (I'm running out of entries in my thesaurus!), in other words when receivers have to work too hard to understand, they will not systematically process the information. Instead they will drop back into a heuristic mode. In essence, you must make sure that your students have the ability to think about the issue. Throughout this book we will encounter ways that teachers can affect the processing mode by changing motivation and ability to think. Keep an eye out for these factors. WHAT'S THE LIST OF ARGUMENTS AND CUES? Once we have established the mode, we have to provide the correct influence agent. If we get the right match between mode and agent, we are successful. If we get the wrong match, we have a problem. The Argument List. Systematic thinkers want arguments. It should be easy to produce lists of arguments and away we go. But, hold on a minute and think about this hypothetical. A young kid needs a new pair of sneakers. So the kid and dad hop in the Vanagan and hit the local mall. Let's assume that both the kid and the dad are systematic thinkers as they try to decide which sneakers to buy. Okay, they're both systematic thinkers, so that means they both want arguments. From the dad's point of view, what are the arguments for choosing between the various sneakers? 1. How much do they cost? 2. How long will they last? 3. Is the store nearby? 4. Will they take a personal check? Now, consider the list of arguments from the kid's perspective. 7  1. Does Michael Jordan endorse them? 2. Do all the other guys wear them? 3. Would that great looking girl go out with me if I had 'em? You see the problem. Arguments depend upon the receiver. Thus, to develop a list of arguments for any given persuasion situation requires some careful thought on the part of the persuasion source. In essence a persuasion source asks this question: What is of central importance to the receiver? If you can figure out the answers to this question and the receiver is in the systematic mode, then you will be effective as a persuader. You will also generate persistent, resistant, and predictive attitude change. This is an important point and I want to give you an example to illustrate the "relative" meaning of arguments. The example concerns teenagers and smoking. In the past, persuasion sources (parents, teachers, the federal government) have tried to prevent teenage smoking with arguments based on health ("smoking causes cancer"). And despite the best efforts of all concerned, teens continue to smoke. Why? The health argument lacks central importance to a teenager. Teenagers still embrace the myth of immortality and they know they will live forever, maybe even to forty. Threats about cancer and death are empty. New approaches use different arguments and have shown better results. The new arguments are based on social factors ("you smell bad if you smoke," "no one wants to kiss somebody with cigarette breath"). Peer acceptance and approval are of central importance to teens. These arguments appear to be more powerful to teenagers and hence produce the kind of change we prefer. The main point is this: There is no cookbook list of arguments because argument quality depends upon the receiver. To produce good arguments, you must understand your receivers and be able to think the way they do. The Cue List. Now, let's focus attention on cues. A cue is something that can influence a receiver, but requires minimal thinking. Is it really possible to influence someone this way? Watch the beer commercials on TV for the answer. Young, attractive women wearing skimpy bikinis are among the dominant images on these ads. No reasonable person would ever claim that these young women are arguments for the beer. (Unless the receiver really believes that the girl comes with the case.) Well, then maybe those girls are simply used to get the receiver's attention and make them systematic thinkers about the beer ad. If you believe that, I've got a bridge you might be interested in. Half naked women do not encourage systematic thinking about beer. The only thing we are left with is a cue. People (usually men) watch the beer ad and see the attractive girls. The men like this in a way that requires little thinking on their part. And they simply associate that good feeling with the beer and viola, influence without thought. But does it work? Bet the ranch on it. The effects of attractiveness on the heuristic thinker are very powerful. Here are more quick examples. Ever been to a Tupperware party and ended up buying something you don't really need or want simply because you see you other friends buying things? Have you ever had a good kid in class do something really stupid just because the peer group expects it? There are many other cues. Somebody like Michael Jordan sells sneakers with his expertise. Somebody like Bill Cosby sells Jello with his trustworthiness. There are a lot of persuasion cues and we will discuss them throughout the rest of this book. In fact, cues are so important I offer this rule: What to do? Use a Cue 8. IMPLICATIONS The dual process model has three important implications for persuasion. While the model sounds abstract, it does apply to our everyday life in practical ways. Consider these ideas. 1. Monitor and control the mental state. This is a major point. People who are adept at "reading" their receivers are more likely to be effective persuaders. If you can figure out the mental state, you've taken a giant step toward success. But how can you judge another person's mental state? There are two primary areas to look at. First, observe nonverbal behaviors. Generally speaking, if you observe behaviors that indicate attentiveness, alertness, and thoughtfulness, you can begin to assume your receiver is in the systematic mode. As you see behaviors that demonstrate distraction, boredom, or laziness, you can assume that your receiver is in the heuristic mode. Second, simply ask questions. Get your receiver to respond. Then judge the quality of the responses. Do they sound thoughtful and reasonable? Or instead, does your receiver ask you to repeat the question or give answers that are off the wall? When people are in that systematic mode they look and act differently than when they are in the heuristic mode. Learn to get a sense of this by observing the nonverbal behavior of your receivers. It will make you a better friend, too. 2. Match the right influence tool (arguments or cues) with the correct mental state (systematic or heuristic). You don't need an umbrella on a sunny day and heuristic thinkers will not heed arguments. You have to identify correctly what the receivers mental state is, then provide either arguments or cues. This is probably the biggest mistake people make in their persuasion attempts. It can be extremely frustrating to develop great arguments or cues, but then see them fail because you used them at the "wrong" time. The dual process approach explains that at minimum, two elements must be present and coordinated: Mental state and influence tool. 3. When in doubt, take the peripheral route. In most situations, most people are in the heuristic mode. Yet when most of us try to persuade others, we are in a systematic mode. And we often make the unfortunate error of assuming that everyone else is thinking the say way. So what do we do? We go off with all the great arguments about why somebody should change. And how does our target respond: "Like cool, dude. Could you pass the salsa, dude?" They weren't willing and able to think systematically and all our hard work is down the tubes. I think we'd be better off if we used cues more often. Particularly when the teacher goes off about keeping the room neat or turning assignments in on time or, well, select your favorite problem, students seldom listen to the good arguments that teachers like to use. The reason is they are not willing and able to think about those good arguments. Teachers would be much better off if they stopped relying on the arguments and tried cues. That would provide the match between mode of thinking and influence agent. This is not to say that teachers should not use arguments. As we have already developed, when people systematically think about persuasion arguments, the influence will last longer, be more resistant to change, and motivate behavior. We want that kind of change. But first you must make sure that your kids are willing and able to do the needed thinking. If you cannot assure yourself that your receivers are in such a frame of mind, it is useless and frustrating to try and influence with arguments. 4. Develop arguments from the point of view of the receiver. During the mid-1980s, Burger King spent millions of dollars on a major advertising campaign. The purpose of this campaign was not merely to sell a few more burgers, but to challenge McDonald's for leadership in the very competitive fast food market. Burger King did a lot of careful planning, a lot of quiet pretesting, and then unleashed its ad attack. 