Methods of Persuasion: How to Use Psychology to Influence Human Behavior (23 page)

But wait. Why did people in that study collect the most money when no incentive was given? The answer can be found in how people develop congruent attitudes from their behavior (Harmon-Jones, 2000). When people are guided by large external rewards, they develop the congruent attitude that they are merely performing that action because of the reward. However, when an incentive is small or nonexistent, people develop the congruent attitude that they are performing that action because of a personal desire (i.e., they develop intrinsic motivation).

Recall the study described in Chapter 5 where students developed a favorable attitude toward a boring experiment when they were paid $1 to lie to new participants and claim that it was fun (Festinger & Carlsmith, 1959). When students received only $1, this “insufficient justification” exerted more pressure on them to resolve their inconsistent behavior, and they resolved that dissonance by developing a genuinely positive attitude toward the experiment. In social psychology, this
less-leads-to-more effect
explains that smaller rewards can often be more effective because people develop a congruent attitude of intrinsic motivation to resolve their inconsistent behavior (Leippe & Eisenstadt, 1994).

This principle even influenced my own motivation to write this book. I started writing
Methods of Persuasion
while working at my past consulting job, and after writing it part-time for a few months, I took a large risk by quitting my job to focus on writing it full-time. Being fresh out of college, I had minimal savings, and so I worked endlessly for months to write this book, not because I
wanted
to but because I
needed
to launch it so that I could generate money to live, essentially. As soon as my intrinsic motivation became extrinsic, the task of writing this book—a task that I once found truly enjoyable—became something that I found very daunting and unpleasant.

My attitude became unfavorable because of the change in my motivation. While I was working on the book part-time, I was still putting in long hours, but I justified my hard work by developing the congruent attitude that I genuinely enjoyed writing it. But as soon I quit my job to write this book, I
needed
to write it so that I could generate income. And along with that very large external reward (essentially, money to survive) came the new congruent attitude that I was only writing the book for those external reasons. I’m very excited to finally launch this book and resume other income-generating activities so that my positive feeling toward writing can return.

So what’s the takeaway? How big should your incentive be? When you want to persuade people to comply with a one-time act, then a large incentive might be your best bet (but not too large of an incentive that will cause them to “choke”). However, when you’re trying to persuade people to develop a long-term change in their attitude or behavior, a large incentive will backfire because it will spark extrinsic motivation. They might comply with your request, but they will be less likely to develop a
genuinely
favorable attitude toward the task. In order to create the greatest change in your target’s attitude, you need “insufficient justification”—your incentive must be small or nonexistent so that your target attributes his compliance toward a genuine desire to comply, not toward a desire to receive the external reward.

Form of Incentive.
The second factor that you should consider is the form of incentive (e.g., monetary incentive) because, as you’ll see, certain incentives will lead to certain types of motivation. This section will describe the two most common forms of incentives: monetary and social incentives.

Monetary Incentives.
Albeit effective at driving extrinsic motivation, monetary incentives are very poor at eliciting intrinsic motivation. Part of the reason for this failure stems from the negative connotation that we place on monetary incentives:

Depending on their nature, incentives can shift a situation from a social to a monetary frame . . . You meet an attractive person, and in due time you tell that person, “I like you very much and would like to have sex with you.” Alternatively, consider the same situation, but now you say, “I like you very much and would like to have sex with you,
and
, to sweeten the deal, I’m also willing to pay you $20!” Only a certain kind of economist would expect your partner to be happier in the second scenario. (Gneezy, Meier, & Rey-Biel, 2011, p. 11)

Without a doubt, monetary incentives (and especially cash incentives) can carry an incredibly negative connotation.

That notion is extremely important because, as Dan Ariely (2009) explains in
Predictably Irrational
, you need to be careful about turning a social relationship into a market relationship. Suppose that two friends offer to help you move into your new apartment. To thank them for their efforts, you give each of them a reward: for one friend, you buy her a bottle of wine (a social incentive), and for the other friend, you pay her $50 in cash (a monetary incentive).

Now fast-forward two weeks. A pipe bursts in your new home, and you need help cleaning your flooded basement. Which friend would be more likely to help? You guessed it. The friend that received the bottle of wine will feel a greater urge to maintain the social relationship, whereas the friend who received the cash will be more likely to expect another cash reward because you transformed that social relationship into a market relationship.

In order to maintain healthy social relationships, you should refrain from giving your friends cash, and instead, offer them a gift if you want to thank or reward them. As Dan Ariely describes, “while gifts are financially inefficient, they are an important social lubricant [because] they help us make friends and create long-term relationships . . . Sometimes, it turns out, a waste of money can be worth a lot” (Ariely, 2009).

The same outcome can occur when you use a monetary fine to discourage behavior. When researchers implemented a small fine for parents who were late to pick up their child from daycare, the amount of tardiness actually increased (Gneezy & Rustichini, 2000b). When they removed the fine, tardiness returned to zero. Why? That small fine transformed the social duty for parents to pick up their children on time into a market price. It essentially removed the guilt that parents would feel if they picked up their child late because it became a price that parents could pay for being tardy.

