Lots of people recommend Robert Cialdini’s book Influence, The Art of Persuasion. I read it a few years ago and I liked it. I’m revisiting it now with a different perspective, and the first couple chapters are great. I think it’s leaving a larger impression no me now, but that could just be a recency bias…
Anyway, this week’s mental model is on reciprocity. Reciprocity is so darn good Cialdini calls it “o
One of the reasons reciprocation can be used so effectively as a device for gaining another’s compliance is its power. The rule possesses awesome strength, often producing a “yes” response to a request that, except for an existing feeling of indebtedness, would have surely been refused. Some evidence of how the rule’s force can overpower the influence of other factors that normally determine whether a request will be complied with can be seen in a second result of the Regan study. …. The interesting thing about the Regan experiment, however, is that the relationship between liking and compliance was completely wiped out in the condition under which subjects had been given a Coke by Joe. For those who owed him a favor, it made no difference whether they liked him or not; they felt a sense of obligation to repay him, and they did. The subjects in that condition who indicated that they disliked Joe bought just as many of his tickets as did those who indicated that they liked him. The rule for reciprocity was so strong that it simply overwhelmed the influence of a factor—liking for the requester—that normally affects the decision to comply. Think of the implications. People we might ordinarily dislike—unsavory or unwelcome sales operators, disagreeable acquaintances, representatives of strange or unpopular organizations—can greatly increase the chance that we will do what they wish merely by providing us with a small favor prior to their requests.
The effects of reciprocity are so strong that Cialdini thinks the best defence against it is to completely avoid it. If you are given something, you’re going to feel a desire to give something back. If you’re worried about this happening to you, do your best to refuse the gift, or better yet, physically avoid the encounter. The other option is to defer a gift. Munger touches on this and while this quote relates to responding to a negative event, it can be used for positive responses as well.
The standard antidote to one’s overactive hostility is to train oneself to defer reaction. As my smart friend Tom Murphy so frequently says, “You can always tell the man off tomorrow if it is such a good idea.”
Basically, if you can’t avoid it, then defer your decision. That’s harder said than done, and in mobile