Methods of Persuasion: How to Use Psychology to Influence Human Behavior (5 page)

What makes this application of anchoring particularly unfortunate is that there are many reasons why a particular sentence would come to the judge’s mind besides the frequency of that sentence. Perhaps a 5-year sentence for a particular crime popped into his mind more easily not because of its frequency but because the criminal’s actions in that case were particularly atrocious and memorable. In this scenario, the 5-year sentence would be longer than the average length for that crime, but the judge would falsely believe that it’s an average length. Due to this unfortunate circumstance, people who commit a minor crime might receive a much longer sentence than they deserve because of that mistaken judgment.

WHAT DETERMINES THE DIRECTION OF ADJUSTMENT?

This chapter has mainly focused on
assimilation
: judgments have mostly adjusted
toward
a provided anchor. However, anchoring can also produce
contrast effects
: judgments can also adjust
away
from a provided anchor. To experience a contrast effect, look at the following optical illusion, known as the Ebbinghaus illusion:

Which circle is larger: A or B? Circle A is larger, right? It seems that way, but both circles are actually the same size. This optical illusion demonstrates a
contrast effect
, the tendency to perceive a stimulus differently depending on the surrounding stimuli. When you judged the size of A and B, your perception was anchored by the surrounding circles: the smaller circles around Circle A caused you to perceive a larger relative size, whereas the larger circles surrounding Circle B caused you to perceive a smaller relative size. This difference in perception is often referred to as
perceptual contrast
.

Contrast effects influence our perception not only with arbitrary circles but with many different types of stimuli each day, including our perception of other people’s attractiveness. For example, researchers showed men a picture of a female after the men had watched
Charlie’s Angels
—a television show from the 1970s with three very attractive females as the main characters. Compared to a control group, men who had been watching
Charlie’s Angels
rated the female in the picture to be less attractive because the television show created a contrast effect (Kenrick & Gutierres, 1989).

Like assimilation, contrast effects alter our perception on a daily basis without our awareness. For example, these effects can influence whether you choose to eat an unhealthy meal or an organic fruit salad. To demonstrate, estimate the calorie content in a typical cheeseburger. Keep that exact estimate in the back of your mind because we’ll return to it in a second.

But now that you understand the difference between assimilation (adjusting
toward
anchors) and contrast effects (adjusting
away
from
anchors), what determines those directions? When do we adjust toward an anchor, and when do we adjust away from an anchor? One main factor involves the extremity of an anchor. When someone is forming a judgment, an anchor that is very extreme will trigger a contrast effect.

Do you recall your estimate of the calorie content in a typical cheeseburger? If you were to ask other people that same question, their estimate would likely be lower than yours. Why? Immediately before I asked you to estimate, I subtly mentioned an organic fruit salad. Although you might not have realized it, that cue became an extreme anchor point that influenced you to perceive a cheeseburger as having more calories.

A recent study confirmed that same outcome (Chernev, 2011). People who were primed to think of “an organic fruit salad” (an anchor point that’s positioned on the extreme
low
end of the calorie spectrum) adjusted their calorie estimate of a subsequent cheeseburger
away
from the low end because that extreme anchor point made the calorie difference seem more pronounced. In a sense, the very healthy fruit salad became one of the smaller surrounding circles in the optical illusion, which caused you to perceive a large number of calories in a cheeseburger. Conversely, people who were primed to think of a “decadent cheesecake” (an anchor point that’s positioned on the extreme
high
end of the calorie spectrum) adjusted their calorie estimate of a cheeseburger
away
from the high end. The cheeseburger became the seemingly smaller Circle B because the very unhealthy cheesecake made the number of calories in a cheeseburger seem fewer.

This chapter described how assimilation toward an arbitrary prison sentence length can alter a person’s life, and unfortunately, contrast effects are no different. When judges evaluate a homicide case (an anchor that lies on the egregious end of the crime spectrum), they tend to perceive subsequent cases to be less severe. If an assault case is presented immediately following a homicide case, the judge tends to issue sentences that are shorter than the average length for assaults because of perceptual contrast. Likewise, a homicide that is judged after an assault case is perceived to be more severe, and the judge tends to issue a sentence that is longer than average (Pepitone & DiNubile, 1976).

Before continuing, you should realize that contrast effects occur only with semantic categories (e.g., types of food, types of crime). The good news is that nearly all numeric anchors cause assimilation. Much like how people give higher estimates of Gandhi’s age when they’re asked if he was younger or older than 140 (Strack & Mussweiler, 1997),
any
number that you present to your target—whether that number is relevant, arbitrary, or absurdly extreme—will cause people to adjust their judgment
toward
that number.

