Lecture 2

Question 1

4 weapons of influence (techniques to persuade people / consumers)

Answer 1

Weapons of influence: 
Reciprocity and door in the face 
Commitments and foot in the door 
Social proof 
Scarcity

Question 2

Reciprocity

Answer 2

reciprocity is based on the social norm to repay what another person has given to use.
Across cultures peoples are taught to live up to this social norm resulting in distaste for people who violate the norm

Problem is the exploitation of the rule as it enforces uninvited debt (coke experiment) and can trigger unequal exchange, (ie people return more than they have received)

Question 3

Indirect reciprocity

Answer 3

Slamming the door in the face:

Door in the face technique is getting compliance to a request by starting with a large (or unreasonable) request. If the large request is rejected, a concession will be offered (ie a smaller /reasonable request)
I.e. do you want to walk 20 miles tomorrow
Or do you want to go for a 10 minute run tomorrow.
More likely to do the run because of the length of the other option

Question 4

Commitment and consistency

Answer 4

After making a commitment, people are more likely to agree with requests in-line with this commitment. People feel pressure to behave consistently with their choices / commitments as personal consistency is Highly valued by society and facilitates decision making

Question 5

Foot in the door technique

Answer 5

Foot in the door technique is getting compliance to a large request by first getting agreement to a small request. The agreement to the small request creates commitments and increases the need to be consistent when faced with theatre request. People add new reasons/justifications to support a prior commitment eg down payment on cars, holidays

Question 6

Social proof

Answer 6

Social proof is when people determine what to do by finding out what other people do in the same situation (ie when a lot of people are doing something, it is the right thing to do)
Peer recommendations and peer observations like trip advisor reviews etc
Problem with social proof is the numbers might fail

Question 7

Scarcity

Answer 7

Scarcity is when people assign more value to opportunities when they are less available > loss aversion
Things that are difficult to obtain appear more valuable of higher quality and restrictions reduce freedom, perceived loss of freedom creates the need for more freedom.

Eg limited edition, limited stocks,
Scarcity leave contagious competitiveness; people are more attracted to scarce resources and hen they complete with others for them ls

Question 8

Key takeaways from lec 2

Answer 8

Social influence is omnipresent; we influence others and are influenced by others everyday

There are multiple weapons on influence; four are especially important:
Reciprocity 
Commitment 
Social proof
Scarcity

These four weapons of influence are highly managerial relevant and used as marketing/sales techniques; social proof has received as increasing interest with the advent of social media