9 The campaign was built around a character named Herb. Herb was a balding, thin fellow, who wore glasses, black pants that were too short, and white socks. Herb was supposed to be a whimsical sort of Everyman that we could all identify with. It didn't work. No one identified with Herb and in fact there were a lot of Herb jokes. The ad campaign totally backfired on Burger King and actually had the effect of selling fewer burgers. The campaign, which was to run for over a year, was killed in a month. Somehow, Burger King had terribly misunderstood the market and had produced messages that no one found to be compelling or influential or even enjoyable. We can do the same thing if we are not careful. Usually the worst arguments are precisely the ones we prefer. (Like the young boy who bought a special birthday gift for his mom: A catcher's mitt.) We offer arguments that are compelling and powerful to us. And, we tend to assume that other people will respond the same way. That's a bad assumption. The best way to develop good arguments is to observe carefully your target. Really listen to them. Ask them about the music they like and the movies they watch. Pay attention to the clothes they wear and the language they use. People who tune into others will develop an intuitive sense of what makes a good argument and what makes a bad argument. REFERENCES AND RECOMMENDED READINGS Booth-Butterfield, S., et al. (1994). Simultaneous versus exclusive processing of persuasion arguments and cues. Communication Quarterly, 42, 21-45. Chaiken, S. (1987). The heuristic model of persuasion. In M. Zanna, J. Olson, & C. Herman (Eds.) Social influence: The Ontario symposium, Volume 5 (pp. 3-40). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Chaiken, S., Liberman, A., & Eagly, A. (1989). Heuristic and systematic information processing within and beyond the persuasion context. In J. Uleman & J. Bargh (Eds.), Unintended thought, (pp.212-252). New York: Guilford. Petty, R., & Cacioppo, J. (1986). Communication and persuasion: The central and peripheral routes to attitude change. Springer-Verlag: New York. 10  THE CUES OF LIFE This chapter is based on the work of a researcher who is vitally concerned with persuasion in real life. His name is Robert Cialdini and his ideas are extremely interesting to teachers and anyone else who uses influence for a living. As Cialdini describes in his very readable book, he learned about real life persuasion by living with professionals. He took part-time jobs with sales groups that pushed vacuum cleaners or aluminum siding or dance lessons. He hung out with cops who worked the bunco squad. He worked with fund-raising groups and advertisers. And he did this as a trainee, not as a scientist, so that the people felt comfortable with him. From his experiences, he derived six general Cues of influence. These Cues appear to transcend occupation, region, personality, and education. In other words, they work in many different situations. These six Cuess also share another important similarity: They operate as mental short cuts. That is, a person can use each rule with very little thought. This is the heuristic mode as we learned in the Dual Process Models. This is a critical point about the Cues. They work best when the receiver is not carefully, deeply, and systematically thinking. The Cues apply only when the receiver is being the lazy thinker, the cognitive miser who uses mental shortcuts to save time and effort. As soon as the receiver changes the mode of thinking from heuristic to systematic, the Cue evaporates. For each Cue, I will give you a one word label, then a statement of the Cue. By the way... can you figure out what CLARCCS is? THE CLARCCS CUES Comparison. When Others Are Doing It, You Should, Too. Few can resist this. You are walking down the street and you notice ahead of you three or four people just standing there on the street looking straight up in the air. As you move closer to them, what do you do? You look straight up in the air. Is it a bird, is it a plane? No, it's the Comparison Rule. When others are doing it, you should, too. When we are not thinking very carefully, we use the behavior of other people as a guide to what we should think or do. We essentially compare our behavior against the standard of what everybody else is doing. If there is a discrepancy between our actions and what we observe in others, we change. Here are more examples of the Comparison Rule. TV producers will add a laugh track to even the most witless situation comedy as a way of inducing our laughter. And it works. If there are two audiences watching the same comedy, but one comedy has a laugh track added to it and the other doesn't, guess which audience will laugh more? Right. The one with the laugh track. I suspect TV producers learned this trick from the theater. In the past (and it may still go on today) theatrical producers hired professional audience members. These highly skilled people would show up to a new play or musical or opera and provide the "proper" response at the right time. They would start applauding when the star entered or begin crying when the heroine died or erupt into gales of laughter when the clowns walked on. This would elicit the desired response from the audience who would automatically start clapping or sobbing or giggling on this cue. And even religious groups are aware of and use the Comparison Rule. There is a practice known as "salting the collection plate." Before the collection plates are handed out to the faithful, ushers will throw several different bills or checks onto the plate. Thus, no one ever gets an empty plate. This makes a considerable difference in contributions. People are slow to fill up an empty collection plate and a little salt gets things going. Also, the heavier the salt, the stronger the contribution. That is, you get more contributions if you salt the plate with tens and twenties than if you salt it with ones and fives. Liking. When You Like the Source, Do What Is Requested. 11 Joe Gerard sells cars and trucks. He sells a lot of them as a matter of fact. Some consider him to be the Greatest Car Salesman in the World. What is his secret? Every month Joe Gerard sends a hand written card to every customer he has ever had and signs it, "I like you, Joe Gerard." That's all. "I like you, Joe Gerard." Now, he does send out a lot of cards every month (13,000 he estimates), but he swears by the tactic. Is such a simple thing as, "I like you," sufficient for influence? Another example. What happens at a Tupperware party? A group of people who know each other come over to the house of a mutual friend. Everybody eats a little. Everybody chats a bit. Everybody has a little fun. Then the mutual friend steps up and introduces a new person. And the new person breaks out the product, Tupperware. Gee, isn't that new person friendly? Isn't that Tupperware grand? Everybody smiles, everybody laughs, everybody buys something. Of course, Tupperware is not the only product sold in this way. Mary Kay Cosmetics has pushed a lot of powder with these kind of parties. The important point is this: The basis of the sale is liking. The receiver likes somebody involved in the transaction. Maybe you like the sales person. Maybe you like the friend throwing the party. Exactly who you like is less relevant than the fact that you like somebody. (I'll also bet some Comparison is operating here, too. You see other people buying things, so you buy too.) Last example... physically attractive people are very influential in our society, but the primary reason appears to be that we like attractive people. (If you do an experiment where you have one source who is attractive and likable, and another source who is attractive and dislikable, only the likable source will be influential. So, it appears that attractiveness operates through liking. Now, back to the example.) A researcher trained courtroom employees to rate the attractiveness (and, indirectly, the likability) of people accused of crimes as they came before a judge for the first time. The people were accused of a wide variety of misdemeanor charges. The meeting with the judge was to determine the amount of fines for the misdemeanors. The courtroom employees were not involved in the arrest and were only escorting the person. What happened? Less attractive people received fines two to three times larger than more attractive people. (Sometimes it is better to look good than to be good, right?) Authority. When the Source Is An Authority, You Can Believe It. I am old enough to remember the TV series, "Marcus Welby, M.D." The actor, Robert Young, portrayed a friendly, wise, and incredibly available physician who never lost a patient except when it would increase the show's Nielsen ratings. Most interesting was the fact that Robert Young parlayed his fame as Dr. Marcus Welby into a very productive sideline. He sold aspirin on TV ads. And he sold aspirin, not as Robert Young, the actor, but as Dr. Marcus Welby. There were enough lazy thinkers out there that they did not realize that the guy on the ad selling aspirin was merely an actor and not the real thing. It didn't matter. Robert Young looked and acted like an authority. And sales of his brand of aspirin increased. Eventually the federal authorities got wise to this gimmick and cracked down on it. It is now illegal