Chapter review: Levers of Influence: (Power) Tools of the Trade

“. . . . the typical citizen drops down to a lower level of mental performance as soon as he enters the political field. He argues and analyzes in a way which he would readily recognize as infantile within the sphere of his real interests. . . . cherished ideas and judgments we bring to politics are stereotypes and simplifications with little room for adjustment as the facts change. . . . . the real environment is altogether too big, too complex, and too fleeting for direct acquaintance. We are not equipped to deal with so much subtlety, so much variety, so many permutations and combinations. Although we have to act in that environment, we have to reconstruct it on a simpler model before we can manage it.” -- Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels, Democracy for Realists: Why Elections Fail to Produce Responsive Governments, 2016

(Note: the argument in Democracy for Realists about the "average citizen" being too confused by the complexity and intricacy of the world to have a reasonable grasp of it, basically recaps Walter Lippman's classic argument to the same effect in Public Opinion (1922). In the end he concludes we need experts in communications-- propagandists he depicts as benign-- to interpret the world and spoon feed the masses the limited knowledge they can handle. Dewey and Lippman argued about this. Lippman said democracy is impossible, Dewey denied such a conclusion while recognizing that for it to succeed the mindset prevalent in our society would need to change. Hence his educational theories.) -- PD, comment here, Aug. 27, 2021 

If some form of pragmatic rationalism is to ever have a chance of making a significant difference regarding the human condition, public education will need to be significantly reoriented to focus on how the human mind works and fails to work and how it can be and often is deceived and manipulated. -- Germaine, Aug. 29, 2021

Chapter review

Levers of Influence: (Power) Tools of the Trade is chapter 1 of Robert Cialdini’s 2021 book, Influence, New and Expanded: The Psychology of Persuasion. Cialdini is a leading expert on persuasion science. Some of his research was discussed here before. The book (446 pages, 41 pages of notes) is written for a general audience and is easy to read.

Cialdini starts out by noting that evidence from social science is settled that both humans and other higher animals often, maybe usually, respond to input information in what he refers to as an automatic “click-run” mode. This kind of behavior is formally called fixed-action patterns. These behavior patterns range from simple to very complex. A key trait of click-run mode behavior is that the behaviors in the pattern almost always play out is exactly the same pattern or sequence of behaviors. As Cialdini puts it: 

“It is almost as if the patterns were installed as programs within the animals. .... Click, and the appropriate program is activated; run and out rolls the standard sequence of behaviors.”

What is really interesting about click-run is what triggers the initial click. It often isn’t much at all, e.g., a patch of the right color instead of the same color as a whole animal threatening the turf of another animal. With humans Cialdini points out that the word “because” in a request for a favor is the trigger, not the reason for the favor that follows the trigger. Thus ‘can I cut in line at the copy machine because I'm running late and need copies right away’ is ~94% effective, ‘can I cut in line at the copy machine because I need to make some copies’ is ~93% effective, while ‘can I cut in line at the copy machine’ is only ~60% effective. The trigger is the word because, not the reason given.

Cialdini argues that humans have no choice but to rely on click-run, mental shortcuts and other tactics that reduce the cognitive load needed to navigate a world that is too complex for anything more than a superficial understanding or even a false impression of some understanding:

“Such automatic, stereotyped behavior is prevalent in much of human action because in many cases, it is the most efficient form of behaving, and in other cases it is simply necessary. You and I exist in an extraordinarily complicated environment, easily the most rapidly moving and complex ever on this planet. To deal with it, we need simplifying shortcuts. .... Without the simplifying features, we would stand frozen--cataloging, appraising and calibrating-- as time for action sped by and away.”

In addition to click-run mode, humans can respond to information by a process called controlled responding. This mode is slow and requires conscious effort. This requires both a desire to be more thoughtful and an ability to think the information through. There is a strong human tendency to operate in click-run mode when the effects of something are relatively modest or impactful on other people, but not themselves. Thus controlled responding tends to kick in and act as a safety net in situations where personal stakes are significant. 

We all know where this is going - the profiteers

Cialdini notes that complexity and time are not on the side of mindsets oriented to controlled responding: “I have become impressed by evidence indicating that the form and pace of modern life is not allowing us to make fully thoughtful decisions, even on many personally relevant topics.” Too often, issues are too complex, time too limited, distractions too intrusive and fomented emotional responses too strong for people operate in controlled processing mode, so we default to click-run mode. 

Professional influencers are aware of all of this. Propagandists have been aware of most of these things at least since the early 1900s. Some or most of these aspects of the human condition were intuited by careful observations of people ranging from Plato in ~400 BC to master propagandist Edward Bernays in the early 1900s to Walter Lipmann in the 1920s to modern corporate marketing and the Republican Party today.

Cialdini comments that most people know little or nothing about click-run mode and how it can be triggered to coax people to believe and/or do things they might otherwise not. He sounds a warning: “it is vital that we clearly recognize one of their [click-run] properties. They make us terribly vulnerable to anyone does know how they work.” He points out that humans share with other animals this aspect of behavior and the vulnerability it imparts on people and other animals.  

Businesses are acutely aware of this aspect of human behavior and they know how to hit triggers that lead to more sales and higher profits. We are rarely aware that we have been manipulated. For example, salespeople in clothing stores are instructed to always guide customers first to the most expensive item and then to a less expensive item. That is because once we have accepted a more expensive item, a lower cost item seems less expensive that it would if that had been the first thing the customer decided to buy. Some (most?) real estate salespeople show new home shopper a couple of undesirable but over priced properties and then show a couple of nicer properties. This contrast makes people more open to higher prices for a nicer home. 

Car dealers and salespeople use the same low-high contrast tactic, called perceptual contrast, to coax people into buying expensive options after a price on the car has been agreed to. By contrast with the cost of the car, the cost of various options or upgrades look cheap and are offered inly one at a time. They can easily add a lot to the final price the customer winds up paying. Cialdini sums this sales tactic up nicely: “While customers stand, signed contract in hand, wondering what happened and finding no one to blame but themselves, the car dealer stands smiling the knowing smile of the jujitsu master.” 

Questions: 

1. It is mostly legal, but is it immoral to trigger click-run behavior patterns or use tactics like perceptual contrast to coax people to buy and/or pay more than they otherwise would have? If one business doesn’t adopt such tactics, a competitor could or would, putting the less manipulative business at a disadvantage. 

2. Roughly, what amount of commerce in the US is driven by manipulation that increases buying and selling over mostly unmanipulated commerce, e.g., ~45%? Of that, how much is waste in the sense that added purchases turned out to be not needed, e.g., ~85%? 

3. Is the moral situation any different for politics compared to commerce, at least when they are mostly independent? What about when business buys legal favors from governments to more aggressively exploit consumers, at least in situations (i) without discernable beneficial impacts on society, or (ii) with discernable harmful impacts on society, e.g., freedom from pollution regulations?