We're actively using 3 principles of influence from Cialdini in our SaaS-product[1] (we also refer to it as 'CaaS', Conversion as a Service).
Basically we make persuasion available for the small- to mid-size online shops by providing a tool that integrates tightly with your (shop)backend. Based on data-analysis from your visitors (we ask for a small JS-snippet on each of your pages) we try to predict, by using machine learning, which visitor is sensitive to what kind of messaging at what particular time.
Examples:
Scarcity: "3 products left in stock", "order within 2 hours and 13 minutes and we'll ship your order today"
Social proof: "23 people bought this product today", "the last order of this product was 3 minutes ago"
Authority: "Recommended by institute x"
We're seeing uplifts in conversions rates from 5% to sometimes 200% (on average 10-15%). Key is timing and finding out what works best for a certain type of visitor. So, for example, shopping at your lunch break often results in a certain behaviour on a shop (ie. going directly or through the shortest route to your desired product) which implicates a sensitivity for a scarcity message. On the other hand, shopping in the evening (more time on your hands) tells us (but not always) that you're maybe more inclined to make a good comparison between products. A social proof message helps the most in that case. It's a simplified version of the reality but you get the idea :-)
The tool is easily integrated in shop software (Magento et al) and usable for the less tech savvy users. The messaging is delivered through non-intrusive pop-ups (maybe you've seen them) and are fully configurable on for example: referer, time of day, position, layout, animation, type of visitor, country, etc etc. We also have an integration with Google Analytics to track performance.
You can try us for 30 days free, shoot me an email at bart[at]conversify.com, mention HN, and I'll give you 15 extra days for free.
(EDIT: I understood the messages to be misleading, reply says they are true)
This walks a line between helping the customer to make decisions manipulation (I'm being generous here). If I saw an online store doing this I would think less of them (again, being generous in my language) and go somewhere else. Also I can tell the difference between real scarcity (like an eBay auction timer out) and simulated scarcity...
... is what I like to think happens. Obviously it works and the chances of me, or anyone else who thinks the same way, being exceptional is probably slim.
We are not simulating scarcity, we are integrated with the shop's backend and show real stock. If a shop owner wants to lie about his stock that's his responsibility, but hey, he also can do that without our tool.
The tool only enforces certain usps or charateristics of the shop at the right time.
No problem. Also, the shop wouldn't gain anything in the long run if they were telling lies. We measure conversion over multiple sales and that shop would see poorer performance for that message compared to our control group.
Some website are playing blurry lines games so much. They do use time / stock limited "flash sales" to trigger buying. Then relaunch a new flash sale a few minutes after. Most of the time you won't notice it, you're either busy looking at other stuff or just went off the web because you spent enough money. I even thought it was a page refresh bug until I understood the pattern.
It'd be interesting to know how Booking.com, a good example of these tactics, uses "scarcity" messages, as every time I try to book something on that website I always get messages like "only 2 left" and "5 people looking at this right now".
I think Booking.com was actually a client of Persuasion API; a competitor of Conversify (coincidentally all three Dutch companies.)
I think they actually ran this experiment only through their mailing list though but either way Booking.com was already using all these conversion tactics before though so at best they actually used this to occasionally turn off some of the less effective social proofs.
I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, I applaud how you turned those principles into a well-packaged, professional product with metrics, studies and whatnot. On the other hand, when I get subjected to those I feel like being... manipulated, to put it generously.
Regardless, your comment and the subthread it started gave me a product idea - an adblock-like plugin that would remove all such manipulative elements from online shops. Basically, it would cancel out all your hard work ;). But hey, it's an arms race between salesmen and consumers.
