The Art of Lying (Part Three)

Once a Thief

Psychologists are familiar with the "commitment and consistency" phenomenon. It means that once one has taken a particular stance, one is very reluctant to changing that view no matter the odds. It means that is suffices to say "okay" to a person that asks for a favor, because then you are caught in a trap where you are willing to work hard to avoid admitting to yourself that you are not going to keep your promise. One will happily wall off reason and build barricades against knowledge to avoid denying one's original "yes."

This method can be applied to keep people at their convictions. The Church of Scientology is often attacked by the media for luring its followers into the organization where they are "trapped" and systematically relieved of their money, but in practice this is probably true for most convictions.

Figure 2. The current Bush administration became popular on promises of a war on terror. But this very support enabled the government to initiate other initiatives, and the original support is no longer needed because the voters feel obliged to support the offshot initiatives.

Marketing people know this method, too, of course. This article was originally written on a 24th of December, and in the leading month I had noticed how the most popular presents would be out of stock when parents had decided to buy them. You may have experienced this situation too, because it is a conscious strategy of the vendors. Not able to buy the gifts they had promised their children, the parents must buy something else. Then in January, the shelves are restocked, and a new campaign is initiated by the vendors. Having said "yes" to the toys that were sold out in December, one is committed to purchase them now that they are available, in addition to the presents one had bought in December. That is, unless one is willing to face the children that are let down.

This "commitment and consistency" trap can even be used to make people run recruitment campaigns one they have said "yes" to a trivial matter. One can also make people adopt a specific attitude once they have accepted a simple appetizer—see Figure 2.

An extreme version is found in certain initiation rites where the new member of the group is exposed to grotesque humiliation or torture. Because the member has accepted this brutal treatment, the member is much more willing to support the group; after all, the member will want to believe that he did not accept this cruelty for nothing. The same happens if the membership of the group has demanded a "yes" in the shape of a significant financial expense; then you are much more willing to support the group in the future. The harsh treatment or the tall expense underscores your "yes."

Canned Laughter in Jonestown

Everyone hates canned laughter on the TV shows, and when producers nonetheless use it widely, it is not because the majority of the viewers appreciate it. However, research shows that although people dislike canned laughter, the audience will nonetheless consider a humorous TV show funnier when canned laughter is applied. The phenomenon is known as "social proof." It means that we gauge the validity of a situation depending on the number of people acting alike. (In general, this is an advantageous behavior; not only was it a good idea for the prehistoric man to run when everyone else was running even if he did not see the saber-toothed tiger himself, it generally means that we do not have to always evaluate each situation in depth to make an informed decision.) In short, when many people do the same thing, one will believe it is the right thing to do. Just like the turkey chick's "chirp chirp" makes the mother turkey instinctively tend to its offspring, canned laughter makes us believe the situation is funny even if logic tells us otherwise.

Social proof extends beyond canned laughter; for example, religious "proof" is largely founded on social evidence. (That is, if many people believe in a particular god, then obviously this god must exist, the argument goes.) But Cialdini also identified effects that should scare anyone, religious or not: when a suicide or an accident has hit the front pages of the newspapers, suicide rates increase significantly for a while after the accident, and the type of suicide that has increased is the one that was originally published on the front pages. If it was a solo accident, the number of solo accident increase, and if it was a group disaster—an airplane crash or a bus traffic accident—this particular kind of accident increases. It is only logical to conclude that the succeeding accidents seem to be triggered, consciously by the victims or not, by the widely published accidents. When social proof is that powerful, who would want to travel by plane a week after a spectacular plane crash?

Figure 3. Deadly canned laughter in "Jonestown" where 900 people committed mass suicide in 1978.

Social proof is also the reason why people walk past an injured person without helping, because this is what everyone else does. Who would want to be struck by a heart attack when everyone just walks past?

Jonestown, where 900 people committed collective suicide, may be one of the most macabre examples of social proof. In this isolated area of South America, the members of "The People's Temple" saw only what the other members did, and this must have made it easy—if not desirable—to prepare for, and ultimately commit, suicide when everyone else did it.