PERSUASION STRATEGY: ANCHOR THEIR PERCEPTION

There are plenty of instances where providing an anchor could boost your persuasion. Perhaps you’re a salesperson sending an e-mail to customers asking if they want to reorder your products; why not offer a numeric anchor that’s higher than average? That higher number would become an anchor point that your customers would assimilate toward, leading to a larger purchase than they would typically buy.

But besides those basic anchoring strategies, there are many other persuasion applications that aren’t so obvious. This section will explain some clever strategies to give you an idea of the sheer potential of anchoring.

Present a Decoy.
As Dan Ariely (2009) describes in
Predictably Irrational
, the options that you present to your target can become anchor points that people use to compare the other options. Imagine that you’re deciding between two subscriptions to a magazine:

• Product A:
  Online subscription for $59.
  
• Product B:
  Online
  and
  print subscription for $125.
  

When presented with those options, 68 percent of students chose the online subscription and 32 percent chose the online and print subscription, a distribution that resulted in $8,012 of revenue.

But something fascinating happened when a new subscription option was added. Take a look at the product marked as “B–” (to imply that the product is similar to Product B, yet worse in one aspect):

• Product A:
  Online subscription for $59.
  
• Product B–:
  Print subscription for $125.
  
• Product B:
  Online
  and
  print subscription for $125.
  

If you present those options to people, you’d be hard-pressed to find even one person who would choose Product B–. Why would you choose a print only subscription when you could choose the online
and
print for the same price?

And your intuitive judgment would be correct; when that new option was given to a sample of students, not one person chose it. Nevertheless, its mere presence drastically changed the outcome and increased revenue from $8,012 to $11,444. Why? The percentage of people choosing the online only subscription dropped from 68 percent to 16 percent, whereas the percentage of people choosing the online and print subscription (a more expensive option) increased from 32 percent to 84 percent.

Due to contrast effects, Product B became a seemingly better option because people could compare it to Product B–, a clearly worse option. Because there was no equivalent product to which Product A could be compared, people were more likely to choose Product B because they perceived it to be the best option.

When people are undecided between two different options, you can influence them to choose a particular option by adding a new option that is similar to one, but either better or worse in some aspect. When you add that similar option into the mix, you give people an anchor that they can use to judge the existing similar option. If the new option is better, then the new option is perceived as the clear winner, but if the new option is worse, then the already existing similar option becomes the clear winner.

To apply this “decoy effect” toward your business, suppose that you’re selling consulting services. It might be favorable for you to offer three options: one option that is priced low, one option that is priced moderately, and one option that is priced extremely high. The very high priced option will convert more people from the low priced option to the moderately priced option, helping to generate more overall revenue for your business (Huber, Payne, & Puto, 1982).

Even if you’re not selling products, you could apply the decoy effect toward minuscule life moments, such as influencing your friends to eat at a particular restaurant. Suppose that you’re arguing with your friends about where to eat. Some are arguing for a particular Mexican restaurant, whereas you and a few others are pulling for a particular Chinese restaurant. If you know that your friends dislike another particular Chinese restaurant, you could put the odds in your favor by throwing that option into the mix Because that option is similar to yours but worse in some respect, you trigger a contrast effect that will make your existing Chinese restaurant seem even better.

Door-in-the-Face Technique.
To help spread the word about my book to other people, would you mind purchasing additional copies to give to your friends or coworkers? What? You don’t want to do that? Alright, well, would you mind just purchasing a copy of my next book for yourself?

The previous paragraph illustrates the
door-in-the-face technique
, the strategy of asking for a very large request and then following with a much smaller request. A large favor can trigger a contrast effect that can make another favor seem even smaller, which can help you garner higher rates of compliance with that separate request.

In the original study that examined this technique, Robert Cialdini and his colleagues (1975) asked random college students to volunteer at a juvenile delinquency center for two hours each week over the next two years. You can probably guess what happened. Everyone immediately jumped at the incredible opportunity, right? Not quite. As expected, nearly everyone politely turned down that large request.

But something interesting happened when the researchers followed that large request with a smaller request: to take the juvenile delinquents on a two-hour trip to the zoo. Without that initial large request, only 17 percent of people agreed to the zoo trip, but when that initial large request
was
presented (and rejected), compliance for the zoo trip request nearly tripled to 50 percent. The large request created an anchor from which people could judge the size of the zoo trip. With such a large anchor established, the zoo trip was perceived to be much smaller, thereby leading to a higher rate of compliance.

Convey High Expectations.
Although I might be biased, I truly believe that this book is very informative, helpful, and interesting. I’d even go so far as to say that you’ll rate it a 10 out of 10.

The two previous strategies in this chapter (i.e., presenting a decoy and the door-in-the-face technique) involved contrast effects; there wasn’t any “assimilation” toward an anchor point. However, one strategy that
does
involve our tendency to adjust our judgment
toward
an anchor point involves conveying the appropriate expectations, such as the suggestion that you’ll rate this book a 10 out of 10.