Enjoying Life: February 2008 Archives

"Chirp, chirp," says the little turkey chicken, and its mother reacts by feeding the chicken. And the mother turkey is in fact ready to feed anything—even its sworn enemy, a stuffed polecat, is carefully nurtured if equipped with a tape recorder that plays back the "chirp, chirp" sound. It looks like a mechanism where an innocent sound triggers the playback of a complex series of actions, much like a tape recorder that is turned on and fitted with a tape that plays back a standard behavior.

Robert B. Cialdini, professor in psychology at Arizona State University, has studied when similar "tapes" are played back in humans, and what triggers the playback of these tapes. And in that sense we are no smarter than the mother turkey, who is easily manipulated into caring for its worst enemy.

Figure 1. Dr. Robert B. Cialdini.

One Foot in the Door

It has been a significant advantage throughout human evolution to return a service for another service, or to offer a gift after receiving one. When someone gives us something, it is an almost irresistible urge that we must give something in return. The eagerness to pay back usually overcomes any negative feelings against the gift-giver, and it does not matter if one even declined the gift. The size of the gift is also largely irrelevant, and people are willing to offer considerable gifts in return for insignificant gifts.

This reciprocal principle, as it has been termed, can of course be used to coerce people into doing something. Free samples in super markets are thus not intended to convince us that a particular food tastes good, because few of us are capable of determining that. Instead, these free samples make us wish to buy something now that we received these gifts. The flowers handed out by the Hare Krishna monks are certainly not an expression of universal love either, but gifts that almost force the recipients to provide monetary donations. Free merchandise from various companies is of course also not motivated by altruism.

The reciprocal principle also works on a somewhat more hidden level that is widely used. If one begins by demanding a disproportionally high price for a service or a product, one may "reluctantly" offer to lower the price to a value that is still far too high. However, by offering a "gift" in the form of a reduced price, the customer is more willing to "pay back" by accepting the new offer than if one had made this offer to begin with.