Thanks for the compliment ;-), regarding your feeling of manipulation: I think it's impossible to block all persuasive tactics in general. Let's take for example social proof: a set of positive reviews and their respective number of stars mentioned at let's say a product listing is a form of persuasion that, if taken out, makes the listing far less valuable. Is that something you would see that the persuasion-blocker would remove from sites? ;-)
Fair enough :). The problem of manipulation is something I can't really wrap my head around completely. To add another example supporting your point, I do at times care about scarcity information (especially when I need something within next week or two and I can't risk shop running out of a product and not restocking it fast enough) - but your comment reminded me that those can easily be gamed (especially if seller is less than honest).
I honestly don't know how to reconcile my own ideals with day-to-day capitalism. Brick&mortar stores all around not only manipulate, but sometimes blatantly cheat people. I realized recently that I probably couldn't open a store myself - my own conscience would run me bankrupt pretty quickly. I'm not made for this age ;).
If a persuasion blocker removed reviews from sites nothing of value would be lost, at least to first order.
For any book on Amazon, for example, 90%+ of the reviews are zero-information, because they either are entirely about the reviewer ("I thought this book was great/sucked/whatever" in various long-winded guises), are paid shills, compare the book unfavourably to another one by the same author (will will also have reviews comparing it unfavourably to another one by the same author) or are incoherent.
I've long thought that a review-sanitizer wouldn't be that hard to build that filtered out large numbers of reviews using what amount to anti-span techniques. Con-artists like you suggest that a more general counter-measures approach would be worthwhile.
You may object to being characterized as a con-artist, but you are precisely using algorithmic techniques to gain the mark's confidence so you can manipulate them to your own ends. That is the definition of a con-artist, and it's quite different from ethical salespeople do, based on my own experience in sales.
So here's a question: how would you deploy your algorithmic knowledge in a way that focused on qualifying rather than closing? The goal of an ethical sales-person is to qualify people in the channel, because a fully qualified lead is a closed sale. It may be a quite similar process, but you're asking a fundamentally different question. Not "how can I manipulate the lead to close" but "how can I identify the lead's needs and ability/willingness to pay?" Maybe it's not possible, but if websites focused on this rather than confidence tricks (which is what you are using) people would probably be much more willing to part with their money (the book "Getting Into Your Customer's Head", which is probably somewhat dated now, gives a fair idea of the approach I'm talking about.)
Thanks for your comment, and yes, I object to your qualification of a con-artist.
First, manipulation in my view is an unethical forced change of behaviour (buying something you don't want). We don't manipulate people with our tool (I'll come back to that later).
Secondly, con-artists are people that mislead and manipulate other people to have a (personal) gain, either financially or otherwise.
So, imagine an online shop. That shop has some usps (best widgets in town, fast delivery) and some information on each product (number in stock, number of buys etc etc). That information is usually 'embedded' on the site (frontpage, product details, checkout page). To communicate all those pros you would have to guess where in the user journey the customer has the need to read one of those perks (or you could just repeat them over and over again which hurts the user experience).
Our tool takes those usps and information and targets those at the right customer at the right time. You hate social proof? Fine, we won't bother you with that. You need a confirmation about the trustworthiness of the store? Fine, here's why the shop is to be trusted (reputation, expert in field etc etc)
We know what is important to you (qualifying) and communicate that. That's not manipulation or a con-artist's MO because it's true and we don't mislead you. We know, based on your data, what your needs are. (if a shop owner wants to communicate false claims, that's fine, but in the long run people are not buying there anymore. See my other comment on this subject).
Persuasion is everywhere, whether you like it or not. We just try to make it more effective by removing all the random persuasion messages (which are sometimes screaming at you) and finding out what works for whom and when.
> Secondly, con-artists are people that mislead and manipulate other people to have a (personal) gain, either financially or otherwise.
That appears to be exactly what you're doing. Unless, of course, you're trying to claim that your company is some kind of altruistic non-profit that manipulates people for the greater good.
I fail to see how he is misleading as his tool is meant to provide facts that "persuade". Of course scumbag sellers could use it with falsified data. However, that doesn't make him the con-artist.
