The Small BIG: Small Changes That Spark Big Influence (25 page)

As the saying goes, “It takes a village to raise a child.” We think the same is true when it comes to raising a book. Accordingly there are many people who deserve our acknowledgment and gratitude.

As a team of authors who study both the science and practice of influence and persuasion we feel incredibly lucky to live in a village populated with so many dedicated and smart researchers who work tirelessly to advance the knowledge of the persuasion process and the lessons it can teach us. We would like to thank every one of these researchers, especially those whose work and insights we have drawn from in this book.

Additionally we would like to extend our thanks to Keith Anderson, Suraj Bassi, Rupert Dunbar-Rees, Paul Dolan, Bernie Goldstein, and James Nicholls, all of whom have influenced the work here.

While we were writing we were fortunate to have access to a group of folks willing to read early drafts of the chapters and suggest ideas for practically applying the insights contained within them. Thanks are due to Rob Blackie, Natalie Britt, Sean Buckland, Eilidh Connolly, Emma Rose Hurst, Benjamin Kaube, Gregor McPherson, Steve Mound, John Vincent, and James West.

We also wish to thank everyone in the US and UK offices of INFLUENCE AT WORK including Eily VanderMeer and Sarah Tobitt as well as everyone at our publishers, Business Plus/Grand Central Publishing in New York and Profile Books in London. Special thanks are due to our editors, Rick Wolff and Daniel Crewe, whose support, encouragement, and insights have been invaluable to us.

Three people in particular deserve to be singled out for special thanks. Danica Giles worked tirelessly as our researcher, checking and rechecking facts. Thank you for your support and help, Danica. You have been a Star!

From the outset our agent, Jim Levine, at Levine Greenberg, has been a joy to work with. Jim, you and your team are the epitome of what a partnership is all about. Thank you so much.

And to Bobette Gorden, whose insight, boundless energy, and drive make her the unsung hero of this book.

Finally we would like to thank our loved ones and families for their support and love.

The no-shows in health centers study can be found in: Martin, S. J., Bassi, S., & Dunbar-Rees, R. (2012). Commitments, norms and custard creams—a social influence approach to reducing did not attends (DNAs).
Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine
105(3), 101–104. doi:10.1258/jrsm.2011.110250

The full reference for Robert Cialdini’s book is: Cialdini, R. B. (2009).
Influence: Science and Practice
(5th ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

The full reference for the book
Yes!
is: Goldstein, N. J., Martin, S. J., & Cialdini, R. B. (2008).
Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive
. New York: Free Press.

For more details on the tax letter study, see: Martin, S. J. (2012). 98 percent of HBR readers love this article.
Harvard Business Review
90, 23–25.

For a review of compliance and conformity research in light of the three fundamental human motivations described, see: Cialdini, R. B., Goldstein, N. J. (2004). Social influence: Compliance and conformity.
Annual Review of Psychology
55, 591–621. doi:10.1146/annurev.psych.55.090902.142015

The household energy conservation study can be found in: Schultz, P. W., Nolan, J. M., Cialdini, R. B., Goldstein, N. J., & Griskevicius, V. (2007). The constructive, destructive, and reconstructive power of social norms.
Psychological Science
18(5), 429–434. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.01917.x

The account of commuters giving money to a musician can be found in: Cialdini, R. B. (2007). Descriptive social norms as underappreciated sources of social control.
Psychometrika
72(2), 263–268.

Following on from our initial HMRC work, a comprehensive series of studies has been conducted by HMRC and the UK government. For more, see Hallsworth, M., List, J. A., Metcalfe, R. D., & Vlaev, I. (2014). The behavioralist as tax collector: Using natural field experiments to enhance tax compliance.
National Bureau of Economic Research
working paper no. 20007.

Asch’s original conformity studies can be found in: Asch, S. E. (1951). Effects of group pressure upon the modification and distortion of judgments.
Groups, Leadership, and Men
, 222–236.

The research on Mexican waves can be found in: Farkas, I., Helbing, D., & Vicsek, T. (2002). Mexican waves in an excitable medium.
Nature
419(6903), 131–132. doi:10.1038/419131a

The brain-imaging studies on conformity can be found in: Berns, G. S., Chappelow, J., Zink, C. F., Pagnoni, G., Martin-Skurski, M. E., & Richards, J. (2005). Neurobiological correlates of social conformity and independence during mental rotation.
Biological Psychiatry
58(3), 245–253.

For an in-depth review of the digital, technology, and analytics operations of President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign, visit Inside the Cave at: http://enga.ge/projects/inside-the-cave/.