to use an actor in this way. So what have advertisers done? Their response and its impact is so amazing to me that it stands as the best example of how lazy we can be. Here's the new trick. The advertisers will still use a popular actor to sell their aspirin and stay legal with their ads. Here's what happens. The famous TV doctor looks at the camera and says, "I'm no doctor, but I play one on TV and here's the aspirin I recommend." And sales of that aspirin increase. The Authority Rule is quite powerful and useful. We will look at it again in this book in other chapters. Reciprocity. When Someone Gives You Something, You Should Give Something Back. 12 You're walking down the street, minding your own business as a stranger approaches in your direction. The stranger makes eye contact with you, then smiles. If you are like most people, you will automatically and thoughtlessly respond with a smile of your own as you continue down the street. The stranger give us something and we give back something in return. A nice rule for meeting people, but what has it got to do with influence? Ever get free gifts in the mail along with a request for a magazine subscription. "Here, keep this valuable prize," the letter goes, "as a token of our esteem. And by the way, if you like magazines, how about this one!" Time magazine used to send out a free pencil with their subscription offers. The pencils were very small, very thin, and very red. And you got to keep it even if you didn't subscribe to the magazine, but what the heck, Time is a pretty good magazine... and before you know it, bang, you've got a year's subscription. The rule is very simple. First, the source gives you something. Once you accept it, you are now obligated to give something back. Note that you are not given a reward, because rewards are given for something that you have already done or will do. That first something given by the source is yours without you doing anything in the past or the future to earn it. Reciprocity operates in many social relationships, especially with visits and dinners. For example, a new couple moves into the neighborhood. You invite them over for dinner. Now, the new couple is obligated to give you a dinner in return even though you said nothing about it. And if the new couple fails to reciprocate (they don't invite you over) or fails to reciprocate in kind (you serve steak, they serve hot dogs), you are angry. I know some people who will refuse that first invitation because they do not want to get trapped into the spiral of reciprocity. Commitment/Consistency. When You Take A Stand, You Should Be Consistent. Earnest Salesperson: "Excuse me, but do you think that a good education is important for your kids?" You: "Yes, of course." ES: "And do you think that kids who do their homework will get better grades." You: "Yes, I'm sure of that." ES: "And reference books would help kids do better on their homework, don't you think?" You: "I'd have to say yes to that." ES: "Well, I sell reference books. May I come in and help improve your child's educations?" You: "Ahhh, wait a minute..." This is the famous "Four Walls" sales technique. The salesperson asks four questions that in essence wall in the receiver, literally forcing the conclusion that those reference books must be purchased. The logical force comes from the Commitment/Consistency Rule. When you take a stand on something, you must be consistent with it. This can be a very powerful tactic and the business world is filled with variations on it. I will show you another one. It is called, "bait and switch," and it is illegal in most states. It works in two steps. First, some attractive offer is presented as bait. The customer rises to the bait, demonstrating their interest in the product. Second, the bait is taken away and a new product (of lower value or higher cost) is presented. Many people will ruefully take the second offer. For example, you need a new stove and you notice an ad for a really high quality stove at a very good price. I mean a very good price, not impossibly low, but very good. You think to yourself, "Self, I'm gonna buy a new stove." So you pack up the kids and zoom over to the mall. And when you get there, a friendly salesperson greets you with a smile. "Ahh, you saw the ad... I guess you really want a new stove don't you? Let's see if I can help you get what you need. I'll go back and check on it for you." 13 You, of course, are out of your mind at the prospect of getting this great stove at a great price. You even let the kids act wilder than usual you are so excited yourself. But wait. The salesperson returns with some bad news and some good news. The bad news is that they just ran out of those advertised specials. The good news is that they just happen to have a similar stove right here that's yours for the taking and it only costs $100 more. Not surprisingly, many people will buy the more expensive product, never seeing the game. The driving force is consistency. In these business games, the customer commits to some initial position ("I want to spend money in this store."), and the salesperson simply forces the customer to maintain consistency with that initial position. This is an extremely powerful and popular persuasion tactic and we will see its application in other chapters. Scarcity. When It Is Rare, It Is Good. I admit it. I am a closet fan of the Home Shopper Networks. If you have never seen these stations it could be that you do not have cable TV. All the station does is sell retail merchandise over television. They will feature some product for ten or fifteen minutes. If you like it, you call their 800 number and place an order which is mailed to you the same day. There are several different Home Shopper stations and they are extremely successful. The reason for that is that these guys really understand the principles of influence and use them well. In particular they use the Rule of Scarcity. They know that rare things are highly valued in our society. What are some of their scarcity tricks? They always have a little clock running in the upper corner of the screen. You only have ten minutes to buy this precious beauty and the clock lets you know how little time you have to make the buy of a lifetime. They make time the scarce resource. They often have a counter on the screen, too. Sometimes the counter runs down with every sale. "We only have a limited number of these fabulous quilted party skirts and when they're all gone, we will never sell them again." So that counter started with 100 and every time somebody calls, the counter decreases, 99, 98, gee whiz look at that, 92, wow, 85. They make the product scarce. Scarcity is a time honored tactic. Limited Time Only. The Weekend Special. Sale Ends at Midnight. Here's a great one from Olan Mills, the photographers. They will take 10 different pictures of your child. They then send you one copy of each photo and ask you to choose the shots you like and the number of copies you want. Then (here's the scarcity trick) they tell you had better order plenty of pictures because they will destroy all the negatives after a certain date. How many fathers and mothers can face the prospect of losing forever all those darling shots... WHY THE RULES WORK I want to review why the Cues work. As noted at the beginning of this chapter, these Cues are used as mental shortcuts by lazy thinkers. Receivers can easily apply these Cues to guide their thinking or action with a minimum of mental effort and activity. (And a lot of the time the Cues really are helpful and correct.) As soon as the receivers change modes of thinking from heuristic to systematic, these Cues typically become useless. Thus, if you want to apply any of the Cues in your own situation, you must learn to use them with heuristic thinkers. To the extent that people are systematically thinking in the situation, these Cues will not work and indeed can make the user look rather foolish. FINALLY Some pretty neat ideas here. There is a lot of practical and scientific evidence that demonstrates the usefulness of the CLARCCS Rules. Just start thinking like a salesperson. Create your own applications. Oh, did you figure out what CLARCCS is? Sure, it is an acronym. Take the first letter of each Cue, and it spells CLARCCS. Should make them a little easier to remember. And use. 14  REFERENCES AND RECOMMENDED READINGS Cialdini, R. (1980). Influence: Science and practice, (2nd Ed.). Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman, & Company. Down, A.C., & Lyons, P. (1991). Natural observations of the links between attractiveness and initial legal judgements. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 17, 541-547. Hinsz, V., & Tomhave, J. (1991). Smile and (half) the world smiles with you, frown and you frown alone. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 17, 586-592. 