Persuasion is a powerful and threatening tool against those who are weak. It can sway one’s decisions between good and evil, concealing judgment, and jading the conscience. It plays the critical role of a spectral villain, an invisible danger to the protagonist in William Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Macbeth is a victim of the persuasion of others, making him ultimately not responsible for his actions. Macbeth’s own partner Lady Macbeth persuades her husband to commit murder and fulfill his ambition. The three witches and their Queen influence Macbeth’s decisions through the use of predictions as well as the supernatural. Lastly, the three apparitions conjured by the witches play a very crucial role in establishing Macbeth’s fate through their deceptively uplifting prophecies.
Lady Macbeth, one of the most persuasive characters in the play, is a perfect example of using the tool of manipulation to one’s advantage to achieve personal benefit. Upon opening her husband’s letter explaining his meeting with the witches, Lady Macbeth is struck with malicious thoughts and is immediately determined to seize the throne ,with Macbeth, and become the Queen of Scotland:
“Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be
What thou art promis’d. Yet do I fear thy nature;
It is too full o’ the milk of human kindness
To catch the nearest way. Thou wouldst be great,
Art not without ambition, but without
The Term Paper on Macbeth Macduff Duncan Lady
... respected general. Macbeth was firstly lead by his own desirous individuality at the beginning of the play. Intrigued by the witches prophecies, he ... the English forces and march to Scotland. Back at Macbeth s castle; Lady Macbeth s lady-in-waiting has called upon a doctor, to ... last with a glass in his hand, Banquo following. Macbeth replies: Thou art too like the spirit of Banquo.Down! The Conjurers ...
The illness should attend it;”
(Shakespeare, I.V.14-19).
From this scene, it is right away clear that Lady Macbeth is a dark hearted person with strong determination. She has already concluded that her husband will kill King Duncan and become the ruler of Scotland, though Macbeth is currently a good hearted, loyal human being. Because of these qualities, she fears that Macbeth will not have what it takes to end the life of an innocent and honorable man, though he has great ambition. It is now evident that she is the one who will be responsible for the corruption of Macbeth and the death of the King. “”Affinity,” “rapport” and “affection” all describe a feeling of connection between people. But the simple word “liking” most faithfully captures the concept and has become the standard designation in the social science literature. People prefer to say yes to those they like.” (Cialdini par. 18) Lady Macbeth encourages her husband into committing treason and murder by questioning his manhood and challenging his courage. “When you durst do it, then you were a man; and, to be more than what you were, you would be so much more the man.” (1.7.49-51).
She persuades him to believe that if he is a man, he would be able to murder King Duncan. Macbeth, being someone who values courage and manhood is easily swayed into doing as she asked. After Macbeth hears the witches’ prophecies, it becomes clear that he contemplates murder, but he decides to leave his fate to chance and chance alone: “My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical/ If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me, Without my stir.” (Shakespeare I.III.139, 143-145).
Macbeth still wishes to be King, but once again, he lacks the evil to carry out the deed. If it were not for Lady Macbeth to push him along, Macbeth would most likely not have killed King Duncan, which would be followed by the string of events that conclude with his pitiful death. Lady Macbeth caused her husband to shift alignments, from good to evil. However, she is not the only force that made an impact on Macbeth’s actions; the three weird sisters and their master plays a role just as significant if not more to the fate of our protagonist.
The three witches and even more so their Queen, are portrayed as wise, evil, and powerful women and hold an enormous influence over Macbeth. They are known at the time for their powerful magic and connections with the supernatural, thus granting them more an influence over others. With their ability to foretell the future, they easily manipulate Macbeth out of amusement and their own pure spite. The witches reveal some important prophecies to Macbeth when they meet: “All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Glamis! / All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor! / All hail, Macbeth! That shalt be King hereafter.” (Shakespeare I.III.48-50).
The Essay on Macbeth Witches King Man
The passing of decade's, centuries and a millennium, man in some aspects, has not changed. With this passing of time, man remains gullible and optimistic. These two characteristics are essential in the development in the play Macbeth. This is evident in that Macbeth's fate is influenced, by the witches' predictions. At the outset of the play, Macbeth encounters the witches who predict he will ...
Macbeth seems to believe these predictions and cannot help but to at least consider them to be true. And so he is influenced by these supernatural predictions into following the doomed path drawn out for him by the three witches. Persuasion is a process that is effective only on the weak-spirited. When Macbeth learns of his future, his weaknesses and ambition are exposed to us: “The Prince of Cumberland: that is a step on which I must fall down, or else o’er-leap, for in my way it lies.” (Shakespeare I.III.49-51).
Macbeth yearns for his seat on the throne. He is already a very respectable man. He is the noble, loyal, and worthy Thane of Glamis (and Cawdor, which he is currently unaware of) as well as a valorous soldier, but Macbeth is still completely absorbed in the witches’ prophecies and even considers killing the example of innocence and goodness, King Duncan. He is full of avarice and ambition, only lacking the evil to fulfill his lust for the power that resides in the throne of Scotland. These qualities make Macbeth a weak and easy man to persuade and corrupt, ultimately leading him into madness, his decline, and lastly his death. Alongside these flaws, the power of the supernatural and man’s weakness of pride will ensure that the fall of Macbeth will be inevitable. Hecate, the Queen of Witches explains to her subordinates how they will lead him to his doom in this exact fashion:
“And that distilled by magic sleights,
Shall raise such artificial sprites,
As by the strength of their illusion,
Shall draw him on to his confusion.
He shall spurn fate, scorn death, and bear
His hopes ‘bove wisdom, grace, and fear;
And you all know security
Is mortals’ chiefest enemy.”
The Term Paper on Lady Macbeth Witches Duncan King
... the apparition. The actual man who was born of women was young Seward, so the Witches were right warning him about Macduff, but Macbeth ... the banquet she begins to become isolated from her husband.Her persuasion no longer works on him. She scolds him in the ... relationship, which at the beginning was a source for his power. Both Macbeth and his wife have murderous plans in their head, ...
