The Reciprocity Rule Continued

The author of this book found himself one day being harassed by a Boy Scout. The young boy first asked him if he would buy a five dollar ticket to go see the Boy Scouts' Sponsored Circus that was coming up next Saturday. The author didn't want to be anywhere near a bunch of young kids on his Saturday night so he said no. Then the Boy Scout asked him if he would instead purchase some chocolate candy bars from him for a dollar each. Even though the author didn't like chocolate bars and he did like money, he agreed to buy two of the overpriced candy bars. After this occurred the author gathered some of his assistants to see why he felt the need to purchase the candy bars from the child.

After some tests and research they came the conclusion that because the boy asked the author for a more expensive less pleasurable item first that was put down, when the boy asked for a more reasonable, cheaper item to be purchased the author agreed to buy.

This shows that if you ask someone for something of a larger debt than of what you actually want first, the person you are asking is more likely to agree to a lesser form afterward.

The Free Sample

Most solicitors provide their potential customers with some form of a "gift" which then "forces" the potential customer to purchase something from the solicitor.

A very prominent company from Indiana learned that if they left a "BUG" with their customers that consisted of many samples of their cleaning products found that if they left the "BUG" with their customer for a time period between 24 and 72 hours the customer almost always purchases something when the solicitor returns. This tactic isn't just used with door-to-door sales people, it's used everywhere. You may have noticed a smiling grocery store worker handing out free food or random people off the streets giving you flowers so that you will donate to their charity. They trap you.

This "trapping" consists of forcing you to accept their "gift" even if you don't want it. This makes you completely taken advantage of because after you accept the gift your mind forces you to believe that you owe the gift-giver.

The Reciprocation Rule

The reciprocation rule works very well and it applies to everyone.

A scientist gave an experiment telling subjects that they would be telling how much they liked or dislikes some paintings. However, one of the subjects was the scientist's helper and he would buy the some of the other subjects a Coke and others he gave nothing. After they all voted on the paintings the scientist's helper would tell each of the subjects that he was selling raffle tickets. The amount of raffle tickets that the scientist's helper sold to those who he bought a Coke for first was much greater than the amount of tickets sold to the other subjects. This is because those that were given a Coke felt much more obligated to buy a raffle ticket.

An unpopular religion that has been trying to earn donations in America also used the reciprocation rule. The would give people flowers before they asked for money. This caused the people to feel more obligated to give them money and made their religion thrive. However, the people didn't like being tricked out of their money so the beggers began being banned from public places and arrested for not having the proper soliciting licenses.

Politicians have found that it is easier to get their bills passed in congress when they helped the congressmen earlier when they worked in the house and the senate. Other politicians give wealthy people super bowl tickets or cruise ship tickets as bribes for higher donations.

This concludes that the reciprocation rule applies to everyone and will work to the solicitor's advantage.

Perceptual Contrast

Some collage students were involved in an experiment that required three pales of water. One pale contained water that was cold, another had room temperature water, and the last contained hot water. The students were told to place their left hand in the cold water and their right hand in the hot water. They were then told to place both hands in the room temperature pale. They found that Their left hands felt warmer, while their right hands felt colder due to what was originally encompassed by. This experiment was meant to prove that if we view things (or feel them) in a certain way we will think (or feel) differently about the next thing we see.

For example, if a girl that went off to collage was to write a letter back to her parents that said she got a concussion jumping out of a burning dormitory building and that she fell in love with an uneducated gas station employee who got her pregnant, gave her an infection, and who she is to be marrying, if she puts at the end of her letter that none of that is true and in reality she's just failing chemistry and history it puts things into a perspective where that doesn't seem as bad. Sales people have also learned this trick. House sales people will tend to show the most run down, overpriced houses first to make the perspective buyer more likely to buy the nicer house on their list.

This concludes that what people see first will make them think differently about the next item or idea that comes across.

If An Expert Said it, It Must Be True

Later in the chapter Robert goes on to give an example of another "fixed action pattern". This one goes by the name "If an expert said it, it must be true". However we happen to have a safety net with this fixed action pattern. An experiment was taken with college kids to see how they would react to being told that there would be a final exam that must be passed for them to be given their diploma and another one to see how they would react if the kids 10 years from now would need to pass a final exam in order to get their diploma. This experiment showed that when the kids knew the exam didn't apply to them they stayed with the "if an expert said it, it must be true" fixed action pattern. However, when the students knew that it would apply to them they looked into the facts more.

Expensive = Good

A friend of the author bought some jewelry for her store having expected them to sell nicely. However, when this didn't happen she decided to sell them for half price. But when her employee marked them at double price instead of half she was shocked to find that all of the pieces had sold. So she called up the author, Robert, and asked him why.

The author then explained that tests show that mother turkeys have a "fixed action pattern" of that they will only care for their young if the baby chick makes a "cheep-cheep" noise. These tests proved that the mother turkey would go by a "rule of thumb" (the cheep noise) to decide whether or not to care for something, or to fear it, etc. Then Robert pointed out that humans use this same "fixed action pattern" for their own lives. For example many humans only need a reason to be willing to do something. He tested this by having a girl that was waiting in line for a copy machine ask to go ahead with the excuses, "because I'm in a rush" and "because I need to make some copies" and once without using the word "because". He found that between 93 and 94% of the time the people would let the girl go ahead with the only reason being that she used the word "because". This was a large amount of people compared to the 60% that let her cut in line not using the word "because".

Robert then went on to say that the people who bought the jewelry were purchasing it based off of the stereotype or rule of thumb "expensive = good". The people in his friend's jewelry store were uneducated, wealthy tourists. So instead of going off of their education of jewelry to make a smart purchase they simply noted that the jewelry was expensive and therefore purchased it based off of that one fact.