Rules of the Game (33 page)

When people make up their mind about something, they tend not to change it—especially if they back it up with an action or a statement. Even when confronted with facts to the contrary, they often won't change their decision or belief.

“Once we have made a choice or taken a stand,” Cialdini explains, “we will encounter personal and interpersonal pressures to behave consistently with that commitment.”

There are many corollaries to this rule. One is that people often observe their actions in order to determine their beliefs, instead of letting their beliefs guide their actions. Another states that if you can get people to commit to the decision to buy something, but the price rises or the rules change before they have a chance to purchase it, they'll still want it. And, finally, there's the foot-in-the-door technique: To get people to commit to a large purchase, have them first make a small, inconsequential one.

APPLICATION:

This principle states simply that we tend to be obedient to authority figures, even at times when their wishes make no sense or conflict with our personal beliefs.

One side effect of this, Cialdini notes, is that we're as suggestible to people who merely possess symbols of authority as we are to legitimate authorities. The symbols we often kowtow to include professional titles; uniforms or formal attire; expensive status symbols; and commanding or convincing speaking voices. We even tend to accept as an authority someone who's simply larger than us.

APPLICATION:

According to the rule of scarcity, people perceive things that are rare, or becoming rare, as more valuable and desirable than they would if they were readily accessible. “Opportunities seem more valuable to us when their availability is limited,” Cialdini notes.

One of the most important conclusions Cialdini draws from this is that “the idea of potential loss plays a large role in human decision making.” Thus, when obstacles are placed in the way of something or our access to it becomes limited, our desire for it becomes greater. We then tend to assign more positive qualities to it in order to justify the desire.

“Because we know that things that are difficult to possess are typically better than those that are easy to possess,” he writes, “we can often use an item's availability to help us quickly and correctly decide on its quality.”

He adds that we tend to desire objects whose availability is suddenly restricted, more than items that have always been scarce.

APPLICATION: