4: Social Conformity
Cialdini opens with the example of "laugh tracks" in television programs. When you call attention to it, people utterly loathe it, and recognize that it is "stupid, phony, and obvious" as a ploy to get the audience to laugh along, often at something that is not particularly funny.
Yet it is popular with television executives, and has been statistically correlated to enjoyment: in repeated tests, subjects laugh more often and longer at, and rate as more entertaining, programs that contain laugh tracks as compared to those that do not.
The trick of canned laughter is obvious to anyone who notices it: its purpose is to teach someone what is funny. In social situations, we are often uncertain of ourselves, and unsure if a comment is meant as a joke until someone else laughs - at which point we realize we should laugh along, whether or not we understand the joke. That is, we are psychologically programmed to deliver a social laugh.
The same tactic was leveraged long before recorded entertainment. The opera houses of Paris in the early nineteenth century employed "claquers" - paid actors who would be seated among the audience whose job it was to applaud, and by so doing evoke applause in others. The tactic was so successful that a company of paid claquers was established and routinely hired by theater managers, not only to clap but to cheer, to weep, or to laugh on cue.
The practice was so regular and so reliable that price menus have been found for claquers in Italy - they would charge 15 lire to applaud when an actor entered the stage, 10 lire for brief applause during a performance, 17 lire for extended applause, and 50 lire for wild enthusiasm at the end of an act. There were even contract rates for claquers to attend the full run of a performance - given that different audiences would be passing through, they could use the same people in the same seats.
We find the same phenomenon in many behaviors: we look to other people to take our cues for what is appropriate. We tend to drive as fast as other people on a road, or to look to others' behavior when we don't know which fork to use at a dinner party. On the street, people are more likely to deposit their trash into a bin if they see someone else doing so, or to drop it on the ground if they see someone else doing so. Sometimes this behavior is conscious, but other times it is not.
And this makes social conformity a powerful weapon of influence. It is a mental shortcut for us to imitate what others do rather than investing the mental effort into thinking for ourselves to determine what is appropriate or effective.
The Value of Imitation
Imitation is the method by which human beings learn. Even from infancy, we mimic the expressions of a parent, imitate the sounds we hear them make, and copy their gestures - all as a part of learning how to communicate to other people. A child can often be seen observing and imitating the behavior of an adult, and adults can often be seen observing and imitating the behavior of others.
As it turns out, imitating the behavior of others is in fact a method of learning, or of making fewer mistakes in situations in which we have less experience and knowledge. But this is only true in situations where the other person knows what they are doing and is seeking to achieve something positive. Imitating the behavior of foolish or reckless individuals can be harmful - but in situations where we do not recognize that they are being foolish or reckless, we assume what they are doing is proper and productive.
A manipulator can leverage this by modeling behavior for us to imitate that is designed to goad us into doing what is in his interests rather than our own. Return to the example of the huckster who plants a stooge in a crowd of people: when the stooge seems convinced and makes a purchase, other people are inclined to make a purchase - not because they understand or believe in the pitch that was delivered, but because they are imitating the stooge.
Going back to the example of laugh-tracks: it is not foolish to laugh socially, as humor is a social phenomenon that involves a kind of negotiation between people as to what is to be taken lightly as opposed to seriously. The problem comes when we respond in a social manner to laughter that is not genuine - but affected in order evoke a social response to something that is not humorous, nor meant as humor, but is a decoy to trigger a response.
(EN: This brings to mind the example of hunters who use game-calls. Responding to a mating or distress call is a valid instinct, and if animals ceased doing so it would mean the end of their species - but distinguishing a genuine call for distress and a fake one is necessary.)
Evoking Imitative Responses
The author gives a few examples of tricks for creating imitative responses: bartenders "seed" their tip jars with a few dollar bills to stimulate customers to it. Churches do the same thing with their collection plates, and will place stooges in the audience to "give witness" so others will feel more comfortable doing so. Political organizers will coach a corps of stooges to applaud or cheer at certain times during the speech to encourage others to demonstrate support. Street performers will ask the first few people to show up to cheer or applaud to draw a larger crowd. Nightclub owners will pay people to form a line outside their venue to attract others.
Advertising messages use social proof extensively. The testimonial, real or fake, is evidence that someone else values a product. Claiming to be the fastest-growing or best-selling item causes us to believe many other people have a positive expression of the brand. Television commercials will model desirable people using a product so that we feel inclined to do so - our inclination to imitate is most powerful when we admire the stooge. Salesmen like to name other people that a prospect knows to trigger an imitation response.
He mentions a motivation consultant who trains salesman as the source of a bogus statistic: that 95% of people are imitators and only 5% are initiators - so if you want to build sales fast, giving them something to imitate is more important that providing proof.
(EN: Aside of the irony of an author who coaches people to avoid being manipulated using the very tactic he is discussing to bolster his own argument, this number is not far from wrong. Studies of social media have shown that less than one percent of posts offer any original content - the vast majority are simply passing along information from another creator.)
Research
One researcher (Bandura) mentions a way in which phobias can be overcome. His study involved young children who were terrified of dogs. To help them overcome their fear, they were made to watch another child playing with a dog for twenty minutes a day. After only four days, 67% of the children were willing to cross the protective barrier between themselves and the stooge and play with the dog - and to continue doing so after the stooge had left the area. A month later, the children still had no fear of dogs.
The study was later extended to eliminate the live demonstration, and it was found that merely watching film clips of children playing with dogs had the same effect. It was even more effective when the film clips showed a variety of children, not just one, interacting with dogs. It's speculated that they might dismiss just one person as being unusual, but when they see a number of people doing the same thing, it becomes a social cue that it is safe to do something.
Another researcher (O'Connor) considered the problem of children who are shy and socially withdrawn. Because they are witnessing others interact socially, there is already the element of modeling - but still they resist. He prepared a 23-minute film of eleven vignettes, each of which depicted a child standing alone at the fringe of a group, then joining the group and enjoying the interaction. The subject children "immediately" began to interact with their peers at a normal level, while a control group of children remained isolated as before.
Cults as Social Groups
Cialdini marvels at the popularity and power of religious cults, which attract members in spite of promulgating outlandish ideas and whose members are strongly devoted to the cause, even to the point of being willing to leave their normal lives, place themselves under the command of someone who seems insane, and even to commit suicide on command.
The followers of cults are not particularly stupid of selfless individuals, and often include people who otherwise seem to be highly intelligent: college graduates, doctors, policemen, and others who would seem to have the sense to know better are found in the ranks of cults.
The incident with Jim Jones in Guyana, in which cultists committed mass-suicide by drinking poison, is fresh in our cultural memory, but this has been done throughout history in various cultures (EN: there's a laundry-list of examples and one extended account that I'm skipping).
The author speculates that the attraction to such groups in spite of their outlandish believes and bizarre practices is not because the individual devotee finds them intrinsically compelling, but because there is a group of people to imitate - and they go along with it, just because others seem to be going along with it. They do things because others are doing them. They remain devout because they witness the devotion of others.
That is to say that their beliefs and behavior are all demonstrations of the power of social conformity.
Bystander Apathy
Not only can social conformity lead us to do things that are irrational, it can also prevent us from doing things that are perfectly rational. Consider the phenomenon of bystander apathy, in which a group of people watches a person in a situation in which they could relatively easily intervene, but they stand by watching the incident because no-one else is doing anything.
The 1964 murder of Catherine Genovese in New York City is a stunning example: she was killed in broad daylight in a busy Kew Gardens neighborhood in Queens. Her death was not quick and was done in a visible manner: her assailant chased her down in the street and stabbed her multiple times, and she died over a period of more than half an hour. Thirty-eight people had watched the events unfold without intervening or even lifting a finger to call the police.
The police were shocked and baffled by the incident. Some were familiar with the bystanders, and recognized them as being "good people" whom they expected would be quick to react. After the fact, the witnesses offered weak responses: they said they didn't know why they failed to take action; some said they were afraid; others simply said they didn't want to get involved.
Later interviewed by psychologists, witnesses admitted that they failed to give or call for aid because they were aware of other people who were witnessing the same incident and doing nothing. Some said that they assumed someone else already had called for help and the police must have been on their way.
This incident spawned a wave of media, and created the cultural impression of living in a "cold society" - though the incident was largely ascribed to having to do with urban life (so that suburbanites could maintain the belief that they would have acted under such circumstances) - but this was not an isolated incident. The same kind of thing has happened many times, in a variety of location, and in various cultures.
However, there are three factors that are more likely to cause people in urban environments to be more apathetic:
- Confusion - Given the level of activity in a city, there is constant distraction so people may not notice or pay attention to a situation sufficiently to recognize that it is an emergency
- Population - Because cities are densely populated, it is more likely that there will be a number of people who witness an event, making groups more common
- Detachment - Oddly enough, people who live in cities tend to be acquainted with fewer people than in small towns: they see tens of thousands every day, but make acquaintance with few of them
Social influence is the cause: people who witness an event where others are present look to the others for cues. And while nobody means to "take charge" in the situation, they are nonetheless influential by simply standing still and doing nothing - which gives others an excuse to stand still and do nothing.
As an aside, it's mentioned that the notion of "safety in numbers" is often completely wrong. Researchers (Darley and Letane) have demonstrated that a person who is in need of assistance is more likely to be helped by a single bystander rather than a crowd. Through a staged emergency of an actress pretending to have a seizure, it was found that a single bystander would rush to help 85% of the time - but when five bystanders were present, the person received help 31% of the time.
It's clear that "the cold society" is not made up of heartless and indifferent individuals - but that people who would normally react become indifferent when they witness the indifference of others.
Imitation Cures for Uncertainty
All the weapons of influence discussed in this book are most effective under certain conditions - and if we are to defend against them, we must be able to detect the conditions under which they may be leveraged so that we are able to see them coming and prepare our defense.
For social commitment, the condition is simple: we are unsure of ourselves, and in our uncertainty we are vulnerable to adopting imitative patterns of behavior - doing what others are doing because we do not know what to do, and assume that others are aware of what is most appropriate.
Young and inexperience people are easy prey for social manipulation: they do not have the life experience to know what to do in many situations, and are easily goaded into imitating others or following instructions. But even older and wiser people can be placed in a contrived situation that is ambiguous or awkward, and will routinely look to imitate others to alleviate their anxiety.
On bystander apathy, there has been "more than a decade of research" which shows that the more people who are seen to witness an emergency and take no action, the lower the chances that any individual among them will do anything. People are not unkind - they are merely paralyzed by uncertainty. They are not sure that another person needs their help, they are not sure of what to do to help them, and they take their cue from others who are also paralyzed. As a result, nobody does anything.
Helping Others to Overcome Apathy
What horrifies people the most about bystander apathy is that they can imagine themselves in the position of the victim - attacked by an assailant or succumbing to a medical situation - and believe that others will not help. But there are steps that can be taken to improve your chances:
1. Give Warning
One problem is that people refrain from asking for help before a situation comes to a crisis. They expect that things will rectify themselves. HE gives the example of a person who feels a little numbness in their hard and dismiss it as nothing to be alarmed about. When the numbness spreads, they become a little concerned, but then decide to sit down and rest, waiting for the feeling to pass. By the time they realize that they are having a stroke, they are too incapacitated to call for help - and people passing by just se someone sitting quietly by themselves, with nothing apparently wrong.
To overcome this problem, it is necessary to alert others to the problem before it becomes critical. While you might feel a bit foolish if it turns out to be nothing, alerting others that you might be headed for a critical condition by saying "I think I might be having a stroke" before you are paralyzed by it will at least give them an indication that they should not ignore you - and that they should keep an eye on you.
The problem is not that people are unwilling to help, but they are uncertain if help is necessary. By calling attention to the situation and making it clear that you need help - or might need help - you dispel the uncertainty that might otherwise prevent them from perceiving you as needing assistance.
2. Give Instructions
Another problem is that when people ask for help, they do so in a vague way. The typical distress call is simply "Help!" But people do not know how to help, so they are again paralyzed by uncertainty in not knowing what they ought to do. The word "help" is no more informative than any other grunt or moan - someone might recognize it as an expression of distress, but nothing more.
So the example of a stroke needs to be extended. If the person you informed that "I might be having a stroke" sees that you are, indeed, having one, they still do not know what action to take. If you add "please call for an ambulance if I become unable to speak" then you have given them a specific action to take, so they will not simply stand there and gawk, but have an idea of what to do.
Even if what you suggest to them isn't exactly the right course of action, it will enable them to act, and once they are acting the inertia is broken. Once they have called for an ambulance, they will be more likely to remain with you and think of other things they could be doing to help with your situation.