I did, and I agree with the criticism. The fact that you're offering factual information doesn't change the fact that you're:
1. Deliberately manipulating buying decisions for profit.
2. Concealing the fact that the information you present is intended to manipulate, not to inform.
3. Ignoring whether or not a buying decision will genuinely benefit the customer and not just the seller.
Put simply, you seem to have zero interest in the customer except as financial prey.
Do you really not understand how shady this is?
It's true that persuasion is everywhere - but so what? Germs, pollution, poisons, politicians, and other bad things are everywhere too. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try to mitigate their damaging effects.
If you don't understand why this is a problem, consider how customers would feel if you explained your manipulation up front.
How much damage would the brand suffer?
Now, if you had customers who were happy with your presentation after an open explanation ("Yes - tell me when you're about to run out of stock so I don't have to wait until you restock") that would be different.
But instead of giving them that choice you're using textbook psychological exploits to push their behaviour around in ways that benefit you, potentially at their expense - and IMO that's certainly not a cool thing to be doing.
Let me touch on each individual point of your criticism:
1) Doesn't every single shop/business try to convince (I'm not using manipulate because of it's incorrectness and the negative association some people may have, see other comment) you as a potential buyer through the same principles? Is that a bad thing? Why isn't it 'allowed' in your eyes to emphasize your strong points (usps) or factual info about a product? What's the difference between our tool and mentioning these facts on the site it self?
2) We inform people about a product shop with factual information so that they can make a better decision. Example: A customer is worried if this shop is legit. Letting them see a message with the number of positive reviews the shop has got can make that worry go away. Social proof also helps in this process (just like we do in the real world when seeing an empty restaurant versus a crowded restaurant).
3) See (2). Our main goal is trying to convince customers of buying at a shop. Helping the shop with communicating their sales pitch to customers isn't about ignoring the interest of the customer. It's in the interest of the shop owner that he guards the interest of the shopper or else his retention or returning rates are going to be very bad.
Your comparison of germs (etc) with persuasion misses every point...
If I would tell customers that if they feel insecure about something (is this shop legit?, is this a popular product?, how long do I have to get it tomorrow?) our tool would provide them with the answers to that at the right time (using our algorithms and data-analysis), then I'm sure no one would object.
Lastly: people are intelligent creatures. If stock info on a product doesn't have your interest but you see it anyway, you'll ignore it (like we do all day with other inputs/noise). But if you are interested in a product and need it fast, than a scarcity message at the right time will certainly help you.
very interesting. i know for a fact i am influenced by scarcity messages. i can feel my pulse quicken a bit when i'm shopping and it says there's 1 or 2 products left in stock.
i can't remember if i cultivated this consciously or not, but when i see a scarcity message i think "well, if i'd hit this site a few hours later it would have been gone; might as well assume i did that and save my money". anything worth having will still be there later.
I'm guessing that the messages are tailored to whatever pushes the buttons the best. For example, if only one person has ordered today but it was 5 minutes ago, then show the "this product was last ordered 5 minutes ago" message instead of "1 person has ordered this today". Or, if there's lots in stock, then show the "you'll get this tomorrow" message.
I don't think it would be hard to make the messages selectively true.
If you can hook in FB data then you might be able to figure out so much more about the users/visitors (what's more likely to work for a given visitor).
I'm impressed by the product/service but I'm so jaded about 'being gamed' that I'm always cynical when I buy online.
I wonder whether for some merchants the best message will always be "1 product left in stock" and therefore it is in the merchant's interest to restock only one item immediately after every sale...
Funny you mention it, it is actually a little more complex in practice. The 'soft spot' for number of items left in stock is somewhere between 2 and 5 (135 left in stock makes one postpone the buying decision obviously ;-)).
The problem with 1 left in stock is that people are responding well to scarcity in general but often don't like to be pushed toward a decision right now.... this is counter effective.