15  Stages of Change If you're sexually active, do you remember the first time you had sex? (If you don't, stop reading this right now and seek professional help. You have a serious memory problem. And don't use those herbal cures you see at GNC shops. Those herbs will cause hair loss. Or else they grow hair on your feet, I can't remember which.) Of course you remember. Okay, now the first time, did you use a condom? Have you ever used a condom? Do you know what a condom is? Yeah, this is a real mixed bag. Some people have never even heard of a condom. Some people are interested and learning more about how effective they can be. Other folks are making plans; yeah the next time, stop by the pharmacy and pick up a pack. Some people are actually using them sometimes. And other people always use them. In other words different people are in different stages of change regarding condoms. From a practical standpoint this little idea of stages of change has big implications. Some people know nothing about condoms while some people always use condoms. And then there are several flavors in between. These different stages define different kinds of people. And clearly you must use different persuasion tactics on people depending upon what stage they are in. Think about it. Let's get more explicit about this idea of stages. We'll use the Transtheoretical Model (yes, really) as our guide. This model says that people are in one of five different stages. Here they are. THE TRANSTHEORETICAL MODEL Stage One Precontemplation: Huh? In Stage One, you don't even know condoms exist. You've never heard of them, never even seen one. You also probably don't know about sexually transmitted diseases either. You are in a state of benign ignorance where you think what you don't know won't hurt you. Stage One is the ignorance stage regarding the behavior in question. And it is fairly common. A lot of people know nothing about the relationship between diet and exercise and health. Some people still don't know about the risks of tobacco use. You don't know about the Problem, so you don't even care about it either. We would also include in Stage One all those people who know about the behavior, but see absolutely no reason to perform it. Maybe you have made a committment to virginity and will not have sex until marriage. Therefore, why use condoms, you're not having sex? Or maybe you are deeply in love with only one person and you know your partner is loyal to you. Why do you need to use condoms? Thus, Stage One is composed of all those people who are not performing the behavior due to ignorance or lack of perceived need. And if you think about it, most of us are in Stage One a lot of time. Stage Two Contemplation: Oh, that's how! In Stage Two, you've heard about the Problem, realize that maybe you are vulnerable, and are seeking information about the Solution. People in this stage go to the library and read up on condoms. When a news story about condoms pops up on Headline News, they pay close attention and think about it. They talk with their friends about condoms. And as important as information seeking, you also do a lot of thinking about the Problem. It becomes a major issue in your life and something that is involving and personally relevant. Okay, so you're in touch and concerned here and learning all about it. What next? Stage Three Preparation: What do I need? Stage Three is the planning phase. People here intend to actually perform the new behavior, but first they have to get organized. If you're gonna use a condom during sex you know that you have to: 16  1. Buy it. 2. Know how to put it on correctly. 3. Put it in a handy location for later use. Stage Three is composed of all those things people must do to be able to perform the behavior. A lot of comedy routines are based in planning and preparation failures. (Or more homey examples of parents buying a special gift for a child only to discover on Christmas day, Some Assembly Required, and Dad can't even change a light bulb.) Once Stage Three is complete, we're ready for action. Literally. Stage Four Action: Try it on for size. In Stage Four, you perform the behavior. You use the condom. You jog 30 minutes a day for a week. You actually go to every class session! You just do it. Now, some people think that if you just get started doing the thing, you're set for life. But we all know from painful personal experience that "starting" and "maintaining" are two different worlds. Lots of people make New Year's Resolutions and hang tough for a few weeks with the new diet, but then, ahhh, what can I say. I forgot. And the action stops. There is still one more step to take. Stage Five Maintenance: Do it all the time. Stage Five is the consolidation or habit phase. You do the behavior all the time and you do it pretty much without planning or thinking. It's just a part of your normal routine like buying toothpaste and brushing your teeth every night. You stay on the diet. You keep exercising. You never use tobacco again. How long does it take to make a habit? Well, it depends upon the behavior in question. If the new behavior is using an automatic garage-door opening, you'll probably acquire the habit in just a few days. If the new behavior is flossing your teeth every day, it might take six to eight weeks of constant action before you establish the habit. And if the new behavior requires beating a physical addiction like smoking tobacco, it can take years before you become tobacco-free. (I can testify to this. I smoked for nearly fifteen years. I spent the last ten years trying to get free of it. By contrast I acquired an exercise habit that has lasted now for five years in just a couple of weeks. I also quickly learned how to use our automatic garage-door opener when we built our new house.) A DIFFERENT KIND OF ILLUSTRATION Let me make the Stages of Change more general and get out of the health arena. Consider the behavior of good study habits. The research on this one is abundant, consistent, and clear. Regular study of learning material produces better academic success. People who spend a couple of hours each day "practicing" their lessons (re-reading chapters, making and studying notes) will perform better on a variety of academic indicators (quizzes, tests, question-answer, demonstrations). So, given this knowledge, all students always employ good study habits? Right. Some people are in Stage One. They are clueless about studying and success. They think that test-taking is more like playing the Lottery: All a matter of luck. Others are in Stage Two. They have a roommate who studies regularly and then seems to get better grades. So they talk with Rooms about this and Rooms says, "Hey, buy a vowel, Vanna." Rooms gives them the straight skinny on studying. We move to Stage Three. Go to the Bookstore. Buy a handful of those groovy yellow highliter pens. Get one of those Notebook Organizers with folders and colors and tabs. Hey, attend class. Hey, hey, buy the text book. Hey, hey, hey, plan to succeed! Now Stage Four. Do it. Take good lecture notes. Rewrite them that night. Keep notes organized and re-read them every couple of days. Read the text book chapter two or three times, highlighting as you go. Try this for a few weeks and check out your grades. Wow, Stage Five. It worked. Now my life is easy. I automatically program the VCR to record Seinfeld while I'm studying. Then as a reward when I'm done, I laugh at Kramer. And I do it every night. 17 PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS Okay, big deal. The transtheoretical model and five stages. Precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, maintenance. (Or ignorance, learning, planning, doing, habit.) So what? Here's what. 1. Tailor the tactic to the stage. Only a fool would approach somebody in Stage One (ignorance) the same way they'd approach somebody in Stage Three (planning). Thus, you should determine where your target receiver stands in the Stages. This implication also gives you a highly focused goal with your influence attempts. Your goal is to move to the next stage. So, if my target is at Stage Two (contemplation-learning), my persuasion goal is to move them to Stage Three (preparation-planning). 2. Move one stage at a time. You can't expect to move people from Stage One (ignorance) to Stage Five (habit) in one fell swoop. The smart play is to influence your target through all stages one at a time. Thus, you are building bridges across stages (a nice image there). 3. Build in enough time. If you can't skip stages, then you know that the final stage of maintenance make take a long time to achieve, especially if your target receiver is starting at Stage One or Two. While your ultimate goal is habit, it simply takes time to move your receiver to that goal. Therefore, build in enough time to move through all the stages or else accept the very likely probability that you will not reach your ulimate goal. CONCLUSIONS The Transtheoretical Model provides a very useful descriptive model of change. Notice that it doesn't tell you how or why people change. It does tell you, however, what category a person is in. And even this simple description is handy. For me the Model provides a nice practical overview of organizing and implementing influence and persuasion. It gives a reasonable schema for approaching change and implementing it with a good chance of success. RECOMMENDING READINGS AND REFERENCES Prochaska, J. (1994). Strong and weak principles for progressing from precontemplation to action on the basis of twelve problem behaviors. Health Psychology, 13, 47-51. Prochaska, J. & DiClemente, C. (1983). Stages and processes of self-change in smoking: Toward an integrative model of change. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychlogy, 51, 390-395. 18  ATTRIBUTION THEORY One of the most amazing features of human beings is this: They can explain anything. Maybe it comes from the fact that we are parents and our children keep asking us, "Why?" And as older, superior beings, we just naturally have the proper explanation to our kid's request. ("Why did I drop that sofa on my foot? I did it to show you what a severe bruise looks like, that's why.") No matter the cause, we have a strong need to understand and explain what is going on in our world. Because people must explain, it opens up some interesting influence possibilities. Think about it for a minute. If you can affect how people understand and explain what is going on, you might be able to influence them, too. First, let's understand the basic principles of how people explain things. Then we will look at applications. ATTRIBUTION THEORY There is a theory about how people explain things. It is called Attribution Theory. The theory is really quite simple despite its rather strange sounding name. (When you see the term, "attribution," you should think of the term, "explanation," as a synonym.) The theory works like this. When we offer explanations about why things happened, we can give one of two types. One, we can make an external attribution. Two, we can make internal attribution. An external attribution (get ready for this) assigns causality to an outside agent or force. Or as kids would say, "The devil made me do it." An external attribution claims that some outside thing motivated the event. By contrast, an internal attribution assigns causality to factors within the person. Or as the sinner would say, "I'm guilty, grant me forgiveness." An internal attribution claims that the person was directly responsible for the event. Here are some common examples. You are taking a class and you get test results back. You take a peek and see, ahhhhh, a 65%. You think about these disappointing results for a minute and realize what a lousy teacher you've got and how badly written the textbook is and how unfair the test was and... you make a lot of external attributions. What caused the 65%? Events outside of you. External things. Now, on the next test you take a peek and see, ahhhh, a 95%. Well, what can I say? When you're hot, you're hot. If you've got it, flaunt it. Some people are born great. Where's the causality? Inside of you, right? You assign causality to factors within the person and make internal attributions. Okay, this is real simple. When the world asks us, "Why?" we provide either an internal attribution or an external attribution. Pretty obvious, but what has this got to do influence? Consider this chain of events. 1. The world asks me, "Why?" 2. I provide an attribution. 3. My future behavior depends on the type of attribution. Now, if we can control the attributions people make, then we can influence their future behavior, right? Let's check out this reasoning with a couple of examples. ATTRIBUTION IN ACTION I want to share two illustrations from the classroom. Both examples are published research studies that were conducted with elementary school children in their classrooms with their teachers. Thus, these examples are not laboratory studies of influence, but rather are real-world events. This makes their outcomes useful and interesting for us. The first study concerns getting kids to clean up the classroom. The second involves improving math performance and self-esteem. Littering. A constant battle with younger children is to get them to clean up after themselves. Especially in the classroom where there are twenty or thirty kids, neatness really makes a difference. How can you get kids to be neater? 19 Our first example made kids neater with Attribution Theory. They set the kids up such that the kids performed a desired behavior, then were provoked to think about why they did that behavior. And, of course, the situation was set up so that the children would make an internal attribution ("I did it because I'm that kind of kid"). Here's what happened. First, the researchers established a baseline for littering. They visited the 5th grade class just before recess and handed out little candies wrapped in plastic. After the kids went to the playground, the researchers counted the number of candy wrappers that were on the floor or in the waste can. And there were many more wrappers on the floor than in the can, of course. Now, the study. Its simplicity is going to surprise you. Over the next two weeks people visited this classroom. For example, the principal stopped in for a little chat and on her way out she said, "My, this is a neat classroom. You must be very neat students who care about how their room looks." And one morning the class arrived to find a note on the blackboard from the custodian which said, "This is the neatest class in school. You must be very neat and clean students." Finally, the teacher would make similar kinds of comments throughout the two week training period ("Neat room, neat kids"). That's all the researchers did. Then they came back for a second visit again just before recess. And again they handed out little wrapped candies. This time when they counted whether the wrappers went on the floor or in the waste can, they found a lot more wrappers where they belonged: In the garbage. There was a very large change in the littering and cleaning up behavior of the kids. Let's review this simple study and make sure we understand what happened. First, we use candy wrappers before and after as an objective measure of littering. Second, we have a variety of sources observing the classroom and offering explanations ("neat room, neat kids"). Also realize the things that were not going on. None of the sources modeled the correct behavior, so the kids were not copying a source with observational learning. None of the sources provided consequences of reinforcement, nor were rewards or punishments given for specific acts of behavior. None of the sources provided "arguments" about why kids should be clean and not litter. All the sources did was provide attributions. (A little side note: The researchers also tried another treatment along with the attribution training. They called it the "Persuasion Treatment." With a different classroom, all the various sources essentially gave the typical adult lectures about cleanliness and neatness. They said all the things good teachers say about littering. It had no effect on the candy wrapper test. Kids, huh? Back to the main point.) The analysis the researchers made is this. When the kids heard, "neat room, neat kids," they had to think about what had happened. In essence, they had to answer the question, "Explain why the room is neat?" And their answer was simple. "The room is neat because we don't litter. We're the kind of people who pick up after ourselves." In other words the children made internal attributions. And if you believe that you are the kind of person who is neat and does not litter, what happens when you have a candy wrapper? That's right, you throw it away in the waste can. Math Achievement and Self-Esteem. Our second study goes much deeper, I think, in illustrating the impact of attribution. Littering behavior is an obvious thing. It is also a fairly simple behavior that does not depend on a lot of other factors. So, it should be easier to change. But what about something like math achievement or enhancing a child's self-esteem? These things are complex. They are related to other factors (ability, persistence, training with math and family, life experience, peer support with esteem). Can we change a child's math performance or self-esteem with attribution? Here are the details on the second study. First, the researchers used before and after measures of math achievement and self-esteem with 2nd grade students. Second, the researchers developed simple, little scripts for each student. All the teacher had to do was read the folder provided for each student, then say or write the appropriate statement. Thus, this study was highly automated. Each teacher simply followed the instructions in a preplanned, scripted way. Third, the researchers had three different kinds of treatment. Kids either got the attribution training or they got the "persuasion" training or they got "reinforcement" training. The study lasted eight days. 20 Here's the attribution training. The teachers would say or write to the student: 1. "You seem to know your arithmetic assignments very well." 2. "You really work hard in math." 3. "You're trying more, keep at it!" Here's the persuasion training. The teachers would say or write to the student: 1. "You should be good at math." 2. "You should be getting better grades in math." 3. "You should be doing well in math." Here's the reinforcement training. The teachers would say or write to the student: 1. "I'm proud of your work." 2. "I'm pleased with your progress." 