 This is part three of lecture seven so by now you probably have a good idea of what an What an attitude is and how persuasive messages work in this final part will be discussing several Influencing strategies for you to know and recognize and be very well aware of so if we mentioned Influencing strategies, there's only one person that you should know and that's this guy over here His name is Robert C. Aldini and Robert C. Aldini is the expert when it comes to social influence Understanding and explaining the many ways in which we are being influenced throughout our daily lives So Robert C. Aldini is a very famous social psychologist And he's also an author of this book called influence the psychology of persuasion And if you want to know more about this topic then you should definitely read this book It's also been read by millions of people across the world So a lot of people know his work. A lot of people love his work. So over five million copies sold So you have to check it out for yourself But for now I will just give you a short summary of his book and the different Influencing strategies that he discusses in the book. There are six of them here You see them reciprocity consistency liking scarcity authority and social proof So I will discuss them one by one and give you examples of how these influencing strategies work So let me start off with the first one reciprocity and I'll do so by asking you a question So if you go out for dinner and you had a nice meal and then afterwards you receive the bill With some mince on it or some sweets happens quite a lot, right? Do you like it if that happens? Yeah, do you like it? I guess you do and what about politicians that hand out free flowers before election day Do you like that or do you feel maybe a little bit influenced by that? If that is the case if you feel influenced or even a little bit manipulated you should because they are manipulating you and not only the politicians in their red jackets, but also the restaurant owners Offering you free mince at the end of the meal because research shows if there are very cheap mince with your bill These mince really don't cost a lot for the restaurant owners The chances of you giving a large tip really significantly increases So you give a lot higher tip if you receive mince with your bill. Why is that the case? Well, that is the case because the principle of reciprocity is used reciprocity happens The moment we get something for free So for example free samples in the city when you're walking around and you get a free kind of soda Offer to you then you're like, oh, okay. This is a free free products and we love free products Especially Dutch people. We love free products But they don't actually come for free because there's something psychologically happening to you Once you receive something that you didn't pay for or you don't feel like you really owed that or you didn't order it in case of The mince because what happens is the moment you get a free gift from someone that you don't know So for example a stranger in the city offers you a free product then we feel some sort of guilt We don't want to owe anyone anything So we want to restore the balance and how can we restore the balance? Well in the case of mince you can Increase your tip. So that's one way of getting rid of this feeling of guilt And also for the politicians what they of course hope for is that you then feel pressured or you know inclined to vote for the party with the red jackets because that's of course in the end what they are after so Respirosity can be used in a very small smart way Giving you something for free, but in the end it's actually a manipulation for you to change your behavior and Do something back which is oftentimes much more costly so this idea of reciprocity is actually Something we discussed before and something we saw before it has based on the principle of consistency We also talked about this of course in lecture six extensively when we talked about the cognitive dissonance theory So once we show a certain behavior or once we do something we want to stick to that Stick to that behavior. So we want to be consistent So this is also used with the low-balling technique that we discussed before once you agree to do something you you know continue Even though the cost increase and you're actually you know being manipulated into a deal that you Didn't sign up for in the beginning another technique that is also a lot to do with this feeling This desire to be consistent is the foot in the door technique Which is very similar technique to the low ball technique, but there's a difference So in a foot in the door technique you agree to do one thing that is actually a small thing And then you get a second request a much bigger request and because you said yes to the small thing You're inclined to also say yes to the bigger thing So this happens for example if someone comes at your doorstep and as you so do you maybe want to make a small Donation for my good cause maybe you have some spare coins laying around and you can donate them most people would say yes Of course, I'll just look for some coins and here you go Then if this person on your doorstep is smarts and using the principle of consistency What they can then say is oh wow I see you really care about this good cause and you're looking all these coins to To donate what that's beautiful. You must be really really Very passionate about this course. So what do you think about becoming a monthly donator and then you can really make a difference Well, if they started off by saying do you want to become our monthly donor? You would have probably said no, but because you already agreed to do something small you want to be consistent You want to you know follow up on that. We want to be predictable people right rational people that stick to their ideas So once you get someone to agree with a small thing They're more likely to also agree with the bigger thing because you have a foot in the door And you just remind people that they want to be consistent and they have a desire to be Reliable people that make you know smart decisions Okay, so the next principle is the principle of liking and that is very straightforward We prefer to see yes the people to request of people of people that we like that we know and also that we find Attractive so for example the request of our friends We don't like to say no to friends and that's why all these strategies like bring a friend promo if you bring a friend to your gym For example, you get a discount as a member that is very smart. That's also something that CLD knee would Would use if he would have would own a gym because These gym owners know that it's very hard for them to recruit new members themselves It's way easier for them to have the existing members, you know Recruits members for them because if a friend's as