The other problem with "1 left in stock" is that I might want to buy two, and if you claim to have only one, I'll go to another site rather than order from you and wait an unknown amount of time for you to restock
Yeah, I usually distrust any stocking information - unless my need is urgent or I'm after some unusual item (like something handmade rather than manufactured) I assume a) that it's BS and b) that if it's that popular, it'll be back in stock soon enough, or available elsewhere.
The social proof of seeing other people order, oddly enough, I find much more persuasive even though it's just as subject to manipulation. Maybe I'm just jaded from the ubiquity of 'hurry in, this offer can't last' advertisements on TV, on the weekly coupon junk mail that shows up in the mailbox and so on. I always wonder why car dealerships make such a huge thing out of their sales, given that they seem to occur on almost a monthly basis.
Having owned a lot of uncommon, unusual, and vintage products over the years, there is intrinsic value to many other people owning the product beyond simple social proof.
Quite so. I'm into synthesizers and like any other specialist hobby, the more rarefied examples have significant costs of ownership besides scarcity, eg the difficulty of maintenance or finding people competent to do repairs if they become necessary.
I can't see why - the sales clerks at brick and mortar stores do the same thing. Like, if I went to a bike shop they would make off-handed remarks about someone buying a certain style helmet recently or perhaps emphasize the DOT rating (instead of the lacking Snell). Seems natural.
It depends. I have two supermarkets within about a similar distance, a Safeway and Trader Joe's. Safeway has all branded goods, a larger selection, they send coupons to my mailbox every week (a very common form of marketing in the US, for people who live elsewhere), and they have a store loyalty card I'm encouraged to pull out every time I go. They are always having sales and special offers and so on. Trader Joes send me brochure about once a month talking about what they have that I might want to buy, most of the good are under their own house brand (often just relabeled versions of brand products), they never give any discounts and they have no store loyalty card, plus the supermarket is smaller and the selection is inferior in terms of # of goods on sale. And they sometimes run out of a particular thing for a week or two and if they don't have they just don't have it. And they're probably a bit more expensive, like 5-10%.
However, I do most of my grocery shopping there, notwithstanding the disadvantages. The reason why is because I can concentrate on choosing the actual things I want to eat or otherwise consume on their own merits, whereas if I go to the Safeway I'm constantly bombarded with over-engineered promotional messages and in encouraged to focus on this week's special offer!!! and so on. The time spent figuring out how to get the best deal is IMHO often worth more than the amount of money you save in the process, and it shifts the focus of my attention from what I want to what the store has too much of and wants to get off the shelves, ie it substitutes the store's economic interest for my own. Now, of course sometimes I go to Safeway to pick up particular goods or if they have some especially enticing offer, or if I need something that's not available or good value at the other store. But I try to limit my Safeway visits to less than one a month, and when I do go it's with a very narrow agenda, ie I go specifically to purchase a small number of specific items and get out as fast as possible, rather than drifting around the aisles throwing this that and the other into the cart. It's a mentally toxic environment for me, whereas at the smaller supermarket I sort of enjoy doing the grocery shopping and I know quite a few of the people who work there by name.
Both stores are engaged in marketing - getting me to fork over money in exchange for consumables - but I much prefer the one that emphasizes a general level of quality and good value for the products on offer over the one that emphasizes endless choice, limited-time offers, and cart optimization ('buy 3 get 1 free' etc.).
With Trader Joe's it seems you could trust them to have done the curating for you. That is you might not like the taste of some products, but you wouldn't get something absolutely horrible. That is you wouldn't get something which pretended to be health but is absolutely not.
With other supermarkets you have to really check the ingredients and even then you might get taken for a ride.
That is a huge cognitive load to deal with if you know how, and even worse deal if you do not know how to find decent products.
Intentionally deceptive communication is evil in brick-and-mortar stores too. That's one of the reasons that many people prefer online shopping -- to escape aggressive and manipulative salespeople.
If often pitch our product as "the online equivalent of a good 'offline' sales person".