(Shakspeare III.V.26-33)
Hecate informs the witches that through the supernatural’s power of influence, they can persuade Macbeth. Knowing that pride arrives before the fall, Hecate shares this knowledge with the three witches. They follow her instructions and summon the three apparitions to instill over-confidence and recklessness into Macbeth, steering him into ruin.
The three apparitions that Macbeth encounters are the backbone of ensuring the choice of path that the witches wish for him to take. Though the first is threatening, the two others are deceptively assuring, but extremely dangerous to Macbeth when he takes them to heart. The first apparition summoned by the weird sisters warns Macbeth to “beware Macduff; Beware the Thane of Fife.” Macbeth had already considered Macduff to be of a threat before this point, as he explains to the witches after the apparition’s warning, but this guarantees Macbeth’s fear and heedfulness of him. With this encounter, Macbeth feels more in control of his situation. But once the second apparition (the bloody child) is summoned, he becomes bolstered and relieved, dismissing the previous advice to beware Macduff: “Be bloody, bold, and resolute; laugh to scorn, The power of man, for none of woman born, Shall harm Macbeth.” Thinking that it is impossible for a man not to be born from a woman, Macbeth is now confident that he shall not be killed by Macduff or any another man. The bloody child that the apparition takes the form of symbolizes Macduff as a newborn baby. He is a man born not from a woman, but by caesarean section. Macbeth is subtly fooled into false security by this encounter. The third and final apparition, perhaps the most influential of them all speaks to Macbeth:
“Be lion-mettl’d, proud, and take no care
Who chafes, who frets, or where conspirers are:
Macbeth shall never vanquish’d be until
Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill
Shall come against him.
(Shakespeare IV.I.90-95)
Once again, Macbeth is fooled into over-confidence and assurance by the witches. This apparition directly tells Macbeth to be prideful, lion-hearted, and to be careless. He presumes that nothing can dislocate an entire forest, thus he shall be safe. He genuinely believes these prophecies and is now reckless, over-confident, and most of all, vulnerable.
The Essay on Macbeth 44
In the play Macbeth, by William Shakespeare, Macbeth was an ambitious Scottish noble who was transformed into a treacherous tyrant through the influence of three main sources. The first and most important influence on Macbeth, were the witches. They equivocated with him to damn his soul. Another important influence was Lady Macbeth. She was able to control him by questioning his manliness. The ...
Ultimately, Macbeth is not responsible for his choice of actions; he is a victim of persuasion of others. His own wife persuaded him into committing murder and treason, immersing him into a life of evil and madness. The witches direct Macbeth’s decisions and actions through their magical prophecies and supernatural powers. The three disturbing apparitions fool Macbeth into recklessness and vulnerability, just in time for his deserving but pitiful death. Persuasion is a powerful and threatening tool against those who are weak. It can sway one’s decisions between good and evil, concealing judgment and jading the conscience. “The greatest danger lies neither in using force nor in avoiding it, but rather in failing to understand the intricate relationship between power and persuasion.” (Kagan par. 3) It was persuasion that killed Macbeth.
Works Cited
Applebee, Arthur N.. The language of literature British literature. Evanston, Ill.: McDougal Littell, 2000. Print.
Cialdini, Robert B.. “EBSCOhost: the SCIENCE of Persuasion.” EBSCO Publishing Service Selection Page. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Apr. 2012.
http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=7&hid=7&sid=1f839633-4a63-4e12-b605-ead0d92828ef%40sessionmgr114&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=ulh&AN=12545986.
Kagan, Frederick W.. “EBSCOhost: Power and Persuasion.” EBSCO Publishing Service Selection Page. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Apr. 2012.
http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=8&hid=7&sid=1f839633-4a63-4e12-b605-ead0d92828ef%40sessionmgr114&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=ofm&AN=17662249
Social psychology has determined the basic principles that govern getting to “yes”
Hello there.
I hope you’ve enjoyed the magazine so far. Now I’d like to let you in on something of great importance to you personally. Have you ever been tricked into saying yes? Ever felt trapped into buying something you didn’t really want or contributing to some suspicious-sounding cause? And have you ever wished you understood why you acted in this way so that you could withstand these clever ploys in the future?
Yes? Then clearly this article is just right for you. It contains valuable information on the most powerful psychological pressures that get you to say yes to requests. And it’s chock-full of NEW, IMPROVED research showing exactly how and why these techniques work. So don’t delay, just settle in and get the information that, after all, you’ve already agreed you want.
The Essay on Social Security 4
Financial Concerns About the Future of Social Security "Will Social Security Have future financial difficulty?" In my view, Social security doesn't face a true financial crisis. But it does face a crisis of confidence among younger workers. One widely publicized survey showed more young workers believed in UFOs than believed Social Security would pay them full benefits when they need them. By the ...
The scientific study of the process of social influence has been under way for well Over half a century, beginning in earnest with the propaganda, public information and persuasion programs of World War II. Since that time, numerous social scientis ts have investigated the ways in which one individual can influence another’s attitudes and actions. For the past 30 years, I have participated in that endeavor, concentrating primarily on the major factors that bring about a specific form of behavior ch ange–compliance with a request. Six basic tendencies of human behavior come into play in generating a positive response: reciprocation, consistency, social validation, liking, authority and scarcity. As these six tendencies help to govern our business d ealings, our societal involvements and our personal relationships, knowledge of the rules of persuasion can truly be thought of as empowerment.
Reciprocation
When the Disabled American Veterans organization mails out requests for contributions, the appeal succeeds only about 18 percent of the time. But when the mailing includes a set of free personalized address labels, the success rate almost doubles, to 35 percent. To understand the effect of the unsolicited gift, we must recognize the reach and power of an essential rule of human conduct: the code of reciprocity.
All societies subscribe to a norm that obligates individuals to repay in kind what they have received. Evolutionary selection pressure has probably entrenched the behavior in social animals such as ourselves. The demands of reciprocity begin to exp lain the boost in donations to the veterans group. Receiving a gift–unsolicited and perhaps even unwanted–convinced significant numbers of potential donors to return the favor.
