50 PSYCHOLOGY CLASSICS like to be seen as knowing what we want. This, unfortunately, creates a goldmine for marketers. They are very aware of the internal pressures against changing our mind, and take full advantage. When charity phone callers ask “How are you feeling tonight, Mrs…?” nine times out of ten we give a positive response. Then when the caller asks us to give a donation to the unfortunate victims of some disaster or disease, we can’t very well suddenly turn mean and grumpy and refuse others who are in a bad way. To be consistent, we feel compelled to offer a donation. Marketers know that if you get someone to offer a small commitment, you have their self-image in your hands. This is why some unscrupulous car dealers offer an initially very low price for a car, which gets us into the showroom, but later, with all the extras, it doesn’t turn out to be such a low price at all. Yet by this stage we feel committed to the purchase. Another trick is for salespeople to get customers to fill out an order form or sales agreement themselves, dramatically reducing the chances of them changing their mind. Public commitments are a strong force. Cialdini notes Emerson’s famous quote, “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” Especially when you are marketed to, remember your natural tendency to be consistent and you will find it easier to back out of deals that really aren’t that good. Go with your gut feeling about the worth of something before you feel the pressure of consistency—and before you make an initial commitment.
Social proof Why is canned laughter still added to the recordings of television comedy shows, even when the creative people who make the shows feel insulted by it and most viewers say they don’t like it? Because research shows that viewers find the gags funnier when they hear other people laughing, even if the laughter isn’t real. Human beings need the “social proof” of other people doing something first before they feel comfortable doing it themselves. Cialdini provides a very dark example, the famous case of Catherine Genovese, a woman who was murdered in the street in Queens, New York City in 1964. Despite the fact that her assailant attacked her three times over the course of half an hour before finally killing her, despite the sound of screams and scuffles, and incredibly even though 38 people saw what was happening, no one stopped to intervene. Was this just a case of the heartlessness of New Yorkers? Possibly, although the witnesses seemed shocked themselves that they had done nothing. Finally an answer emerged. It seemed that everyone thought someone else would do something, and so no one did anything. A person in dire straits, Cialdini notes, has a greater chance of getting help if only one person is around, rather than a number of people. In a crowd or in a city street, if 65