3. "Excellent progress." Before we look at the results, again let's analyze what is happening here. In the attribution training, the children are given explanations for their behavior. They are told that their math performance is due to internal factors ("You are a good math student, you try hard in math"). Thus, we would assume that these kids will make internal attributions. Now, even if this is true and the children do explain their behavior with internal attributions, will it translate into higher math scores? It is one thing to believe that you are good at something. It is another thing to be good. First, consider the self-esteem results. After all the training was over, all the kids had higher self-esteem (on a self report scale). But interestingly, children in the attribution groups had the greatest increases in self-esteem. Next, what about those math scores? That is the really important and interesting part of this second study. The children took two tests after training. One occurred immediately after the eight training days. The second was given two weeks later. Each test was composed of twenty math problems. Kids with attribution training averaged 17.5 on the first test and 17.8 on the second test. (The baseline for everyone was 15). Kids with persuasion training averaged 15.5 and 15.0. The kids with reinforcement training averaged 16 and 16. Thus, the students with attribution training scored one to two points higher than other groups and maintained that advantage during the two weeks following the training. (The standard deviation was approximately 1.0 so these mean differences are quite large.) Time for reflection... the training here was really quite simple. Each teacher followed a script of written or verbal statements. All the teacher did was provide the statement to each kid. So, the teacher would mosey over during seatwork and say to a child, "You really work hard at math." Or the teacher would write on a homework assignment, "You are good at math." That's it. That's all that was done. ATTRIBUTION AND HEALTH The preceding examples demonstrate what attribution is and how simple it is to implement. Simply ask, "Why?" then try to elicit an internal attribution. We've seen it work with children, but what about adults and their health? I've got a great research illustration. And it involves just two words, "you" and "your doctor." Women were shown one of two videotapes in an attempt to motivate greater use of mammography (screening test to detect breast cancer). One videotape described what "you" the viewer would learn from the test. The other tape stressed what "your doctor" would learn from the test. After one year the two groups of women were compared to see which group obtained more screening exams. Not surprisingly, the women who were given the internal attribution ("you") were significantly more likely to have had a mammography in the preceding year compared to the women who got the external attribution ("your doctor"). How about that? THE PROBLEM WITH EXTERNAL ATTRIBUTIONS As we have seen, when people make an internal attribution for their actions, it appears that they also change their attitudes and beliefs about themselves. Hence, they become "that kind" of person and the desired behavior follows naturally. The key for change is an internal attribution. Now, what happens when people use external attributions? 21 Let's analyze this situation before we look at a research example. If children are made to question their behavior ("Why is this classroom so neat and clean?") and they produce an external attribution ("Because the teacher is watching"), what kind of behavior would we expect? Well, as long as the teacher is watching, then the kids will be neat, but as soon as the teacher turns her back... a big mess. The kids believe that their behavior is under the control of an external force and not from themselves. This illustrates the problems that can arise when people use external things (like rewards and punishments) to influence behaviors. In essence, the reward or punishment prevents people from making an internal attribution and thus bringing the desired behavior under their control. People may not "generalize" from the reward and acquire the internally motivated habit to produce the desired behavior. Instead, they will expect some external agent (namely you) to cause their actions. There is another interesting problem with external attributions. They can undermine an existing habit. That is, people who perform a behavior because "that's the kind of people they are" (internal attribution), can lose the habit if they change their pattern of attribution. Here's a real interesting research study. A group of researchers observed young kids (3 to 5 years old) at play. They noted that most of the kids loved playing with magic marker type crayons. When these crayons were available, the kids made a beeline for them and would use them with great concentration and apparent pleasure. According to Attribution Theory, we would claim that these kids used these crayons for internal reasons. There was no external force causing them to play with them. Instead, the kids freely chose the crayons and enjoyed them for intrinsic reasons. Next, the researchers promised and then gave one randomly selected group of children "Good Player Awards" as a reward for their drawing efforts with the crayons. For one week, these children knew that they would get a "prize" at the end of the week for their drawing behavior. For the remaining children, no such promises were made. There was a significant change in the crayon use among the kids who were promised external rewards for their drawing. These kids reduced how often they played with the crayons and reduced how much time they spent with the crayons. By contrast, the children who were not promised external rewards maintained their normal frequency and duration of use. From an attribution perspective, it is easy to explain this outcome. We know that the kids already wanted the crayons for internal reasons and were intrinsically motivated. However, the introduction of an external attribution changed the children and their behavior. When asked, "Why do you play with those crayons?" the kids answered "Because of the award." I want to quickly point out here that external attributions are not a uniformly bad thing. Our preceding discussion makes it seem that things like rewards and punishments and other external forces are undesirable influence tactics that never work or only work when you are around to guard your clients and deal out the carrots and the sticks. External forces can be effective if the receivers believe that they "earned" the external factor for internal reasons. Thus, rewards work well when the receiver thinks, "I got the gold sticker because I am a good student who did a good job on this assignment." Or punishments work well when the child thinks, "I got punished because I did a bad thing." If children believe that they essentially did nothing on their own to earn the external agent, then that external agent is unlikely to cause any long term, internal change. USING ATTRIBUTION EFFECTIVELY The strongest lesson from Attribution Theory seems to be its simplicity. You might have been struck by that fact as you read about the experiments. To achieve obvious and apparently enduring effects, all the sources had to do was make a few well-timed and appropriate statements. There was no great deception or elaboration machinations. There are two key steps to effective use of Attribution. First, it must be applied in a situation where people are thinking about why things are happening. Second, the explanation must be an internal attribution. Imagine a teacher saying these things. "Boy, these homework assignments were very well done. I wonder why... there must be a lot of good students in this class, I guess." 22 "Larry, I don't know if you realize it, but you've been sitting here quietly working alone on your project. You must be a very hard-working person." If you think about it, Attribution Theory gives credence to the maxim, "Less is more." The less you do, and the more you let the receiver think, then the more change you can get. You just have to make sure that the little things you do lead to internal attributions. ATTRIBUTION AND OTHER PERSUASION TACTICS You might recall two other persuasion tools we looked at earlier. First, remember the chapter on CLARCCS Compliance Rules, especially the Rule of Commitment/Consistency. Second, recall the chapter on Sequential Requests, particularly the foot-in-the-door strategy. With both of these tools, the receiver first performs some action, then is asked to do something else related to the first action. Attribution Theory is often used to explain why Commitment/Consistency and FITD work. According to the Theory, receivers observe their actions at step one and must explain why they did what they did. If they make an internal attribution ("I signed that petition because I'm that kind of person") then they will probably perform the second related action because, "I'm still that kind of person." For example, if you are neat person, you pick up litter today and tomorrow and you also probably do other neat things. In essence Attribution Theory shows us that people can create new attitudes or beliefs or behaviors depending upon the explanations they make. If they make external attributions ("I threw the candy wrapper in the trash can because the teacher was watching"), then they are unlikely to change their attitudes about littering. But, if they make an internal attribution ("I threw the candy wrapper away because I must be a neat person") then it is likely that they will come to view themselves as a different kind of person. REFERENCES AND RECOMMENDED READINGS Bem, D. (1972). Self-perception theory. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology, (Vol. 6). New York: Academic Press. Lepper, M., Greene, D., & Nisbett, R. (1973). Undermining children's intrinsic interest with extrinsic reward: A test of the "overjustification" hypothesis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 28, 129-137. Miller, R., Brickman, P., & Bolen, D. (1975). Attribution versus persuasion as a means of modifying behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 31, 430-441. Rothman, A., Salovey, P., Turvey, C., & Fishkin, S. (1993). Attributions of responsibility and persuasion: Increasing mammography utilization among women over 40 with an internally oriented message. Health Psychology, 12, 39-47. 23  CONSISTENCY Quick, listen. I met my friend the test pilot, who had just completed an around-the-world flight by balloon. With the pilot was a little girl of about two. "What's her name?" I asked my friend, whom I hadn't seen in five years and who had married in that time. "Same as her mother," the pilot replied. "Hello, Susan," I said to the little girl. How did I know her name if I never saw the wedding announcement? Take a minute to figure this one out then look at the end of this chapter for the answer. Were you right, or argh! How could you have missed it. So obvious. So simple. So stereotyped. Mental prejudice, right? In a very mild way, this little thought problem demonstrates an important human quality. We need consistency. Things must hang together and make sense. And when they don't, we have a problem we must solve. Consistency theory has been proposed to explain what happens when things happen in inconsistent and unexpected ways. PROCESS OF THE THEORY The Main Point of Consistency Theory is this: People need consistency in their lives. The theory breaks down into three simple steps. Step 1: People expect consistency. This appears to be almost like a law of human nature. We have a strong preference for consistency in our lives. We want things to work the same way every time they happen. When we wake up in the morning we want to find the floor under our feet, the sun above our heads, and coffee in our cups. And just as we expect these kinds of physical consistency, we also expect psychological consistency. If we had marriages, families, and jobs yesterday, we expect to find them today in pretty much the same condition. Thus, we have "mental worlds" of our expectancies about the world, the people in them, and our relationships with the world and other people. And the glue that holds all these mental relationships together is consistency. Why should we expect our spouses to love us tomorrow? Because it is consistent. Consistency becomes like a form of human gravity. It holds everything down and together. It helps us to understand the world and our place in it. Step 2: Inconsistencies create a state of dissonance. As much as we need consistency, however, there are many occasions where things occur in surprising and unexpected ways. There is an inconsistency between what we expected and what we got. It's your wedding anniversary, you are expecting a "special gift" and you get an electric toothbrush. Your worst enemy compliments you on your outfit. You love your child, but you forget to attend the piano recital. What happens? The state that arises following inconsistency is called, "dissonance" (pronounced DIS-AH-NENCE). Dissonance is simply a technical term for the cognitive, emotional, physiological, and behavioral state that arises when things do not go the way we expected them to. One thing that almost immediately occurs when we experience dissonance is a mental state of mild confusion and interruption, "What? What? What was that? I don't get it. Wait a minute." We try to figure what we missed. Interestingly, we also begin to feel somewhat jangly and upset, almost like we are nervous or anxious. Finally, the physiology of our bodies changes when we experience dissonance. Our heart rates elevate, blood pressure goes up, and our hands get sweaty. 24 In sum, then, the state of dissonance is not a pleasant one. In fact, if there was a pill that gave people dissonance, no one would buy it. Dissonance is uncomfortable, a condition to be avoided if possible. It arises from inconsistencies. Step 3: Dissonance drives us to restore consistency. Given that dissonance is an unpleasant experience, when we have it, we want to get rid of it. We want to get back to the state of consistency, back where things makes sense and we don't have that awful dissonance. We have devised a number of different tactics for getting rid of dissonance. All of them essentially involve doing some mental work that permits us to change the way we think about things. That is, to get rid of dissonance, we must change the way we think. Here's a short list of options. First, deny it. Just pretend like it didn't happen. Ignore it. It is not there, never was, and never will be. Next item. Now, some people are better at denial than others and if you are not good at it, it sounds almost unbelievable. For myself, I was not good at denial when I was younger, but as I have gotten older, I find it easier to do and very useful. Second, swamp the dissonance. Sure this time things didn't work out like we expected, but remember all those other times when it did? The goal here is to overload all that bad dissonance with a ton of good memories and thoughts. You can get a rough sense of just how much dissonance you are experiencing by how many "good" thoughts you must think of before you get rid of the dissonance. The longer it takes and the more thinking it requires, the greater the dissonance. Third, change your expectancy. In the example of receiving an electric toothbrush, you could change your expectancy about the anniversary. "Gee whiz, there'll be other days. It's silly to get fired up about one particular day. This anniversary was not that special." Some people would call this a form of rationalizing. With the previous options you did not really change reality. Here you are trying to alter in some real way something that really did happen. Fourth, you could change your evaluation of the event. Again with the toothbrush. "Wow, what a beautiful electric toothbrush! It must of cost a fortune. Think how long my spouse had to shop around to find such a special gift." Now, it is important to realize that this thinking is taken seriously. It is not the public face a person puts on when disappointed. Instead of responding with dissonant thoughts ("I can't believe I got this lousy toothbrush."), you actually change your evaluation and find the best possible outcome. These are just four possible ways that we try to cope with dissonance. The key point, however, is that we are driven to these mental gymnastics because the dissonance is such an unpleasant state. No matter the method, we must lose the dissonance and restore the consistency. DISSONANCE IN ACTION Selective Exposure. People who smoke do not usually read anti-smoking literature. Democrats typically will not watch Republican commercials. Generally speaking, we do not seek out information that might be contrary to our existing views. Consistency theory explains this. If you expose yourself to discrepant information (e.g. the smoker reads anti-smoking articles), you will probably produce inconsistencies which will lead to dissonance which will lead to mental work. To avoid all this trouble, people "selectively expose" themselves to information when possible. That is, they will seek out things they agree with, but will avoid things they disagree with. This also explains why many public communication campaigns often have limited success. The people the campaigns are targeted at simply will not listen to them because to do so will create dissonance. This also explain why direct influence and persuasion tactics often don't work. When a source explicitly, openly, and directly confronts a receiver, the receiver will be immediately resistant because of dissonance. Disconfirmation Effects. Recall the thought problem that started this chapter. I met my friend the test pilot. With the pilot was a little girl of about two. I ask my friend, whom I hadn't seen in five years and who had married in that time, "What is the child's name?" "Same as her mother," the pilot replies. 