Charitable organizations are far from alone in taking this approach: food stores offer free samples, exterminators offer free in-home inspections, health clubs offer free workouts. Customers are thus exposed to the product or service, but they are also indebted. Consumers are not the only ones who fall under the sway of reciprocity. Pharmaceutical companies spend millions of dollars every year to support medical researchers and to provide gifts to individual physicians–activities that may subtly influence investigators’ findings and physicians’ recommendations. A 1998 study in the New England Journal of Medicine found that only 37 percent of researchers who published conclusions critical of the safety of calcium channel blockers had previously r eceived drug company support. Among those whose conclusions attested to the drugs’ safety, however, the number of those who had received free trips, research funding or employment skyrocketed–to 100 percent.
The Essay on Social Problem University Research Government
"All nations should help support the development of a global university designed to engage students in the process of solving the world's most persistent social problems. "In a modern society, there are many complex questions, this passage's suggestion is a good advice, but it is not practical. First, depending the student to solve the world's most persistence social problems is impractical. The ...
Reciprocity includes more than gifts and favors; it also applies to concessions that people make to one another. For example, assume that you reject my large request, and I then make a concession to you by retreating to a smaller request. You may v ery well then reciprocate with a concession of your own: agreement with my lesser request. In the mid1970s my colleagues and I conducted an experiment that clearly illustrates the dynamics of reciprocal concessions. We stopped a random sample of passersb y on public walkways and asked them if they would volunteer to chaperone juvenile detention center inmates on a day trip to the zoo. As expected, very few complied, only 17 percent.
For another random sample of passersby, however, we began with an even larger request: to serve as an unpaid counselor at the center for two hours per week for the next two years. Everyone in this second sampling rejected the extreme appeal. At tha t point we offered them a concession. “If you can’t do that,” we asked, “would you chaperone a group of juvenile detention center inmates on a day trip to the zoo?” Our concession powerfully stimulated return concessions. The compliance rate nearly tripl ed, to 50 percent, compared with the straightforward zoo-trip request.
Consistency
In 1998 Gordon Sinclair, the owner of a well-known Chicago restaurant, was struggling with a problem that afflicts all restaurateurs. Patrons frequently reserve a table but, without notice, fail to appear. Sinclair solved the problem by asking his receptionist to change two words of what she said to callers requesting reservations. The change dropped his no-call, no-show rate from 30 to 10 percent immediately.
The two words were effective because they commissioned the force of another potent human motivation: the desire to be, and to appear, consistent. The receptionist merely modified her request from “Please call if you have to change your plans” to “W ill you please call if you have to change your plans?” At that point, she politely paused and waited for a response. The wait was pivotal because it induced customers to fill the pause with a public commitment. And public commitments, even seemingly mino r ones, direct future action.
In another example, Joseph Schwarzwald of Bar-Ilan University in Israel and his co-workers nearly doubled monetary contributions for the handicapped in certain neighborhoods. The key factor: two weeks before asking for contributions, they got resid ents to sign a petition supporting the handicapped, thus making a public commitment to that same cause.
Social Validation
On a wintry morning in the late 1960s, a man stopped on a busy New York City sidewalk and gazed skyward for 60 seconds, at nothing in particular. He did so as part of an experiment by City University of New York social psychologists Stanley Milgram , Leonard Bickman and Lawrence Berkowitz that was designed to find out what effect this action would have on passersby. Most simply detoured or brushed by; 4 percent joined the man in looking up. The experiment was then repeated with a slight change. Wit h the modification, large numbers of pedestrians were induced to come to a halt, crowd together and peer upward.
The single alteration in the experiment incorporated the phenomenon of social validation. One fundamental way that we decide what to do in a situation is to look to what others are doing or have done there. If many individuals have decided in favor of a particular idea, we are more likely to follow, because we perceive the idea to be more correct, more valid.
Milgram, Bickman and Berkowitz introduced the influence of social validation into their street experiment simply by having five men rather than one look up at nothing. With the larger initial set of upward gazers, the percentage of New Yorkers who followed suit more than quadrupled, to 18 percent. Bigger initial sets of planted up-lookers generated an even greater response: a starter group of 15 led 40 percent of passersby to join in, nearly stopping traffic within one minute.
Taking advantage of social validation, requesters can stimulate our compliance by demonstrating (or merely implying) that others just like us have already complied. For example, a study found that a fund-raiser who showed homeowners a list of neigh bors who had donated to a local charity significantly increased the frequency of contributions; the longer the list, the greater the effect. Marketers, therefore, go out of their way to inform us when their product is the largest-selling or fastest-growi ng of its kind, and television commercials regularly depict crowds rushing to stores to acquire the advertised item.
Less obvious, however, are the circumstances under which social validation can backfire to produce the opposite of what a requester intends. An example is the understandable but potentially misguided tendency of health educators to call attention t o a problem by depicting it as regrettably frequent. Information campaigns stress that alcohol and drug use is intolerably high, that adolescent suicide rates are alarming and that polluters are spoiling the environment. Although the claims are both true and well intentioned, the creators of these campaigns have missed something basic about the compliance process. Within the statement “Look at all the people who are doing this undesirable thing” lurks the powerful and undercutting message “Look at all t he people who are doing this undesirable thing.” Research shows that, as a consequence, many such programs boomerang, generating even more of the undesirable behavior.
For instance, a suicide intervention program administered to New Jersey teenagers informed them of the high number of teenage suicides. Health researcher David Shaffer and his colleagues at Columbia University found that participants became signifi cantly more likely to see suicide as a potential solution to their problems. Of greater effectiveness are campaigns that honestly depict the unwanted activity as damaging despite the fact that relatively few individuals engage in it.
Liking
“Affinity,” “rapport” and “affection” all describe a feeling of connection between people. But the simple word “liking” most faithfully captures the concept and has become the standard designation in the social science literature. People prefer to say yes to those they like. Consider the worldwide success of the Tupperware Corporation and its “home party” program. Through the in-home demonstration get-together, the company arranges for its customers to buy from a liked friend, the host, rather tha n from an unknown salesperson. So favorable has been the effect on proceeds that, according to company literature, a Tupperware party begins somewhere in the world every two seconds. In fact, 75 percent of all Tupperware parties today occur outside the i ndividualistic U.S., in countries where group social bonding is even more important than it is here.