An 'offline' sales person also makes a judgement and tailors it's story to that judgement. How does the customer look, what are his questions, what can I upsell, etc etc.
I also think 'scumbag' is going too far, but marketing of this sort flirts with dishonesty and often leaps right into bed with it. If the consumer goes looking for, say, a bag of apples, I'm fine with the sort of marketing that says 'we have lots of apples' or 'our applies are super tasty' or 'Mmmm, crunchy tasty apples, yum!'. It's OK to reflect some version of the consumer's desire for your product in hope that the consumer will identify with that desire and make a purchase.
But if you say 'OMG, running out of apples' or 'study: apples cut cancer risk' or 'everyone's eating Valar_m's apples', then you're no longer addressing the consumer's desire to eat apples, you're playing on the consumer's latent anxiety about missing a good deal, or eating the right food, or fitting in with peers - things which have nothing to do with the apples themselves, but with the consumer's socioeconomic position and the desire to maintain or improve it. It's as if you bait them with a picture of the apple they desire, then switch to making them feel anxious about the consequences of not following through with a transaction.
I don't mean to imply that you or anyone else who practices this sort of marketing is some sort of cartoon villain, cackling as you part anxious consumers from their money. But if you think it through, I think you'll agree that there is a fundamental difference between the two styles of communication, and that the latter one involves a semantic turn.
Couldn't the same be said about manipulating a child or someone with a mental disorder? That you are tailoring the message to the recipient, that it's a smart strategy to get what you want?
I not really sure I like that analogy but what I'm trying to say is this: there is an information and power asymmetry. While one side has people working 40-hour weeks, using marketing techniques exploiting gaps in human attentiveness developed over generations, with machine learning algorithms crunching data on that person to find their most effective lever - at the other side of the table sits someone hapless and ignorant that they are the target of covert forces. No person, no matter how rational or smart or educated, can stand up to manipulation that they aren't informed about.
It's like calling sleeve cards a smart blackjack strategy. It is. It absolutely is. But the misgivings of the parent are't misgivings about the effectiveness of the strategy.
And to take it further, do we want businesses competing on who can manipulate customers into coming to them? Isn't the whole point of competition that businesses are supposed to try to make better and better products to attract business?
What you have today are identical products made overseas by child labor being sold by two stores, where the two stores compete on brand, labeling and customer advertising because at the root their product is identical. Is that optimally functioning Capitalism?
I understand where you're coming from. But that's kind of a slippery slope argument. It is based on the premise that manipulation is evil. Manipulation isn't evil.
Let's consider for a minute an event where persuasion psychology is used to have someone buy services from a personal trainer. This PT helps the lad. She becomes healthier, happier, and fit as a result. Isn't manipulation good, in this case?
What if your product is awesome and makes people's lives better. Isn't it your moral imperative to market it to people? Isn't it moral to manipulate people into using and buying it if it makes their lives better?
Am I trying to convince myself here? Maybe. But I was reading "The Ultimate Sales Letter" this morning and there's a passage in it which says
> "ALL Successful Selling is by Nature and Necessity manipulative"
I agree wholeheartedly with you. Not all manipulation is evil. In this case the argument is that this specific class of manipulation is not altruistic. Cui bono? It's not the consumer.
I don't think I would agree with the universal that all market transactions are manipulative. But even if we granted that, it would come to your distinction: what kind of manipulation is it? Who benefits from the manipulation, and is anyone taken advantage of? Beyond the singular instance, does the sum of individual actions taken together constitute something good?
There's theoretical instances where strong manipulation may benefit the manipulated (PT? Medicine?), but this too is a slippery slope towards a justification for paternalism. I'm sure that the business, in whatever form of cognitive dissonance it can muster, may think that the prospective consumer will benefit from its product. A great example of this are the people who sell healing water and crystals. What we want is for consumers to be informed and we want a healthy society (friends, family, neighbors, society) to encourage people to make choices that have clear indicators that they will benefit. We don't want the crystal seller to be the one educating the consumer on crystals - just as we would rather have a person choose for themselves to get physical therapy than be coerced into it. (The difference between societal encouragement and education versus marketing is overtness, necessary in hypothesis for us to call it manipulative).