3. Single Someone Out
A third problem is that if people recognize and emergency and know what to do, they may not take action because there are many people present and they expect someone else will come to your assistance. That is, if you are obviously having a stroke and a number of people are standing around watching, each of them may assume that someone else has already called for help, and as a result no-one will.
So rather than putting out a general distress call of "help" or "someone please help me," your chances are better of getting assistance if you single out an individual in the crowd. "You, in the blue jacket - call the police" is a method of getting a specific person to take a specific action, and placing on them the personal responsibility of doing as you have asked.
Returning to the research: recall that 85% of people will render assistance when they are alone, but only 31% will render assistance if they are in a group of five people. Singling out a person nearly triples your chances of getting the assistance you need.
A Personal Experience
Cialdini adds a personal testimony about the effectiveness of this technique. He recalls an incident in which he was involved in "a rather serious automobile collision" in which the other driver was unconscious and he had sustained a number of injuries. He was at an intersection where several vehicles were stopped at a traffic light, but no-one seemed to be getting out of their car.
Recognizing the problem of bystander apathy, he took action. He pointed directly at the driver of one car and commanded him "You, call the police" and then to a second driver "Get out of your car and help that man."
He recalls that these people seemed to instantly snap out of their daze and spring to action, doing exactly what he had commanded, and others joined in. Someone called the police, someone else went to help the other driver, and other people got out of their cars to help him - they laid him down, put a jacket under his head, gave him water, and applied pressure to his wounds. He had not asked these additional people to join in, nor given them any specific instructions - but when they saw the first two people acting, they recognized that giving aid was necessary.
(EN: While Cialdini suggests this procedure in the context of emergencies, it's also entirely applicable to everyday situations. Whenever there's a group of people involved, there's a long pause before anyone acts - and often, nobody does. You can move a group out of apathy either by taking action yourself or asking someone else to take action, which breaks the spell.)
The Value of Similarity
Another important condition to evoking imitative behavior is the similarity between the individual who models an action to those expected to imitate it. People are more inclined to mimic the behavior of individuals they see as being "like" themselves than they are to mimic that of a person they consider to be dissimilar.
This is the rationale for the "man on the street" testimonial in advertising: the use of celebrities carries with it the risk that a person will admire, but not identify with, the spokesperson - whereas they are more likely to identify with a common person who is like themselves.
An experiment done at Columbia University involved placing wallets with a small amount of cash in various locations. Each wallet was contained in an envelope with a letter from someone who had found it and whose intention was to return it. When the letter was written in standard English, 70% of the wallets were returned. When the letter was written in broken English, only 33% of the wallets were returned.
Another observation indicates school programs that are mean to discourage bad behavior or encourage good behavior have more positive results when the message is delivered by a child the same age as the target audience than the same message delivered by an adult.
(EN: He follows this with a few observations that demonstrate imitative behavior but seem to have nothing to do with similarity between the model and the mark.)
Real World Examples
There are a number of real-world examples of this technique in action:
He mentions a student of his who was a highway patrolman, and who was routinely perplexed by traffic jams that seemed to have no cause (there was no accident or obstruction in the roadway). He had observed that, when traffic bogs down, some drivers begin jockeying to attempt to get into a faster lane of traffic. The fact that one person is changing lanes causes drivers behind him to think that he sees an obstruction and is trying to move around it - so a few other people will change lanes as well, then a few more. Between the people who are attempting to change lanes and others who slow to allow them to merge, the entire freeway can be jammed. One person's uninformed behavior in that way snowballs into a traffic snarl for several miles.
Social conformity is plainly evident when large groups of people assume a herd mentality. The author mentions the hunting technique of certain Indian tribes such as the Blackfoot, Cree, Snake, and Crow. They would hunt buffalo simply by startling a few members of the herd, who would then start a stampede. Hundreds of buffalo would charge off the edge of a cliff because only a few had been startled - which is an excellent example of the manner in which social influence works on people as well.
Another example is an observation of betting patterns at a racetrack. Because the odds are set according to the number of people who bet of a given horse, even people who know nothing about horses or racing assume that the horse that offers the lowest odds is the one with the best chance to win (in truth, it is the one favored by other gamblers to win) - but at the same time are always on the lookout for a long shot that will pay ten to one (or more).