Of course, most commercial transactions take place beyond the homes of friends. Under these much more typical circumstances, those who wish to commission the power of liking employ tactics clustered around certain factors that research has shown to work.
Physical attractiveness can be such a tool. In a 1993 study conducted by Peter H. Reingen of Arizona State University and Jerome B. Kernan, now at George Mason University, good-looking fundraisers for the American Heart Association generated nearly twice as many donations (42 versus 23 percent) as did other requesters. In the 1970s researchers Michael G. Efran and E.W.J. Patterson of the University of Toronto found that voters in Canadian federal elections gave physically attractive candidates sev eral times as many votes as unattractive ones. Yet such voters insisted that their choices would never be influenced by something as superficial as appearance.
Similarity also can expedite the development of rapport. Salespeople often search for, or outright fabricate, a connection between themselves and their customers: “Well, no kidding, you’re from Minneapolis? I went to school in Minnesota!” Fund-rais ers do the same, with good results. In 1994 psychologists R. Kelly Aune of the University of Hawaii at Manoa and Michael D. Basil of the University of Denver reported research in which solicitors canvassed a college campus asking for contributions to a c harity. When the phrase “I’m a student, too” was added to the requests, the amount of the donations more than doubled.
Compliments also stimulate liking, and direct salespeople are trained in the use of praise. Indeed, even inaccurate praise may be effective. Research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill found that compliments produced just as much li king for the flatterer when they were untrue as when they were genuine.
Cooperation is another factor that has been shown to enhance positive feelings and behavior. Salespeople, for example, often strive to be perceived by their prospects as cooperating partners. Automobile sales managers frequently cast themselves as “villains” so the salesperson can “do battle” on the customer’s behalf. The gambit naturally leads to a desirable form of liking by the customer for the salesperson, which promotes sales.
Authority
Recall the man who used social validation to get large numbers of passersby to stop and stare at the sky. He might achieve the opposite effect and spur stationary strangers into motion by assuming the mantle of authority. In 1955 University of Texa s at Austin researchers Monroe Lefkowitz, Robert R. Blake and Jane S. Mouton discovered that a man could increase by 350 percent the number of pedestrians who would follow him across the street against the light by changing one simple thing. Instead of c asual dress, he donned markers of authority: a suit and tie.
Those touting their experience, expertise or scientific credentials may be trying to harness the power of authority: “Babies are our business, our only business,” “Four out of five doctors recommend,” and so on. (The author’s biography on the oppos ite page in part serves such a purpose.) There is nothing wrong with such claims when they are real, because we usually want the opinions of true authorities. Their insights help us choose quickly and well.
The problem comes when we are subjected to phony claims. If we fail to think, as is often the case when confronted by authority symbols, we can easily be steered in the wrong direction by ersatz experts–those who merely present the aura of legitim acy. That Texas jaywalker in a suit and tie was no more an authority on crossing the street than the rest of the pedestrians who nonetheless followed him. A highly successful ad campaign in the 1970s featured actor Robert Young proclaiming the health ben efits of decaffeinated coffee. Young seems to have been able to dispense this medical opinion effectively because he represented, at the time, the nation’s most famous physician. That Marcus Welby, M.D., was only a character on a TV show was less importa nt than the appearance of authority.
Scarcity
While at Florida State University in the 1970s, psychologist Stephen West noted an odd occurrence after surveying students about the campus cafeteria cuisine: ratings of the food rose significantly from the week before, even though there had been n o change in the menu, food quality or preparation. Instead the shift resulted from an announcement that because of a fire, cafeteria meals would not be available for several weeks.
This account highlights the effect of perceived scarcity on human judgment. A great deal of evidence shows that items and opportunities become more desirable to us as they become less available. For this reason, marketers trumpet the unique benefit s or the one-of-a-kind character of their offerings. It is also for this reason that they consistently engage in “limited time only” promotions or put us into competition with one another using sales campaigns based on “limited supply.”
Less widely recognized is that scarcity affects the value not only of commodities but of information as well. Information that is exclusive is more persuasive. Take as evidence the dissertation data of a former student of mine, Amram Knishinsky, wh o owned a company that imported beef into the U.S. and sold it to supermarkets. To examine the effects of scarcity and exclusivity on compliance, he instructed his telephone salespeople to call a randomly selected sample of customers and to make a standa rd request of them to purchase beef. He also instructed the salespeople to do the same with a second random sample of customers but to add that a shortage of Australian beef was anticipated, which was true, because of certain weather conditions there. Th e added information that Australian beef was soon to be scarce more than doubled purchases.
Finally, he had his staff call a third sample of customers, to tell them (1) about the impending shortage of Australian beef and (2) that this information came from his company’s exclusive sources in the Australian national weather service. These c ustomers increased their orders by more than 600 percent. They were influenced by a scarcity double whammy: not only was the beef scarce, but the information that the beef was scarce was itself scarce.
Knowledge Is Power
I think it noteworthy that many of the data presented in this article have come from studies of the practices of persuasion professionals–the marketers, advertisers, salespeople, fund-raisers and their comrades whose financial well-being depends o n their ability to get others to say yes. A kind of natural selection operates on these people, as those who use unsuccessful tactics soon go out of business. In contrast, those using procedures that work well will survive, flourish and pass on these suc cessful strategies [see “The Power of Memes,” by Susan Blackmore; SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, October 2000]. Thus, over time, the most effective principles of social influence will appear in the repertoires of long-standing persuasion professions. My own work i ndicates that those principles embody the six fundamental human tendencies examined in this article: reciprocation, consistency, social validation, liking, authority and scarcity.