Social Incentives.
In terms of intrinsic motivation, social rewards (e.g., gifts, praise, positive feedback) can be more powerful than monetary incentives because they avoid the negative connotation associated with money. Although offering $20 for sex would be highly frowned upon, “offering $20 worth of flowers might indeed make the desired partner happier” (Gneezy, Meier, & Rey-Biel, 2011).

Social incentives are powerful because they’re more subtle than monetary incentives. Remember in the
Big Bang Theory
where Sheldon conditioned Penny’s behavior by offering her a chocolate each time that she performed a desirable behavior? If the reward had been money, Sheldon’s devious motive would have become crystal clear; chocolates helped to disguise his underlying motive.

Even more undetectable than chocolates, however, are social incentives that incorporate verbal praise or positive feedback. Putting that notion to the test, a pair of researchers from Harvard conducted a neat study where they called students to discuss their opinions about Harvard’s educational system. Each time that a student mentioned a positive comment, the researcher on the phone responded with an affirmative “Good.” Compared to a control group, students who received that verbal reinforcement developed a significantly more positive attitude toward the educational system by the end of the phone call (Hildum & Brown, 1956). Even rewards as small as verbal acknowledgement can help you nonconsciously guide someone’s attitude toward your desired goal.

Perception of Incentives.
The size and form of your incentive are important factors, but there’s a third and more important factor: your target’s perception of your incentive.

Sometimes, the mere presence of an incentive can communicate negative information. For example, offering people an incentive could lead them to perceive that you distrust their competence in completing a task or that you’re trying to control their behavior. In these situations, those incentives can lead to worse performance (Falk & Kosfeld, 2006).

In fact, those two examples—a perceived lack of competence and a perceived lack of autonomy—are the two most commonly cited perceptions that determine whether your incentive will elicit intrinsic or extrinsic motivation (Deci & Ryan, 1980). This section will explain those two perceptions in more detail and how you can overcome them.

Competence.
How can you offer incentives that won’t make it seem like you distrust your target’s competence? Perhaps the best solution lies in the “contingency” of your incentive. Generally, there are two main types of incentives:

• Engagement-contingent:
  an incentive that is given for engaging in an activity (e.g., parents rewarding their child if she studies for an exam)
  
• Performance-contingent:
  an incentive that is given only if some standard of performance is met (e.g., parents rewarding their child if she earns a high score on an exam)
  

According to researchers, engagement-contingent rewards result in worse performance because they devalue your target’s competence, whereas performance-contingent rewards result in higher performance because they promote competence (Houlfort et al., 2002).

Autonomy.
If your target perceives your incentive as an attempt to control her behavior, then she’s more likely to develop extrinsic motivation (if any motivation at all). Even simple phrasing, such as the word “should” (e.g., “you should do _____ for _____”), can trigger feelings of control and worsen performance (Ryan, 1982).

In addition to avoiding the word “should,” how else can you provide an incentive without infringing on your target’s autonomy? One powerful and clever idea is to let your target choose an incentive from a list of potential options. For example, whereas most businesses simply provide their salespeople with a predetermined monetary commission rate, it might be more favorable to let their salespeople choose the type of commission that they want (e.g., monetary commission, vacations days, gift certificates).

Allowing people to choose their commission or incentive, in any situation, can lead to three powerful benefits:

• First, rather than trying to guess which incentive will spark the greatest motivation in your target, allowing your target to choose among multiple incentives will lead to an incentive that is more appealing to your target (e.g., some salespeople might prefer a monetary commission, whereas others might prefer vacation days).
  
• Second, allowing your targets to choose will satisfy their need for autonomy, an outcome that will spark more intrinsic motivation and, as a result, higher job satisfaction and performance levels.
  
• Third, their choice becomes a type of behavior that reinforces a congruent attitude that they genuinely want the incentive. Not working hard enough to achieve that incentive would be inconsistent with their new attitude, and so they will be motivated to work harder so that they can achieve it (e.g., when salespeople choose vacation days as their commission, they reinforce the idea that vacation days are important to them, and they will be motivated to work harder to achieve that incentive).
  

Don’t brush over this advice. This particular strategy involving choice is greatly overlooked by both academia and industry professionals, which is mind-boggling given the persuasive psychological mechanisms at play.

I applied this concept to commissions for salespeople, but the applications are endless. Recent research has shown that choice can also motivate students to do their homework, a task that rarely elicits intrinsic motivation. For centuries, homework has failed to extract intrinsic motivation because it doesn’t promote autonomy; students feel like they’re
required
to do it (which is true). Some radical proponents have suggested that homework should be optional, but there’s a more effective strategy: teachers should give students a list of potential assignments, and they should allow them to choose which one they want to complete.

It’s amazing how much of a difference teachers can make when they offer their students a choice of homework assignments. In a recent study, Patall, Copoer, and Wynn (2010) found that this choice for high school students led to:

• Higher interest and enjoyment in doing homework
  
• Higher confidence and competence in the material
  
• Higher completion rates of assignments
  
• Higher scores on corresponding exams
  

To spur the most momentum from your target, you need to maintain people’s intrinsic motivation by promoting their competence and perceived sense of freedom, a task that can be accomplished through framing your incentive and allowing your target to choose a particular incentive or request.