For a more detailed history of persuasion strategies applied to political campaigns, see Issenberg, S. (2012).
The Victory Lab: The Secret Science of Winning Campaigns
. New York: Crown Books. It is well worth a read.

The study investigating people’s divergence from
out
-group choices can be found in: Berger, J., & Heath, C. (2008). Who drives divergence? Identity signaling, outgroup dissimilarity, and the abandonment of cultural tastes.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
95(3), 593.

The “sneezy” study can be found in: Blanton, H., Stuart, A. E., & Van den Eijnden, R. J. J. M. (2001). An introduction to deviance-regulation theory: The effect of behavioral norms on message framing.
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
27(7), 848–858. doi:10.1177/0146167201277007

The healthy practices study can be found in: Blanton, H., Van den Eijnden, R. J. J. M., Buunk, B. P., Gibbons, F. X., Gerrard, M., & Bakker, A. (2001). Accentuate the negative: Social images in the prediction and promotion of condom use.
Journal of Applied Social Psychology
31(2), 274–295. doi:10.1111/j.1559-1816.2001.tb00197.x

For more on James Wilson’s and George Kelling’s work on the broken-window theory, see: Wilson, J., & Kelling, G. (1982). Broken windows.
Atlantic Monthly
249(3), 29–38.

The bicycle littering study, the fence study, and the mailbox study can all be found in: Keizer, K., Lindenberg, S., & Steg, L. (2008). The spreading of disorder.
Science
322(5908), 1681–1685. doi:10.1126/science.1161405

The research on the encouragement of desirable behaviors can be found in: Keizer, K., Lindenberg, S., & Steg, L. (2013). The importance of demonstratively restoring order.
PLOS ONE
8(6). e65137. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0065137

The littering reduction study can be found in: Cialdini, R. B., Reno, R. R., & Kallgren, C. A. (1990). A focus theory of normative conduct: Recycling the concept of norms to reduce littering in public places.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
58(6), 1015.

For the hurricane donation study, see: Chandler, J., Griffin, T. M., & Sorensen, N. (2008). In the “I” of the storm: Shared initials increase disaster donations.
Judgement and Decision Making
3(5), 404–410.

The full reference for
Drunk Tank Pink
is: Alter, A. L. (2013).
Drunk Tank Pink: And Other Unexpected Forces That Shape How We Think, Feel, and Behave
. New York: Penguin.

For more on the Cocktail Party Phenomenon, see: Conway, A. R. A., Cowan, N., & Bunting, M. F. (2001). The cocktail party phenomenon revisited: The importance of working memory capacity.
Psychonomic Bulletin & Review
8(2), 331–335.

The favorite letters study can be found in: Nuttin, J. (1985). Narcissism beyond Gestalt and awareness: The name letter effect.
European Journal of Social Psychology
15, 353–361.

The finding that including a recipient’s first name in SMS text messages can reduce subsequent no-shows is currently unpublished and part of a broader Demand and Capacity experiment conducted with a team of British physicians and the management consulting firm BDO. http://www.bdo.co.uk/.

For the study that examined the effect of sending a text message requesting payment of a fine that included the offender’s first name, see: Behavioural Insights Team (2012).
Applying Behavioural Insights to Reduce Fraud, Error and Debt
. London: Cabinet Office.

The soccer fans study can be found in: Levine, M., Prosser, A., & Evans, D. (2005). Identity and emergency intervention: How social group membership and inclusiveness of group boundaries shape helping behavior.
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
31(4), 443–453.

The full reference for
Give and Take
is: Grant, A. (2013).
Give and Take—A Revolutionary Approach to Success
. New York: Viking.

You can find the preference predictions study in: Scheibehenne, B., Mata, J., & Todd, P. M. (2011). Older but not wiser—Predicting a partner’s preferences gets worse with age.
Journal of Consumer Psychology
21(2), 184–191. doi:10.1016/j.jcps.2010.08.001

The data source of the overall cost to the UK health department caused by no-shows is:
BBC News
. (2009, August). “No shows” cost the NHS millions. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8195255.stm.

The beach theft study can be found in: Moriarty, T. (1975). Crime, commitment, and the responsive bystander: Two field experiments.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
31(2), 370–376. doi:10.1037/h0076288

The studies examining reduction of no-shows can be found in: Martin, S. J., Bassi, S., & Dunbar-Rees, R. (2012). Commitments, norms and custard creams—A social influence approach to reducing did not attends (DNAs).
Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine
105(3), 101–104. doi:10.1258/jrsm.2011.110250

For the full reference for our book
Yes!
, see research notes to the Introduction.