From an evolutionary point of view, each of the behaviors presented would appear to have been selected for in animals, such as ourselves, that must find the best ways to survive while living in social groups. And in the vast majority of cases, thes e principles counsel us correctly. It usually makes great sense to repay favors, behave consistently, follow the lead of similar others, favor the requests of those we like, heed legitimate authorities and value scarce resources. Consequently, influence agents who use these principles honestly do us a favor. If an advertising agency, for instance, focused an ad campaign on the genuine weight of authoritative, scientific evidence favoring its client’s headache product, all the right people would profit– the agency, the manufacturer and the audience. Not so, however, if the agency, finding no particular scientific merit in the pain reliever, “smuggles” the authority principle into the situation through ads featuring actors wearing white lab coats.
Are we then doomed to be helplessly manipulated by these principles? No. By understanding persuasion techniques, we can begin to recognize strategies and thus truly analyze requests and offerings. Our task must be to hold persuasion professionals a ccountable for the use of the six powerful motivators and to purchase their products and services, support their political proposals or donate to their causes only when they have acted truthfully in the process.
If we make this vital distinction in our dealings with practitioners of the persuasive arts, we will rarely allow ourselves be tricked into assent. Instead we will give ourselves a much better option: to be informed into saying yes. Moreover, as lo ng as we apply the same distinction to our own attempts to influence others, we can legitimately commission the six principles. In seeking to persuade by pointing to the presence of genuine expertise, growing social validation, pertinent commitments or r eal opportunities for cooperation, and so on, we serve the interests of both parties and enhance the quality of the social fabric in the bargain.
Surely, someone with your splendid intellect can see the unique benefits of this article. And because you look like a helpful person who would want to share such useful information, let me make a request. Would you buy this issue of the magazine fo r 10 of your friends? Well, if you can’t do that would you show it to just one friend? Wait, don’t answer yet. Because I genuinely like you, I’m going to throw in–at absolutely no extra cost–a set of references that you can consult to learn more about this little-known topic.
Now, will you voice your commitment to help?… Please recognize that I am pausing politely here. But while I’m waiting, I want you to feel totally assured that many others just like you will certainly consent. And I love that shirt you’re wea ring.
Persuasive Techniques
FAST FACTS
1.Six basic tendencies of human behavior come into play in generating a positive response to a request: reciprocation, consistency, social validation, liking, authority and scarcity.
2.Knowledge of these tendencies can empower consumers and citizens to make better-informed decisions about, for example, whether to purchase a product or vote for legislation.
3.The six key factors are at work in various areas around the world as well, but cultural norms and traditions can modify the weight brought to bear by each factor.
Further Reading
·Bargaining for Advantage. G. Richard Shell. Viking, 1999.
·Age of Propaganda: The Everyday Use and Abuse of Persuasion. Revised edition. A. J. Pratkanis and E. Aronson. W. H. Freeman and Company, 2001.
·Influence: Science and Practice. Fourth edition. Robert B. Cialdini. Allyn & Bacon, 2001.
·The Power of Persuasion: How We’re Bought and Sold. Robert Levine. John Wiley & Sons, 2003.
·For regularly updated information about the social influence process, visit www.influenceatwork.com
PHOTO (COLOR): Free samples carry a subtle price tag; they psychologically indebt the consumer to reciprocate. Here shoppers get complimentary tastes of a new product, green ketchup.
PHOTO (COLOR): Public commitment of signing a petition influences the signer to behave consistently with that position in the future.
PHOTO (COLOR): Social validation takes advantage of peer pressure to drive human behavior. Poorly applied, however, it can also undermine attempts to curtail deleterious activities, by pointing out their ubiquity: If everyone’s doing it, why should n’t I?
PHOTO (COLOR): Behold the power of authority. Certainly not lost on the National Rifle Association is that the authority inherent in such heroic figures as Moses, El Cid and Ben-Hur is linked to the actor who portrayed them, Charlton Heston.
PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE): Friends (who are already liked) are powerful salespeople, as Tupperware Corporation discovered. Strangers can coopt the trappings of friendship to encourage compliance.
PHOTO (COLOR): Limited offer of toys available for a short time often creates a figurative feeding frenzy at local fast-food establishments. Scarcity can be manufactured to make a commodity appear more desirable.
~~~~~~~~
By Robert B. Cialdini
ROBERT B. CIALDINI is Regents’ Professor of Psychology at Arizona State University, where he has also been named Distinguished Graduate Research Professor. He is past president of the Society of Personality and Social Psychology. Cialdini’s book In influence to the fact that he was raised in an entirely Italian family, in a predominantly Polish neighborhood, in a historically German city (Milwaukee), in an otherwise rural state.
Influence across Cultures
Do the six key factors in the social influence process operate similarly across national boundaries? Yes, but with a wrinkle. The citizens of the world are human, after all, and susceptible to the fundamental tendencies that characterize all member s of our species. Cultural norms, traditions and experiences can, however, modify the weight that is brought to bear by each factor.
Consider the results of a report published in 2000 by Stanford University’s Michael W. Morris, Joel M. Podolny and Sheira Ariel, who studied employees of Citibank, a multinational financial corporation. The researchers selected four societies for e xamination: the U.S., China, Spain and Germany. They surveyed Citibank branches within each country and measured employees’ willingness to comply voluntarily with a request from a co-worker for assistance with a task. Although multiple key factors could come into play, the main reason employees felt obligated to comply differed in the four nations. Each of these reasons incorporated a different fundamental principle of social influence.
Employees in the U.S. took a reciprocation-based approach to the decision to comply. They asked the question, “What has this person done for me recently?” and felt obligated to volunteer if they owed the requester a favor. Chinese employees respond ed primarily to authority, in the form of loyalties to those of high status within their small group. They asked, “Is this requester connected to someone in my unit, especially someone who is high-ranking?” If the answer was yes, they felt required to yi eld.
Spanish Citibank personnel based the decision to comply mostly on liking/friendship. They were willing to help on the basis of friendship norms that encourage faithfulness to one’s friends, regardless of position or status. They asked, “Is this req uester connected to my friends?” If the answer was yes, they were especially likely to want to comply.