There's also the other question you didn't touch on. In the aggregate do we want a market system that competes on being better salesmen or one that competes on making better products and manufacturing them more affordably? Recognizing here that these are not mutually exclusive which do we want to be emphasized?
I don't think that the above argument is grounded on the premise that all manipulation is evil. A more reasonable interpretation I think categorizes the type of manipulation being done in the instance, and the motivations for it, as being selfish and underhanded - the sort of thing we might think about condemning. Furthermore it suggests that the type of manipulation being done on a larger scale is not a healthy economy make.
I wouldn't use the "scumbag" term, but "intelligent marketing" can sometimes be quite "scummy", in my opinion.
Take the example given above:
"Scarcity: '3 products left in stock'"
Why should the number of products left in stock be useful to me if I was planning on buying the product? (So long as there are as many as I was planning on buying, that is).
It's only useful for converting someone who would not have otherwise bought the product. So suddenly through this bit of extra information (which is in itself almost certainly unrelated to why you were considering buying the product in the first place), you're overriding someone's decision from "don't buy" into "buy". There's a fuzzy argument in there about "might have bought tomorrow and buys today, instead", but my gut tells me that's more of a rationalization than anything.
So suddenly, you're selling products not based on the product itself, but based on some bit of metadata wholly unrelated to the performance of the product itself. I know it seems like such a little thing (and generally, I'd agree that it is, really), but the original article itself shows just how often people think we're making rational decisions, but in reality have been manipulated.
> It's only useful for converting someone who would not have otherwise bought the product.
Its not useful for converting someone who has decided "do not want". It is useful primarily for converting someone who is on the fence and is considering deferring a purchase decision on the assumption that the decision can be later with no cost (other than delay in getting the product).
Its also potentially useful for converting someone who is on the fence but subject to being swayed by the perception that other people are buying.
> So suddenly, you're selling products not based on the product itself, but based on some bit of metadata wholly unrelated to the performance of the product itself.
Scientific study of the specific mechanisms that work here might be new, and even moreso any particular result of that study may be, but that general fact is not even remotely new. Its pretty much a major part of what sales and marketing are about. Engaging on a rational level may be part of that, but its never been the major part.
> It is useful primarily for converting someone who is on the fence and is considering deferring a purchase decision on the assumption that the decision can be later with no cost (other than delay in getting the product).
That's the main argument I was expecting, (and I called it out somewhat at the end of the paragraph you quote). I'd be very curious to know what percentage of people do make that purchase at a later time. I'm under the impression that the in-person sales industry has a derisive term for this sort of person: "bebacks", meaning someone who says they'll "be back" later to buy, but rarely does return. That leads me to believe that someone who was "on the fence" and would have deferred the purchase, but is swayed by the scarcity argument should be considered a "do not want". We can argue on this one all day long though, I'm sure.
> Its pretty much a major part of what sales and marketing are about. Engaging on a rational level may be part of that, but its never been the major part.
See, that's the problem I have with all of this. The fact that we seem to condone psychological manipulation in marketing as okay because it's not outright lying and most of the time it's not that bad (whatever that means!) is kind of crummy, imo.
I mean, I get it. People can never make perfectly-informed decisions. Sales and marketing are a necessary evil in a world where they have to choose between seemingly-equal options. It's just weird to me that statements like:
> Its also potentially useful for converting someone who is on the fence but subject to being swayed by the perception that other people are buying.
Aren't viewed as...gross? "Don't buy Acme Laundry Soap for its form or function, buy it because everyone else is!"