A common tactic for high rollers at the racetrack is to place a bet that seems large (say, a hundred dollars) on a horse that has long odds, and to do so in a way that subtly gets the attention of other gamblers, triggering them to believe that horse will win (a fix is on) so that they will bet it and spread the tip to others. This causes the odds on the longshot to decrease and the odds on the actual favorite to increase, at which time the high-roller places his bet (a few thousand dollars) on the horse that is actually likely to win. He fully expects the hundred-dollar bet to fail, but counts on the herd behavior of suspicious and ignorant gamblers to boost the odds on the thousand-dollar bet.
Defenses Against Social Proof
This chapter has demonstrated the way in which people can be convinced to imitate others, from things as simple as laughing when we hear them laugh to as sinister as participating in a group suicide, demonstrating that imitation is a very powerful tool of influence that influences a wider range of behaviors.
Moreover, it is in most instances a valuable tool, as imitating others often enables us to achieve the same outcomes as they do - and when their actions are based on logic and the outcome is satisfactory, it saves us a great deal of thinking to merely follow what successful people do without having to understand what we are doing or consider other options. It allows us to put our minds on auto-pilot.
The problem is that turning off our minds is precisely the value that those who would use weapons of influence count upon: that we will act without thinking and follow their lead, to do what is in their interest rather than our own, with complete indifference to whether it is beneficial to us to do so. This makes social proof our enemy, but only once in a while - such that we are prone to continue using it in spite of an occasional malfunction.
And so, we must be discerning to recognize instances in which social conformity is liable to lead us astray.
The most obvious warning sign is that someone is presenting us with information that has been purposely falsified to provoke a reaction. Specifically, someone else is providing us with information that we do not have and cannot see that give us the impression that other people are behaving in the way that they wish us to behave.
The laugh-tracks in television programs are an obvious example: we cannot see the audience but assume one to be there because the sound of laughter has been falsified, like a duck call - and like a duck call, it does not necessarily have to be authentic or well executed. If you listen closely to laugh tracks, it's obvious that they are forced laughter, and that it sounds exactly the same way every time. And still it works.
The fact that decoys work in spite of their amateurish quality also means that those who use them don't put much effort into making them seem authentic. This is a critical mistake on their part, because their lack of effort to make the evidence seem authentic enables us to recognize it for what it is: fake.
The second critical mistake that manipulators make is in suggesting a very specific course of action and drawing a clear connection to the social evidence they have provided. There is no subtlety in their method, and it makes it very easy to recognize the pattern.
And as before, the inclination to act based on a desire to conform socially is undone when we recognize the deception for what it is. The compulsion we feel to accommodate others is utterly negated when we recognize that they are being deceitful and attempting to take advantage.
The tactic should be assumed of any commercial message: advertisers pay to run commercials because their intent is to influence the buying behavior of people, and we should be well aware that anything we see in a commercial is carefully crafted: the celebrity spokesmen are paid, and even the man-on-the-street testimonials are selected from hundreds of actual interviews as those most likely to resound with the audience.
Cialdini also suggests the tactic of questioning the evidence. Because the decoy is often poorly made, it will come unraveled on closer inspection.
- Question whether the evidence makes sense (he mentions the commercial message using an actress to promote a medication - being an actress doesn't give her the credentials to have an informed opinion about healthcare, even if she plays a doctor on television).
- Question whether the evidence is genuine (recognize that people are often offered incentives for writing positive reviews of a product, and it is not spontaneous or genuine testimony)
- Question whether the evidence even exists (a claim that most people believe something, or "a scientific study" has proven it, is often made even if there has been no survey or study)
The value of questioning the evidence first, rather than the suggestion, is that it gives the other person the ability to withdraw their offer without losing face. This is important in a situations in which someone might be passing along information in which they genuinely believe (the well-meaning friend who passes along bad advice he heard from someone else).
The action can also be questioned, though it is better to do this internally. Simply ask yourself "why am I doing this?" and "what am I trying to achieve?" If the answer is only because you are attempting to appease another person, chances are you are being played by them to do what is in their interests rather than your own.
It is especially important to recognize when you are acting without thinking, and to be vigilant in moments when your mind is on autopilot. To extend that metaphor, pilots who use autopilot may take their hands away from the controls, but they continue to monitor their situation to ensure that the plane is safe and on-course. You should make a habit of doing the same.