Social Influence: Some tips and tricks

In our previous posts, we have learnt about some of the techniques in Social Psychology. Now in this post I want to tell you about some techniques that you can use in real life to influence people or to protect yourself from being influence by other people and make rash decisions. Some of the tips are:

• People more likely to help you when you ask them to imagine or predict doing something.
• Telling some stranger your name first can also be helpful when asking a favour. One can say “Hello, I am ___ and I was wondering whether you do me a favour.”
• Talking with people is more helpful that talking at people when asking for something/favour. Engaging people in dialogues rather than a monologue.

Now I would like to tell you about the most commonly used persuasion techniques. These techniques are:

1.      Foot-in-the-door technique

2.      Door-in-the-face technique

3.      Low-ball technique

Now I will explain these a little bit with some examples:

1.    Foot-in-the-door technique

This is a compliance tactic that aims at getting a person to agree to a large request by having them agree to a modest request first. To explain this, I will like to give an example, there was an experiment in which people were told to post a large sign about driving safe in front of their yard. There were two groups, one group was approached directly and asked to post the sign. Most of them declined. While the other group was approached by one member of the team and told to hang a 3-inch sign about driving safe in their window or their cars. After 2 weeks, they were approached again and asked to post the sign in their yards by another member. The success in the case where they were firstly approached to hang a small sign was more than the other case. Social psychologists explain this by saying that when people make some initial commitments for smaller request, they are more likely to keep those commitments even when asked for some bigger request.

2.    Door-in-the-face technique

The persuader attempts to convince the respondent to comply by making a large request that the respondent will most likely turn down, much like a metaphorical slamming of a door in the persuader's face. This is opposite of Foot-in-the-door technique. In other experiment, people were asked to place a sign in their yard first, most of them turned it down and then were given the 3-inch sign to place it in their car or windows. The rate of compliance was larger in this case then when they were given the 3-inch sign directly. Social psychologist explains this by saying that when some one turns you down for a bigger request, they are more likely to accept the smaller request as an effort to meet somewhere in the middle.

3.    Low-ball technique

The low-ball is a persuasion and selling technique in which an item or service is offered at a lower price than is actually intended to be charged, after which the price is raised to increase profits. This is one of the most widely used techniques in business. When people go to buy some product like a car, the salesman will probably tell them the base price. And when some one has made up his mind to buy this product, they will tell you about some extra charges and most likely that someone will pay the extra sum. Social science explains this as when people have made initial commitments, they are more likely to pay extra for those commitments.

So, these are some of the techniques used to persuade people. Now that you know these techniques, I hope you do not use these techniques to harm someone. Knowledge of these techniques should be used only to protect yourself against the people who use these on you and these should not be used in a destructive way.