German employees were most compelled by consistency, offering assistance in order to be consistent with the rules of the organization. They decided whether to comply by asking, “According to official regulations and categories, am I supposed to ass ist this requester?” If the answer was yes, they felt a strong obligation to grant the request.
In sum, although all human societies seem to play by the same set of influence rules, the weights assigned to the various rules can differ across cultures. Persuasive appeals to audiences in distinct cultures need to take such differences into acco unt.
PHOTO (COLOR): Cultural norms can alter perceptions of persuasion tactics.
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By R. B. C.
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“You have no idea how much it contributes to the general politeness and pleasantness of diplomacy when you have a little quiet armed force in the background,” the diplomat-historian George F. Kennan declared in 1946. With his customary wit, Kennan enunciated a profound general principle: War and diplomacy are inextricably linked, and it is as great a mistake to conduct diplomacy without considering military means as it is to wage war without diplomacy.
This truth has never enjoyed universal acceptance, but in modern times the conviction — or wish — that diplomacy can prevail without any connection to the use of force has become much more widespread. Many see war simply as the failure of diplomacy rather than its complement, and some argue that statesmen should not even consider using military power until they have exhausted all other means of achieving their aims. It is not only the evil of war that animates these critics, but the belief that force makes any kind of diplomacy all but impossible — that the angry “blowback” of elite and popular opinion in other nations necessarily overwhelms all diplomatic efforts, traditional or public, and outweighs any advantages that force may bring. “Hard” power and “soft” power, in other words, are mutually exclusive.
Reality is more complex. As Kennan suggested nearly 60 years ago, when states act militarily without clearly defined political objectives supported by skillful diplomacy, they risk undermining their military successes by creating significant long-term problems. So, too, states that attempt to conduct complicated and dangerous diplomatic initiatives without the support of credible military options frequently fail to accomplish even their immediate goals–and sometimes create more severe long-term problems. The greatest danger lies neither in using force nor in avoiding it, but rather in failing to understand the intricate relationship between power and persuasion. Some rulers rely excessively upon the naked use of force, some upon unsupported diplomacy. History shows that the most successful of them skillfully integrate the two.
One of the keys to success in this endeavor lies in defining national ends that leaders and publics in other countries find at least minimally palatable. One can be an able diplomat and a talented commander on the battlefield, but even both abilities together will not bring success if they serve objectives that the rest of the world cannot tolerate. For the United States, there is no path that will spare it criticism and even outright opposition, but its broad goals of spreading freedom and political reform are ones that a great many people in the Muslim world and beyond will be able to accept. The challenge is not only to continue balancing power and persuasion but also simply to continue — to persist in the face of adversity and despite arguments that the very exercise of power ensures that the United States will never persuade and never prevail.
Napoleon Bonaparte offers the classic example of the perils of failing to set goals that other states can accept. Napoleon was a skillful diplomat, and he shrewdly used the seemingly invincible army he commanded to threaten the destruction of any European state that tried to resist him. In 1809, he persuaded Tsar Alexander I to send a Russian corps to his aid against Austria, but then, in 1812, the Austrians, along with the Prussians, marched alongside him when he invaded Russian soil. He was also one of the most aggressive propagandists of all time, so successful that his propaganda continues to influence our perceptions of his era two centuries later. The “bulletins” he published regularly advertising his military successes were so effective that even today the myth that “thousands” of Russian soldiers drowned in waist-high water at the Battle of Austerlitz in 1805 lives on, despite numerous cogent refutations of it. His somewhat cynical use of French revolutionary propaganda to support his counterrevolutionary agenda made his propaganda more palatable both to contemporaries and to modern historians.
Yet Napoleon failed spectacularly to establish a stable and long-lived European peace based on French hegemony. He could never define a goal for himself that the rest of Europe found acceptable. When war broke out in 1803, he initially focused on defeating his archenemy, Great Britain. However, he so alarmed the other states of Europe with his aggressive assaults on British interests around the continent that, in 1805, they formed a coalition to fight him–the first of four coalitions that would be formed to stop him over the next decade. His victory over the first coalition at Austerlitz increased his appetite, and, by 1806, he had incited neutral Prussia to attack him. Victory in that conflict brought Napoleon’s armies to the Russian border and established an apparently stable peace.
But the French emperor continued to revise his aims, seeking more control over European affairs with each new military success. By 1809 he had so antagonized the Austrians, whom he had crushed in 1805, that they launched a single-handed war against him. His victory in that conflict led Tsar Alexander to abandon the notion that he could live with Napoleon and to begin military preparations that would lead to war in 1812.
By the time Napoleon and his troops began their disastrous retreat from Moscow in the winter of 1812, however, all the other powers of Europe had decided that his goal was nothing less than universal conquest and that they faced no challenge more important than defeating him. Emboldened by the destruction of the myth of Napoleon’s military invincibility, the major powers of Europe banded together into strong coalitions that finally defeated him on the battlefield and, in 1815, exiled him to St. Helena.
Diplomacy is not simply the art of persuading others to accept a set of demands. It is the art of discerning objectives the world will accept–and the restraints on one’s own power that one must accept in turn. Peace can endure after conflict only if all the major players find it preferable to another war.
Otto von Bismarck understood this principle better than any other statesman of modern times. He directed Prussia’s diplomacy through the Wars of German Unification (1864-71), which created the German Empire and brought all the German-speaking lands except Austria under Berlin’s control. None of the other great powers was initially in favor of Prussian expansion, and both Austria-Hungary and France were determined to fight rather than permit it. Like Napoleon, Bismarck did not rely simply on military power. He succeeded through a combination of public and private diplomacy almost unequaled in history.
Bismarck used official diplomatic procedures and back-channel communications with enemies and potential enemies, but he also used the news media to shape public opinion. He succeeded, for example, in making the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, a war of outright Prussian expansionism, appear to be the fault of the French. At a time when the two powers were engaged in testy negotiations over the future of Spain, Bismarck released to the press the “Ems Telegram.” He had carefully edited this dispatch from a Prussian official to suggest that the French ambassador had suffered a great insult at the hands of the Prussian king. Bismarck, who famously remarked that the doctored telegram would have the effect of a red rag on the Gallic Bull, got just the results he had hoped for. An indignant French public clamored for war, and in July 1870 the French government granted its wish. Austria-Hungary, which might have joined the French, was deterred by Bismarck’s success in putting the onus of war on the French, along with his deft reminders about the catastrophic defeat Austria had suffered at the hands of the Prussians in 1866. The Prussians quickly destroyed the French armies of Napoleon III, and the new empire of Germany emerged as the most powerful state in continental Europe.