For the hotel towel study, see: Goldstein, N. J., Cialdini, R. B., & Griskevicius, V. (2008). A room with a viewpoint: Using social norms to motivate environmental conservation in hotels.
Journal of Consumer Research
35(3), 472–482. doi:10.1086/586910

The study investigating commitment related to environmental protection in hotels can be found in: Baca-Motes, K., Brown, A., Gneezy, A., Keenan, E. A., & Nelson, L. D. (2013). Commitment and behavior change: Evidence from the field.
Journal of Consumer Research
39(5), 1070–1084. doi:10.1086/667226

The licensing effect studies can be found in: Catlin, J. R., & Wang, Y. (2013). Recycling gone bad: When the option to recycle increases resource consumption.
Journal of Consumer Psychology
23(1), 122–127. doi:10.1016/j.jcps.2012.04.001

For the task significance study, see: Grant, A. M. (2008). The significance of task significance: Job performance effects, relational mechanisms, and boundary conditions.
The Journal of Applied Psychology
93(1), 108–124. doi:10.1037/0021-9010.93.1.108

The vicarious entrapment studies can be found in: Gunia, B. C., Sivanathan, N., & Galinsky, A. D. (2009). Vicarious entrapment: Your sunk costs, my escalation of commitment.
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
45(6), 1238–1244. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2009.07.004

The study that demonstrates how assigning others to judge can minimize self-enhancement bias can be found in: Pfeffer, J., Cialdini, R. B., Hanna, B., & Knopoff, K. (1998). Faith in supervision and self-enhancement bias. Two psychological reasons why managers don’t empower workers.
Basic and Applied Social Psychology
20, 313–321.

For the voting study, see: Nickerson, D. W., & Rogers, T. (2010). Do you have a voting plan?: Implementation intentions, voter turnout, and organic plan making.
Psychological Science
21(2), 194–199. doi:10.1177/0956797609359326

The Behavioural Insight Team job center study will be the subject of a future published report. The data can be accessed at
http://blogs.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/behavioural-insights-team/2012/12/14/new-bit-trial-results-helping-people-back-into-work/.

For the flu vaccination study, see: Milkman, K. L., Beshears, J., Choi, J. J., Laibson D., & Madrian, B. C. (2011). Using implementation intentions prompts to enhance influenza vaccination rates.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
108, 10415–10420.

The research investigating how people think about events that occur in the future can be found in: Trope, Y., & Liberman, N. (2003). Temporal construal.
Psychological Review
110(3), 403.

A broader discussion of how people think and feel about the future can be found in the excellent Wilson, T. D., & Gilbert, D. T. (2003). Affective forecasting.
Advances in Experimental Social Psychology
35, 345–411.

For the “future lock-in” commitment strategy study, see: Rogers, T., & Bazerman, M. H. (2008). Future lock-in: Future implementation increases selection of “should” choices.
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes
106(1), 1–20. doi:10.1016/j.obhdp.2007.08.001

You can read more about the “Save More Tomorrow” program in: Thaler, R., & Benartzi, S. (2004). Save more tomorrow
^TM
: Using behavioral economics to increase employee saving.
Journal of Political Economy
112(1), S164–S187.

The savings for retirement study can be found in: Bryan, C. J., & Hershfield, H. E. (2012). You owe it to yourself: Boosting retirement saving with a responsibility-based appeal.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General
141(3), 429.

The age-progression studies can be found in: Hershfield, H. E., Goldstein, D. G., Sharpe, W. F., Fox, J., Yeykelis, L., Carstensen, L. L., & Bailenson, J. N. (2011). Increasing saving behavior through age-progressed renderings of the future self.
Journal of Marketing Research
48(SPL), S23-S37.

The impact of reminding people that although they may change their core identity remains the same can be found in: Bartels, D. M., & Urminsky, O. (2011). On inter-temporal selfishness: How the perceived instability of identity underlies impatient consumption.
Journal of Consumer Research
38(1), 182–198.

The high-low versus specific goal experiments can be found in: Scott, M. L., & Nowlis, S. M. (2013). The effect of goal specificity on consumer goal reengagement.
Journal of Consumer Research
40(3), 444–459.

More on the factors that persuade people to pursue goals can be found in: Oettingen, G., Bulgarella, C., Henderson, M., & Gollwitzer, P. M. (2004), The self-regulation of goal pursuit. In R. A. Wright, J. Greenberg, and S. S. Brehm (Eds).
Motivational Analyses of Social Behavior: Building on Jack Brehm’s Contributions to Psychology
. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 225–244.