Influence: Science and Practice (40 page)

Suppose, for example, we find ourselves bargaining on the price of a new car with Dealin’ Dan, a candidate for Joe Girard’s vacated “Greatest Car Salesman” title. After talking a while and negotiating a bit, Dan wants to close the deal: he wants us to decide to buy the car. Before any such decision is made, we should ask ourselves the crucial question, “In the 25 minutes I’ve known this guy, have I come to like him more than I would have expected?” If the answer is yes, we might want to reflect on the ways Dan behaved during those few minutes. We might recall that he has fed us (coffee and doughnuts), complimented us on our choice of options and color combinations, made us laugh, and cooperated with us against the sales manager to get us a better deal.

Although such a review of events might be informative, it is not a necessary step in protecting ourselves from the liking rule. Once we discover that we have come to like Dan more than we would have expected, we don’t have to know why. The simple recognition of unwarranted liking should be enough to get us to react against it. One possible reaction would be to reverse the process and actively dislike Dan, but that might be unfair to him and contrary to our own interests. After all, some individuals are naturally likeable, and Dan might just be one of them. It wouldn’t be right to turn automatically against those compliance professionals who happen to be most likeable. Besides, for our own sakes, we wouldn’t want to shut ourselves off from business interactions with such nice people, especially when they may be offering us the best available deal.

I recommend a different reaction. If our answer to the crucial question is “Yes, under the circumstances, I like this guy peculiarly well,” this should be the signal that the time has come for a quick countermaneuver: Mentally separate Dan from that Chevy or Toyota he’s trying to sell. It is vital to remember at this point that, should we choose Dan’s car, we will be driving
it
, not him, off the dealership lot. It is irrelevant to a wise automobile purchase that we find Dan likeable because he is good-looking, claims an interest in our favorite hobby, is funny, or has relatives living where we grew up.

Our proper response, then, is a conscious effort to concentrate exclusively on the merits of the deal and the car Dan has for us. Of course, when we make a compliance decision, it is always a good idea to separate our feelings about the requester from the request. Once immersed in even a brief personal and sociable contact with a requester, however, we may easily forget that distinction. In those instances when we don’t care one way or the other about a requester, forgetting to make the distinction won’t steer us very far wrong. The big mistakes are likely to come when we like the person making the request.

That’s why it is so important to be alert to a sense of undue liking for a compliance practitioner. The recognition of that feeling can serve as our reminder to separate the dealer from the merits of the deal and to make our decision based on considerations related only to the latter. Were we all to follow this procedure, I am certain we would be much more pleased with the results of our exchanges with compliance professionals—though I suspect that Dealin’ Dan would not.

Summary

People prefer to say yes to individuals they know and like.
Recognizing this rule, compliance professionals commonly increase their effectiveness by emphasizing several factors that increase their overall attractiveness and likeability.

One feature of a person that influences overall liking is physical attractiveness. Although it has long been suspected that physical beauty provides an advantage in social interaction, research indicates that the advantage may be greater than supposed. Physical attractiveness seems to engender a halo effect that extends to favorable impressions of other traits such as talent, kindness, and intelligence. As a result, attractive people are more persuasive both in terms of getting what they request and in changing others’ attitudes.

A second factor that influences liking and compliance is similarity. We like people who are like us, and we are more willing to say yes to their requests, often in an unthinking manner. Another factor that produces liking is praise. Although they can sometimes backfire when crudely transparent, compliments generally enhance liking and, thus, compliance.

Increased familiarity through repeated contact with a person or thing is yet another factor that normally facilitates liking. This relationship holds true principally when the contact takes place under positive rather than negative circumstances. One positive circumstance that works especially well is mutual and successful cooperation. A fifth factor linked to liking is association. By connecting themselves or their products with positive things, advertisers, politicians, and merchandisers frequently seek to share in the positivity through the process of association. Other individuals as well (sports fans, for example) appear to recognize the effect of simple connections and try to associate themselves with favorable events and distance themselves from unfavorable events in the eyes of observers.

A potentially effective strategy for reducing the unwanted influence of liking on compliance decisions requires a special sensitivity to the experience of undue liking for a requester. Upon recognizing that we like a requester inordinately well under the circumstances, we should step back from the social interaction, mentally separate the requester from his or her offer, and make any compliance decision based solely on the merits of the offer.

Study Questions

Content Mastery

1. To what does the term
   halo effect
   refer? How can it help explain the relationship between a person’s physical attractiveness and that person’s general attractiveness in the eyes of others?
   
2. We tend to like people who say they like us (that is, who give us compliments). We also tend to like people who say they
   are
   like us (that is, similar to us). In the latter case, what is the evidence that we tend to say yes to similar others in an automatic fashion?
   
3. A series of studies on the creation and reduction of hostility between groups was conducted at boys’ summer camps. After hostility was generated, which procedures successfully reduced the hostility? Which were unsuccessful?
   
4. To what does the tendency to bask in reflected glory refer? Under which conditions and for which kind of person is this tendency most likely to appear?
   

Critical Thinking

1. In a letter to her sister, Jane Austen wrote, “I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal.” To which trouble associated with liking people could she have been referring?
   
2. Will Rogers, who boasted, “I never met a man I didn’t like,” obviously felt differently than Austen about the advantages of liking others. What would be the consequences of Rogers’ more expansive approach to interpersonal relations? Think about your own interpersonal style. Is it closer to Rogers’ or Austen’s? Why?
   
3. What parallels can you see between the findings of the boys’ camp studies and those of studies on the effects of (a) school desegregation and (b) cooperative learning in the classroom?
   
4. Suppose you wanted the person sitting next to you in class to like you more. Using the factors discussed in this chapter, describe how you would arrange your next encounter to accomplish your goal.
   
5. How does the photograph that opens this chapter reflect the topic of the chapter?
   

Chapter 6
Authority
Directed Deference

Follow an expert
.

—Virgil

S
UPPOSE WHILE LEAFING THROUGH YOUR LOCAL NEWSPAPER
, you notice an ad for volunteers to take part in a “study of memory” being done in the psychology department of a nearby university. Suppose further that, finding the idea of such an experiment intriguing, you contact the director of the study, Professor Stanley Milgram, and make arrangements to participate in an hour-long session. When you arrive at the laboratory suite, you meet two men. One is the researcher in charge of the experiment, clearly evidenced by the grey lab coat he wears and the clipboard he carries. The other is a volunteer like yourself who seems quite average in all respects.