25 "Hello, Susan," I say to the little girl. How did I know her name if I never saw the wedding announcement? Easy, the test pilot is a woman and is Susan's mother. Thus, mother and daughter share the same first name. Some people have trouble getting this problem because we don't expect women to be test pilots and because we don't expect women to name their daughters after themselves. In other words, we have sex role stereotypes. Okay, big deal. We miss this dumb problem because of stereotyped thinking. Well, imagine that the people who missed this problem were militant feminists who strongly believed in the equality of the sexes. A research study did just this to a group of feminists. The researchers had one group of feminists try to solve a sexist thought problem (which they all failed) while another group of feminists worked on a different task. First of all, we can bet that the people who failed must have experienced some serious dissonance. There they are, advocates of equality and, zap!, they fall victim to stereotyped thinking. Klong! A major inconsistency. But, what happens next is the interesting part. The researchers then had both groups of feminists read a transcript about a sex discrimination case. Their task was to decide who was wrong in the case and make an award. How do you think the feminists responded? One might reasonably expect that the ones who failed the thought problem should have "logically" moderated their feminist beliefs. Obviously that failure indicated that they were not as clear thinking and free of bias as their feminist philosophy would demand. They should probably see themselves as less feminist now. Therefore, they should be less likely to see sex discrimination in the transcript and probably give smaller awards in the case. Here's what happened. The dissonant feminists were much more likely to find that sex discrimination had occurred and they gave much larger awards compared to a group of feminists who had not failed the thought problem. In other words, the feminist failures became even more feminist. Follow this carefully. They fail the problem. That is an inconsistency, so dissonance is aroused. They must get rid of the dissonance, but how? I would argue that it would be almost impossible for these people to reduce their feminist beliefs because those beliefs are so important to them. They are "ego-involved" and it is very hard to change our core beliefs. Counter-Attitudinal Behavior. One of the most surprising and interesting outcomes with Consistency Theory involves something called "counter-attitudinal behavior." A counter-attitudinal behavior is a complicated way of describing an event where a person does something they do not really believe. The person behaved in a way that was counter to their true attitude. At first glance, this sounds like nonsense. Nobody behaves in ways that are counter to their true attitudes. Or do they? Think about this simple example. You love your family, don't you? And you have never forgotten a loved ones birthday or missed an important moment or done something that has caused them sorrow or pain, right? We do perform counter-attitudinal behaviors all the time. Usually these actions are apparently unintentional, accidental, and largely beyond our control. But that doesn't matter. Our need for consistency is so strong, that when things like this happen, dissonance is aroused and we must try to change. One of the most common research methods for proving the counter-attitudinal effect is surprisingly simple. First, you survey people's opinions on some topic, say capital punishment. Next you divide them into two groups. Now, both groups are going to write an essay on capital punishment that is against their true views (a counter-attitudinal behavior, right?) One group is "required" to write the essay, while the other group is asked to "volunteer" to write the essay. Both groups are then surveyed again for their opinions on capital punishment. The required group shows almost no change in their attitudes on the topic. Even though they performed a counter- attitudinal behavior, it does not count because they were forced into it. The volunteer group, however, does show a change in attitude. They freely performed a counter-attitudinal behavior (writing an essay defending a position they disagree with). This action is inconsistent with their true beliefs and it therefore produces dissonance. They are then motivated to remove the dissonance. The way many people in this situation get rid of the dissonance is to change their opinion ("Well, I guess capital punishment is a better idea than I thought.") 26 Reverse-Incentive Effects. One of the most outrageous and controversial effects with Consistency Theory concerns an odd prediction it makes about people. Under certain well-defined circumstances this theory predicts that people will show more attitude change when they are given smaller incentives and rewards for performing behaviors than when they are given larger incentives and rewards. Take the essay-writing example we just looked at. We will focus only on the volunteer group and add another dimension. Let's now divide the volunteers who are writing that counter-attitudinal essay into two groups. Both groups are going to be paid for writing the essays. The high incentive group will get paid $20 for their essays. The low incentive group will get paid only 50 cents for writing theirs. Now, when we survey all the writers again for their opinions about capital punishment, what will happen? The quick and common sense reply is this: More incentive, more change. Therefore, the writers who got that nice $20 reward will show more change in their attitudes than the writers who only got a measly 50 cents. Pretty straightforward, right? But that's not what typically happens. What usually happens is that the writers who got the 50 cents show considerably more change while the highly paid writers often show no change in attitude. Let's figure this out. Both groups of writers voluntarily performed a counter-attitudinal task (defending the "wrong" side of an issue). This is an inconsistency and we know it produces dissonance. How does the $20 group react to this? When they try to understand their odd behavior, they have an obvious and immediate explanation: I'm doing it for the money! Of course. Now, if they are only doing it for the money, then it means that this essay-writing stuff really does not represent their true attitudes and, if you think about, they really haven't done a counter-attitudinal behavior. That $20 in a way forced them to write that essay. The dissonance disappears and there is no change. But what about the writers who got 50 cents? Life is more complicated for them. Here they sit, looking at this beautiful essay they just wrote that attacks everything they truly believe. Why would they do such a thing? Good grief, they even volunteered to write this stuff. And how much did they get paid? A whole 50 cents. That's no excuse. Well, it must be, as much as I hate to say it, it must be that my original position on capital punishment was a bit hasty and now I believe... DISSONANCE IN ACTION Dissonance and all these many examples of it may seem rather removed from the real world. Sure, it is an interesting idea and it has some rather strange and quirky characteristics, but how does it apply to everyday life? Believe it or not, there are many applications. Learning and Dissonance. If you think about it, the primary goal of teaching will often produce dissonance in many students. Before kids enter the classroom, they have a comfortable set of expectations about the world and how it works. Much of what we do as teachers is designed to try and change those existing expectancies. I want to make two points here. First, inconsistency and dissonance is, in part, a minor explanation of why students sometimes do not want to learn. Learning can mean facing inconsistencies and we know that inconsistencies produce dissonance. When the inconsistencies are large and when the students cannot solve the dissonance with learning, you as the teacher have a problem. Second, I still think a little dissonance is a good thing in the classroom. Dissonance creates attention and interest. It animates an internal drive to solve the dissonance-problem. Thus, artfully employed, dissonance can be an effective teaching tool. Here's an example. One very important aspect of communication is language and how people use words. Whenever I teach about how words have many meanings, I can start the unit off with this Thought Problem. "Jack and Jill are dead. Their bodies are found lying on the carpeted floor of the living room. The carpeting is wet and around their bodies are shards of broken glass. Nearby there is a table under a window. Through the window, just a few feet from the house is a railroad track. My question to you is this: How did Jack and Jill die?" At this point, I allow my students to ask me any question that can be answered with a "Yes" or a "No." This goes on for five or ten minutes. If no one gets close, then I offer hints until the class cracks the Thought Problem. When they hear the solution, they have a vivid experience of how words have many meanings. The instructional unit now has their attention. 27 Now, how did Jack and Jill die? Failed Persuasion. Think about this. Most of the time, when you directly try to