An analysis of Cialdini’s first weapon of influence: how it works, who uses it against you, and how to defend yourself.
As part of the reinvention and evolving process, coming from a traditional administration background, I find it interesting to analyze the factors that affect our perception of reality and that gradually shape our opinions.
This is key to understanding the influence of interest groups: billionaires, governments, large corporations, political parties (and also door-to-door salespeople and the kind of person you might cross paths with in everyday life) who use tools to modify the opinions, attitudes, and behaviors of the people living in society. To approach this complex subject, we will look at the persuasion tools of a well-known American psychologist, Robert B. Cialdini, a professor of psychology at Arizona State University, who has written several books. In our analysis, we will review the tools he specifically mentions in his book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, one of his great bestsellers. We begin that analysis with the first of those forces: the principle of reciprocity
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The first tool Professor Cialdini mentions is reciprocity; in its most formal definition, “the mutual correspondence of one person or thing with another.” Professor Cialdini regards it as a social rule which, in simple terms, holds that “we should try to repay, in kind, what another person has provided us.” It would therefore be a rule, or an impulse, that a person feels to return a favor or benefit they perceive they have received from someone else. What matters here is understanding that the key lies in the perception of being the recipient of a favor from another. As we will see later, this is independent of whether the benefit was granted with ulterior motives, or whether it actually brings the recipient any improvement at all.
The favor seems small. The debt is not.
What is reciprocity?
The principle or rule starts from a very simple basis. A person, let’s call them X, receives a favor or a gift from another, let’s call her Y, even though that favor was not necessarily requested; and by this fact alone, X feels indebted to Y and, consequently, following the rule, feels the obligation to compensate for or return the benefit received.
It is not even necessary for the other party to have actually handed over something; it is enough for the person to feel that they have received a favor in order to, in turn, feel like a “debtor,” and therefore for a motivation to arise within them to return or compensate for that favor.
The unethical use of reciprocity
This opens the door for Y to, in turn, ask X for a concession, a favor, a purchase, political support, and so on—none of which may be proportional to the benefit originally given. This is one of the risks of the unethical use of this rule of reciprocity.
This, of course, can work to the detriment of the party who initially received the favor, leading to an unbalanced exchange in which the one who starts the action receives a benefit disproportionate to the benefit initially granted.
In this same chapter, the author mentions that the forces of influence can act together; for example, when the other party makes a concession, it can be perceived as a “favor” that must be reciprocated, prompting the person, in turn, to make a concession or do a favor in response to the perceived concession.
At the same time, a comparison effect can come into play: if the situation involves paying a price, and a discount is offered as a “favor,” the new price may appear lower than it actually is, reducing the emotional cost for the person of returning the benefit by agreeing to pay the new price.
I believe it is important to have clarity about how this force—or weapon of influence, as Cialdini calls it—operates on us, both so that we can use it ethically if necessary, and so that we can prevent it from being used to exploit us.
The second weapon is coming
Very soon we will look at the second weapon: Commitment and Consistency. And how it is used against you every time you say “yes” to something small.