> I'm under the impression that the in-person sales industry has a derisive term for this sort of person: "bebacks", meaning someone who says they'll "be back" later to buy, but rarely does return.
That's not because people are genuinely deferring purchase decisions are unlikely to return, that's because claiming to be deferring purchase decisions is a common polite way for a "do not want" to excuse themselves from a conversation with an in-person sales person.
On the statement at the end: humans are, in a significant respect, social imitation machines. Its a pretty strong factor. Recognizing that it exists isn't gross. You seem to have problems differentiating descriptive statements from positive value judgements on the thing described.
> See, that's the problem I have with all of this. The fact that we seem to condone psychological manipulation in marketing as okay because it's not outright lying and most of the time it's not that bad
That has nothing to do with what I said. In fact, I disagree, it often is outright lying and often is quite bad. All I said was that the badness isn't, in any respect, new, though the study of how it works may be.
Nice, you're describing a part of our process which sits at the beginning at our decision engine: segmentate visitors in three groups: buying for sure (no need to persuade), not buying for sure (no need as well) and people that have not decided yet. That last group is most interesting: they can be persuaded. Question remains: with what kind of message and at what time. That's our challenge!
The very idea that you can view "they can be persuaded" as anything less than behavior manipulation is interesting. If you're trying to impact behavior at a subconscious level, you're bypassing a person's conscious security controls and accessing their legacy brain API. An API that -- long ago -- saved the brain owner's life but today keeps modern humans trying to stock up on high calorie food because "winter is coming." Or as Clay Johnson put it, "brains want what WAS good for us, not what IS good for us." Your algorithms are counting on this and exploiting it.
I know exactly how easy it is to feel OK about doing this given just how much manipulation design I used to develop, advocate, even teach. I'm now horrified I ever did it, and even more horrified that I cognitive dissonanced my way into thinking it was not just OK but perhaps even noble -- after all, those kids games I made for the [ginormous candy company] were educational.
I suggest you read "Addiction by Design", about precisely what happens when personally-tailored adaptive algorithms are combined with behavior science. If reading Kahneman doesn't give you a reason to rethink this, Addiction by Design might.
> I'm now horrified I ever did it, and even more horrified that I cognitive dissonanced my way into thinking it was not just OK but perhaps even noble
Your whole comment is great, but this line especially stuck out to me. It's amazing how much effort people people in this line of marketing are spending trying to read (and then manipulate) other people's minds, without taking a moment to examine what's going on inside their own.
Based on the tone of bartkappenburg's comments though, I'd be afraid that the reading material you've suggested might come off as how-to guides!
This sort of thing is really fascinating. I've been reading Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow recently, and at the same I've been trying to make a difficult decision between two job offers.
I have been astounded to discover how irrational my thought processes are, even though this is an important choice and I'm consciously trying to avoid instinctive and emotional decisions: I see evidence of halo effects, risk aversion, substituting difficult comparisons for easier ones ("what's the better work environment?" is hard, but "where did I have conversations I liked better?" is easy), and more.
Overall I wouldn't actually recommend trying to learn about cognitive biases in the midst of making an important decision – it's really, really easy to tie yourself up in knots! E.g. "Do I like them better because I interviewed with them more recently (availability heuristic)? Am I making the mistake of preferring the easy certainty of having made up my mind over the discomfort of making a complex choice?"
It's a really cool field of research, though.
Edit: One interesting "hack" the book mentions is how to game feedback. Essentially, we decide how frequent something is by how easily we can call to mind examples of it. However, past about six items, most people will have trouble coming up with examples of anything; however, unless they're aware of this fact, the difficulty of coming up with the later examples can cause them to erroneously think it's not very frequent after all.
So, for example, if a professor in a course evaluation requires students to list 12 ways to improve the course, students will actually rate the course more highly than if they are only asked for three! Evil uses for this are left to the reader's imagination.
On the other hand - I'm impressed or even astounded by how people are able to fumble through life and still end up in good situations and circumstances.