Love Your Deceitful Neighbor

People will be more prone to buying a product or agreeing on a topic if they are introduced to the product or the topic by a person that they like.

In that sense, looks matter. Experiments have shown that attractive people are more likely to receive help, and that they are more skilled at changing other people's opinions. Second, familiarity has a great effect. We are far more prone to being persuaded by a person that seems familiar than a complete stranger. Using similar clothing and body language as the victim has a great persuasive effect, and used car dealers have an uncanny tendency to have been raised in the same town as their customers.

As a manipulator one will obviously always pretend to like one's victim, who (recall the reciprocity principle) will return by also liking the manipulator—and hence be a more willing victim.

Recalling Pavlov's study of conditioning, it is important to remember that manipulation works best if the persons feel a connection to something pleasant or valued whether that connection is logical or not. This explains why movie and sports stars are used in commercials, and why there is cake on the table during prayer and election meetings.

By Right of Authority

Milgram's experiment is said to be one of psychology's most alarming and controversial experiments. As an ominous echo of the Christian Bible's Abraham, who was ordered to sacrifice his son, Milgram's experiment showed that anyone is willing to expose his fellow man to torture just because some authority says so, even if the torturer feels very bad about it.

The consequence is clear: if you want to manipulate people, appeal to authority. And hence business suits, police uniforms, medical uniforms, lab coats, and other regalia is liberally used to convince the masses.

The dangerous side effect is not to be ignored. When a high-ranking doctor makes an obvious mistake, it is the same belief in authority that prevent lower-ranking medical staff from even noticing. A frightening experiment in the US revealed that 95% of the nurses involved in the experiment would unquestioningly administer an overdose(!) of potentially lethal(!) medice to a patient, because an unknown(!) person called(!) them and gave the order, simply because this unknown person had identified himself as a doctor.

It does not matter whether the person is really an authority in the field. If a person played a doctor in a TV show, this suffices to use him as a doctor in a TV commercial. It is not surprising that many con artists use titles such as "professor", "doctor," or "father," which to some people sounds impressive or authoritarian.

A Rare Treat

One needs not look far in commercials before the terms "limited time offer" and "while supplies last" pop up. Scarcity has a significant attraction, and for good reason. Things that are difficult to obtain are often better than those things that are easily found. When options become limited, we lose freedom. The rationale that the item will be back on the shelf within a few months is always ignored by your emotions, and this makes it easy to exploit this effect.

If scarcity attracts people, any item can be made more interesting just by limiting its quantity or to outright ban it. The greatest effect is achieved when a formerly common item is suddenly reduced in number. It is no coincidence that a woman who enjoys life has historically been considered "cheap" while a woman that had remained untouched was considered attractive.

Hence, when you are looking somewhat undecidedly at an item, the sales person will happily tell you that this item is sold out, except that with a little luck he may find one forgotten item in the back of the store in case you are interested—which you will be by admitting that "yes," you are.

Neither is it any news that political fringe groups can boost their exposure and are better received when they complain that one of their speeches was censored than if they had simply given the speech. This may also be the explanation why religious groups that offer salvation for an elect few only are not as undesirable as perhaps they should be. Logic might state that the chance of salvation is low, but this is exactly why it becomes interesting. It may also be this prospect of a rare treat that makes lotteries appealing.

It is especially people at the bottom of society that are susceptible to this kind of manipulation, as these people are used to find their options being reduced.

Morale

Human evolution is a result of cooperation, and all of the manipulative tricks that are described in this article take advantage of those very mechanisms that made the human animal what it is today.

It is parasitic business, often motivated by profit, religion, or power just for the sake of it. Few individuals prosper by such manipulation. It is time to learn to say "no!" to these psychic vampires, and to say "no!" when we are confronted with methods that leech on our natural survival instincts without yielding anything in return. It takes personal strengh to say no, and it requires that you accept yourself as an individual that knows the difference between parasites and real humans.

My apology that this article was not published in November as originally promised.

Part I, Part II, Part III