Robert B. Cialdini Ph.D / 83
SYW
(staring blankly): Huh?
C: Look. What I told you during your fake survey doesn’t matter. I refuse
to allow myself to be locked into a mechanical sequence of commitment and consistency when I know it’s wrongheaded. No click, whirr for me. SYW:
Huh?
Okay, let me put it this way: (1) It would be stupid of me to spend money on something I don’t want. (2) I have it on excellent author-ity, direct from my stomach, that I don’t want your entertainment plan. (3) Therefore, if you still believe that I will buy it, you probably also still believe in the Tooth Fairy. Surely, someone as intelligent as yourself would be able to understand that. C:
SYW
(trapped like a stunning young rat): Well…uh…I…uh…I guess so.
Stomachs are not especially perceptive or subtle organs. Only when it is obvious that we are about to be conned are they likely to register and transmit that message. At other times, when it is not clear that we are being taken, our stomachs may never catch on. Under those circumstances we have to look elsewhere for a clue. The situation of my neighbor Sara provides a good illustration. She made an important commitment to Tim by canceling her prior marriage plans. That commitment has grown its own supports, so that even though the original reasons for the commitment are gone, she remains in harmony with it. She has convinced herself with newly formed reasons that she did the right thing, so she stays with Tim. It is not difficult to see why there would be no tightening in Sara’s stomach as a result. Stomachs tell us when we are doing something we think is wrong for us. Sara thinks no such thing. To her mind, she has chosen correctly and is behaving consistently with that choice. Yet, unless I badly miss my guess, there is a part of Sara that recognizes her choice as a mistake and her current living arrangement as a brand of foolish consistency. Where, exactly, that part of Sara is located we can’t be sure. But our language does give it a name: heart of hearts. It is, by definition, the one place where we cannot fool ourselves. It is the place where none of our justifications, none of our rationalizations penetrate. Sara has the truth there, although, right now, she can’t hear its signal clearly through the noise and static of the new support apparatus she has erected. If Sara has erred in her choice of Tim, how long could she go without