Bismarck’s military and diplomatic derring-do could well have led to the other European powers banding together in coalitions against Germany, years of unremitting warfare, and the collapse of Bismarck’s policy. None of that ensued after 1871, for three main reasons: the military success of the Prussian army, Bismarck’s ability to define a goal that the rest of Europe could live with, and his willingness to use the power Germany had acquired to reinforce a stability desired by the rest of the continent. However much Prussia’s foes resented the new order, they feared fighting Prussia again even more.
Bismarck was wiser than Napoleon. Instead of allowing his appetite to grow with the eating, he determined to moderate Prussia’s goals and he worked to persuade the other European powers that Germany had no further designs on their territory. He also wielded Germany’s recently won power flexibly to preserve a new European stability, opposing adventurism by Russia and Austria-Hungary and using the threat of intervention by the German army to insist upon peaceful resolution of international disputes.
Bismarck’s method of maintaining peace and stability in Europe was so successful that it endured until his removal in 1890, and the peace that it created lasted for another 24 years. War supported diplomacy; diplomacy supported war. Each served clearly defined goals that even the defeated states could live with. That policy was the key to Bismarck’s success — and its absence the key to Napoleon’s failure.
Some will argue that the United States today is in a more complex situation than that faced by 18th- and 19th-century leaders. The terrorist threat is more akin to an insurgency in the Muslim world than it is to traditional power politics. Insurgency is, indeed, a special case of warfare. Unlike a conventional military struggle, which the great theorist of strategy Karl von Clausewitz aptly characterized as a duel, insurgency is a struggle between two or more groups for the support of the large mass of an undecided population. In such struggles, the counterinsurgent generally suffers more by resorting to force than the insurgent does. The role of any government, after all, is to ensure civil order and peace, and to protect the lives and well-being of its citizens. When the government takes up weapons against rebels, it places all of that in jeopardy, and the population is usually quick to resent it.
Still, there have been successful counterinsurgencies, even when governments used dramatically more force than the United States is ever likely to contemplate exercising in the Muslim world. One example is the Boer War (1899-1902), in which the British army suppressed an insurgency by Dutch settlers in South Africa only after burning farms and penning the bulk of the population, including many women and children, in barbed wire–encircled concentration camps. The hostility created by this conflict, the last in a series of Anglo-Boer wars over the course of decades, was enormous. As one historian of the period notes, “Far from destroying Afrikaner nationalism, Chamberlain and Milner, Roberts and Kitchener, were the greatest recruiting agents it ever had.”
If modern critics of the use of force are correct, Britain’s actions should have fueled endless Anglo-Boer hostility and a permanent insurgency. Instead, they led to the rapid restoration of relations with South Africa, which served as Britain’s loyal ally during World War I, sending thousands of soldiers to fight alongside their former enemies. Why did this transformation occur? Britain’s military victory was critical. The harsh tactics the British used broke the back of the rebellion and served as an effective deterrent against future Boer attempts to fight them. At the same time, the British government offered moderate terms of surrender — so moderate that some critics in Britain said it “lost the peace.” The Treaty of Vereeniging of 1902, modified substantially in 1907, left the Boers very much in charge in South Africa, although under overall British suzerainty.
A perhaps even more apt example comes from the end of World War II. In Germany and Japan, the American occupiers were far from welcomed, and it is not hard to understand why. Even some official U.S. military histories acknowledge the triumphant GIs’ extensive looting and mistreatment of the local populations in Germany. But the sheer scale of the U.S. military victories in Germany and Japan helped prevent the development of significant insurrections or opposition movements. Neither the Germans nor the Japanese were willing to risk further destruction of their society.
The nature of the peace settlement, however, promoted increasingly close relations between victor and vanquished. As the Marshall Plan was implemented in Germany and U.S. reconstruction efforts bore fruit in Japan, and as the United States and its allies worked to rebuild the German and Japanese polities along stable democratic lines, hostility toward America evaporated much more rapidly than anyone had a right to expect. Of course, the growth of the Soviet threat played a crucial role, since it made the American occupation, even at its worst, seem more attractive than the Soviet alternative. And as the nature of the U.S. military presence shifted to protection against an external threat, and American economic and political aid continued to flow, the occupation came to be seen as a good thing by the majority of the German and Japanese populations.
Today, those who are most reluctant to consider the use of force under any condition except in response to direct attack pin most of their hopes on the United Nations and other international organizations. In these forums, they believe, states should be able to peacefully resolve even their deepest differences. But history shows rather conclusively that the same principles that govern the affairs of nations also govern those of international organizations.
In 1923, for example, Benito Mussolini seized the Greek island of Corfu and demanded an exorbitant “reparation” from Athens after several Italian officials were assassinated in Greece. No evidence then or since has proven that Greeks were involved in the killings, and it is at least as likely that Mussolini’s own agents were the culprits. The Greeks turned to the newly formed League of Nations.
Britain initially supported the Greeks’ request, but it was virtually alone among the major powers. Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin’s government had to choose: Forcing the issue into the League’s purview would create a serious risk of war with Italy; giving in to Mussolini would destroy the League as an effective force in the post–Great War world order.
Baldwin found the task too daunting. Britain was war weary, and its forces were overextended and weakened by budget cuts (although it is clear in retrospect that the Italian navy could not have resisted the Royal Navy).
In the end, the Greeks paid an indemnity they should not have owed, Mussolini abandoned an island he should never have occupied, and the case was taken away from the League of Nations. The precedent was thereby established for the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931, to which the League made no response, and for the Italian invasion of Abyssinia in 1935, to which the League also had no meaningful reaction. The emasculation of the League in 1923 destroyed its credibility and virtually ensured its irrelevance in the major crises that lay ahead.
By contrast, the first Bush administration reacted to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 in a manner designed not merely to resist Saddam Hussein’s aggression but to strengthen the United Nations and prepare it for a central role in keeping the peace in the “new world order” after the Cold War. President George H. W. Bush quickly decided that he would use military force to reverse the Iraqi action. This was the critical decision. Although the task looked difficult at the time — Iraq had the fourth-largest military in the world, and early American casualty projections were as high as 50,000–the president believed that he had to act to prevent the immediate unraveling of the international order and to forestall legitimation of the principle that powerful states could use force to prevail in territorial disputes with their weaker neighbors.
Bush began a massive diplomatic effort to gain allies for the United States, win over world public opinion, and, above all, acquire clear and strong sanction from the UN for the operation to liberate Kuwait. The UN was galvanized by Bush’s efforts. The discovery after the war that Saddam Hussein had been maintaining a vast weapons of mass destruction (WMD) program that had been virtually unknown to the principal international monitoring agencies led to a complete overhaul of those agencies, particularly the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Under its new director, Hans Blix, the IAEA and UNSCOM, the UN agency set up to oversee the destruction of Iraq’s WMD program, pursued an increasingly successful effort in Iraq, supported periodically by the threat and use of U.S. airpower.
By the late 1990s, however, a growing American reluctance to use that power allowed the Iraqi dictator to eject UN inspectors. Saddam then began mothballing his WMD programs but was able to persuade the world that he still had them. The inspections effort in Iraq had been effective only when supported by the threat and occasional use of American military force.
The IAEA enjoyed no such support in North Korea. By 1994, Hans Blix had discovered a number of violations of the terms of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and the North Koreans had begun to interfere with the work of the inspectors in critical ways. At first, the Clinton administration supported the IAEA in its struggle to force then-leader Kim Il Sung to come clean. As the crisis developed, however, the administration’s concern over the danger from the North Korean army overwhelmed its desire to support the IAEA’s efforts. The Clinton administration then brokered a deal with Kim Il Sung’s son and successor, Kim Jong Il, that allowed North Korea to keep skirting the inspections program. As a result, the IAEA was unable to prevent the North Koreans from developing a nuclear weapon — and all indications are that they now possess one or two nuclear devices. Not surprisingly, recent negotiations, similarly unsupported by military force, have also failed to curb the North Korean nuclear program.
It may be that, in the end, as with Adolf Hitler and a few other die-hard aggressive leaders, there is no finding a peaceful solution with Kim Jong Il. Or it may be that some unforeseen change within North Korea will yield such an outcome. It is certain, however, that diplomatic approaches unsupported by military power will not make much of an impression on Pyongyang, and that the continued failure to support international agencies charged with enforcing nonproliferation agreements will doom the cause of nonproliferation itself.
International organizations, especially those devoted to nonproliferation and peacekeeping, can succeed in difficult circumstances only when their efforts are supported by credible military means. Because such organizations help to identify current and future threats, and to galvanize international support behind the punishment of transgressors, the use of American power to support them is a good investment in long-term security.
George Kennan was right: The existence of a powerful and battle-proven military makes the job of diplomats and political leaders vastly easier. However unhappy a defeated people may be with a given political settlement, or however resentful of military actions carried out against them, very few will take up arms again if convinced that they will again be defeated. Military half-measures designed to “send a message,” such as those the Kennedy and Johnson administrations used in the early days of the Vietnam struggle, deceive no one and leave the door open for insurgent victory. Clear-cut military triumph, such as the British achieved against the Boers, makes even the staunchest rebels more reluctant to try the test of battle again. The use of military force with any aim in mind other than victory is extremely dangerous and likely to be counterproductive.
Though the use of force may stir anger and resentment in an enemy population and damage a state’s position in the world community, history suggests that both the animosity’ and the damage may be more fleeting than many suppose, and that their scale and duration may depend on many elements other than the mere fact that force was used. By far the most important element is the acceptability, of the peace conditions imposed by the victor after the struggle. If the victor can devise terms that most of its foes and the rest of the international community can accept, then the animosity is likely to fade quickly. And if acceptable terms are coupled with continued military power, then the prospects for a lasting and stable peace are excellent.
The actions of the victorious state in the aftermath of the war are of great moment in determining the long-term consequences of military action. If the victor remains engaged with the defeated power in a positive way, helping to reintegrate it into an acceptable international system, and even to make good some of the damage done by the military operations, then memories of the pain inflicted by the war can be surprisingly short. The rise of a new and dangerous common enemy — which is not as unusual as one might suppose — can dramatically hasten this process.
Diplomacy is not the opposite of war, and war is not the failure of diplomacy. Both are tools required in various proportions in almost any serious foreign-policy situation. Yes, it is vitally important for the United States to “work with” and “support” international organizations, but their success in the foreseeable future will depend at least as much on the strength of the American military and on America’s willingness to put its power behind those organizations. On that strength and on that willingness rests nothing less than the peace of the world.
PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE): Napoleon masterfully portrayed himself as the champion of French revolutionary values for Europe’s masses, but this was an illusion that usually vanished in the lands he conquered.
PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE): Though called the “Iron Chancellor,” Otto von Bismarck, shown here in 1894, was renowned for deft diplomacy that preserved peace in Europe for decades.
PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE): Britain’s treatment of the Boers cost it dearly in the court of public opinion, as this French lithograph suggests. Yet soon the Boers became Britain’s allies.
PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE): After World War II, the Marshall Plan and other U.S. aid efforts sweetened the tempers of the resentful losers and strengthened the alliance of the victors. This shipment arrived in 1949.
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By Frederick W. Kagan
FREDERICK W. KAGAN is a resident scholar in defense and security studies at the American Enterprise Institute, and the co-author of While America Sleeps: Self-Delusion, Military Weakness, and the Threat to Peace Today (2000).
His new study, Finding the Target: The Transformation of American Military Policy, will be released later this year.