It's kinda silly how these these vices are portrayed as "tricks" or "hacks"
It gives the negative connotation that they're used mainly by psychopaths or narcissistic people to get their way.
Yes, they can be used to manipulate people, but they're really just used in everyday encounters to make things positive for everyone - simply touching people on the shoulder when you talk to them and giving eye contact is a great way to connect with other people, and get them to become more comfortable with you. It's a known fact that people who like each other have much more physical contact between them. Observing this, and portraying it as something new and abusable is just silly.
Maybe we're all losing the ability to connect with one another authentically.
> Maybe we're all losing the ability to connect with one another authentically.
I think it's cultural. Different cultures, different ways of establishing trust. I had an interesting conversation with a coworker (I work for a German company) about the need to calibrate monitors for proper color rendering for different tasks. His desire to understand the 'truth' about how monitors deliver light to our eyes was quite strong while at the same time being very direct about rejecting casual references such as it's just what you have to do with a monitor when you do print jobs. Germans. Engineering focus and zero bullshit is part of the culture.
I also 'hung out' with a bunch of Romanians in Amsterdam one night over the weekend. They were very direct with mis-trust. One of them put his coat next to me on the couch I was sitting on and he looked right at me and said "you don't steal my coat, OK?". I assured him I was not going to steal his coat and then he smiled and said "great!". :)
In the U.S. it seems we use a lot of shortcuts to establish trust quickly. The problem with this approach is that because the cost of trust is so low (say an ad hominem argument or bandwagon bias) it's easy to abuse the trust system for personal gain. Given we're all about living the "American Dream" of becoming insanely successful ($1B exit anyone?), this frequently puts us in a situation of duality, where we want what we want, but aren't willing to put the time and effort into establishing the trust we need to get us there.
What you've stated is exactly why they can can be subverted. Pretty much every influence, sales, negotiation book will cover these mechanisms. None of this is new.
If you want the short version, read the 6 principles that Cialdini reduced them to.
> "Observing this, and portraying it as something new and abusable is just silly."
Err... no, it is not silly. Techniques like these are routinely used to separate people from their money -- and in the digital age to get people to share ever more information about themselves. Being aware that this is a 'thing' means you can come up with counter-techniques to cope with it. Or just let yourself be manipulated (I guess that should be counted as an option).
Also worth looking at the list of cognitive biases as they're commonly exploited too.
But using them as hacks subverts the real use of the behavior. Now, when someone uses my name multiple times in conversation and touches me on the shoulder, I assume that the person is trying to trick me. That is a net-loss, as it undermines incidents where someone is genuinely trying to support me.
I'm surprised by how common this pattern retrofitting is. Two people like each others and behave in a way. So behaving in that way makes you liked. Weird.
I agree, this is one of the books that most influenced me as a person. It surprising how many times you see these tactics used by salesmen or even trial lawyers. Read this book because it will prevent people from taking advantage of you.
The reference to the warm/cold beverage study reminded me that in the last few years there have been experiments demonstrating that many of these priming studies got their desired results by failing to double blind.
As do those that play things automatically when you opened the tab in the background... only, the urge isn't so subtle... and usually involves one or more curse words.
Derren Brown uses a lot of misdirection, including making you believe that he's using psychological techniques when he's actually doing traditional magic tricks. He mixes psychology, hypnosis, and traditional magic in such a way that it's tough to tell exactly what he's doing.
Total bullshit (and I guess that's your point, because it wasn't labeled as such). The first thing the guy's companions would have done would be to grab him and shake him awake. Instead they just stand around while Brown emerges from the back room, exactly as though they'd been asked to. And then Brown starts issuing orders for what amounts to a kidnapping? Maybe it gets more believable after the four-minute mark, but that's where I tuned out.
The wallet-steal trick I believe, because it only involved one mark. All Brown had to do was film dozens of attempts until it worked. