Chapter 3 – Commitment and Consistency: Hobgoblins of the Mind
This chapter’s principle of influence “is, quite simply, our nearly obsessive desire to be (and to appear) consistent with what we have already done.” Staying consistent is valued in our society and is often associated with “personal and intellectual strength.” Cialdini explains how he experienced this principle of influence while shopping for gifts for Christmas. He promised his son a gift that sold out before Christmas. In January, he purchased the gift because he “wanted to teach him [his son] that promises are to be lived up to.” What he did not know was that the toy manufacturer was using this principle and purposefully under-supplied the toy before Christmas to booster sales in January.
Commitment is thought to be the activation mechanism of the principle. Cialdini shares that businesses often start by selling an inexpensive product to upsell the customer to a more expensive product. He says this act of gaining compliance is called “the-foot-in-the-door” technique. The technique is powerful because small commitments change a person’s self-image. For example, after a small purchase, a prospect sees themself as a customer. Once this has occurred, “he should comply naturally with a whole range of your requests that are consistent with this view of himself.”
A highly effective application of the consistency principle that social psychologists have found is making the commitment public. Weight-loss clinics make use of this with clients when they have them write down their goals and share them with as many people as possible. Another effective application of the principle Cialdini states is that “the more effort it takes to make a commitment, the greater is its ability to influence the attitudes of the person who made it.” As an example, Cialdini points to the Marines. Speaking to the initiations, a former Marine described the extreme difficulty of the tests but affirms that all who passed the tests claimed that they were better off for it.
The last element of commitment that Cialdini covers is the idea of ownership. He reveals that without a sense of having made a personal decision, we won’t feel committed to it. As an example, the chapter discusses ways of teaching a child not to lie. Instead of threatening a child with being “grounded” for lying, telling the child that “lying is wrong” would produce better results. The child would feel like it was his decision.
Finally, Cialdini says that in the pit of our stomach and in our “heart of hearts” lie the keys to combat ill-intentioned use of this principle. Cialdini states that when his stomach tries to tell him that someone is trying to take advantage of him, he listens to it and simply tells the person that they are trying to deceive him. When he is unsure whether he is being defrauded, Cialdini claims that the heart of hearts can be relied upon because it is “the one place where we cannot fool ourselves.” The question to ask in this situation is, “Knowing what I now know, if I could go back in time, would I make the same choice?” For someone who is believing something that is not true, Cialdini points to supporting evidence that humans “experience our feelings towards something a split second before we can intellectualize about it.” Cialdini recommends paying close attention to that feeling that is coming from the heart of hearts.
Quotes from the chapter:
- Once we have made a choice or taken a stand, we will encounter personal and interpersonal pressures to behave consistently with that commitment. Those pressures will cause us to respond in ways that justify our earlier decision.
- The drive to be (and look) consistent constitutes a highly potent weapon of social influence, often causing us to act in ways that are clearly contrary to our own best interests.
- When it occurs unthinkingly, consistency can be disastrous.
- Social scientists have determined that we accept inner responsibility for a behavior when we think we have chosen to perform it in the absence of strong outside pressures.
- Depending on the motives of the person wishing to use them, any of the compliance techniques discussed in this book can be employed for good or for ill.
- Whenever my stomach tells me I would be a sucker to comply with a request merely because doing so would be consistent with some prior commitment I was tricked into, I relay that message to the requester.
Andrew T. Daniel 