you do you want to come to my gym? It's really nice there. We're way more likely to do it than if a stranger asked us to do so So we also and again we saw this before we like to agree to beautiful people So that's again why beautiful people are in commercials because we like them and we want to agree with them We want to say yes to them So that's the principle of liking then we'll continue with the next principle and that's the principle of scarcity Get it while it's hot. There's only a few items left You know strategies like this So this happens also often very subtly and you should be very aware of this for example Let's imagine you're contemplating buying a new phone You're browsing the internet and you find the phone that you you know think of buying and then you see the following message There's only one product left This is very smart use of marketing because you see you know only one product left and You know, that's the phone that you thought of buying So this is using scarcity principle when there's very little little of it. It must be really popular So you need to buy it as well. So you also this is also often used for example when you're trying to book a hotel room You see all these these marketing principles, right? So you see how many people are currently looking at this hotel room You see that only today is a very special limited offer. So you need to make a decision today so scarcity the idea is if something is cars is probably valuable and Also, we have this idea that the moment something is scarce We may not be able to purchase it if we wait and this is very smart because this is sort of tuning into our feelings of reactance So the moment we feel like we may not have the option to buy the iPhone if we wait for one more hour This goes it gives us a feeling of psychological Resistance, we don't like it. We like to be free in our decisions So we we like to be make our own choices And if we feel like a certain choice option is no longer possible if we wait too long Then this gives us this tendency to buy very quickly and that's of course what all these These marketeers are after for you to really quickly buy the iPhone and book the hotel room So don't be fooled by these strategies. They're oftentimes just scarcity mechanisms in the making So let's now continue to a very big actually social influence tactics Something we'll return to in the next lecture way more elaborately. That is the principle of authority So if an expert claims to you know, know something or sell you something, we're more likely to be convinced So again, this is in line with what we talked about before a credible source is more likely to persuade you But here also you need to be very aware So you have to keep in mind that sometimes an expert is not really an expert Like here you see for example influencers do this a lot here. You see Kim Kardashian. She sells appetites suppressing lollipops Really with that work and does she really know what she's doing and does she has maybe a stake in this? Maybe she gets a lot of money, you know making selling this product so even a lot of people especially Influencers claim to be experts on something and you have to be critical You are they really experts and also does it really matter so for example here You see a professor trying to sell you a washing powder or something that doesn't make any sense But just seeing this white coat seeing the term professor is you know feeding into our idea that's an expert Probably knows what he's doing and it's easier to be to convince you So the final mechanism that I want to discuss with you is a social proof mechanism And that's also I guess maybe the most popular most well-known mechanism That is used when you are being convinced or shown that a lot of people are doing it So you need to do it as well many examples of this for example I worked at a bar, you know when I was a student worked at many bars And I quickly realized that if you have this jar full of tips It works way better if the jar is already pretty full if it's empty nobody will leave a tip especially not Dutch people We are greedy so you know you need to make sure that this jar of tips is already quite full And you have a higher chance of actually getting tips Of course the idea here being a lot of people are getting tips giving tips is apparently what we do here So you show people this is the appropriate behavior. So you should do it as well We're also oftentimes fooled by this. Let's imagine for example a club where there's a line outside Of course sometimes when there's a line out of the club makes a lot of sense. That is really busy inside, right? But we know actually that's oftentimes clubs create lines even when it's still empty outside Also based on the idea of social proof This is the place to be look all these people are waiting here to get in and Paradoxically people are more likely to join a line like this to you know wait to get inside a club Then to go to a club where there's no line because people feel like hmm here here It's gonna be really busy there It's empty. So I'm gonna join this even though it's costly because you have to stand outside in the line You know waiting in line. So a waiting line is also an example of social proof Also used in television shows, especially back in the days in these old sitcoms like friends. They used canned laughter So you well you were watching the show you heard people laughing again Social proof so you heard people laughing which is contagious So we know from a from research that people find a comedy show more amusing when they already hear laughter Even though the jokes are exactly the same. So can't laughter another example of social proof So these this idea of social proof is all based on the principle of conformity and conformity and authority are both very powerful Psychological tools to influence people and this is something we'll talk extensively about in the next lecture to come So I won't get into it and much more detail now The only thing I'll do is reveal to you that I also used this tactic on you in this exact length lecture While I was introducing the book that I was discussing by Robert C. Aldini. I told you it's a bestseller It's read read by millions of people across the world. This is also an example of using social proof So a lot of people are reading it. So you should read it as well With all these principles, it's really important to stay alert, you know, don't let yourself be fooled You know be aware of all these mechanisms that are out there trying to persuade you trying to influence you What the good news is with this new level of awareness that you now have you will be less susceptible To these strategies. So I think and I hope you can use this and make advantage of this while you go about your day So this is the end of the lecture. Thank you for watching and I see you next time You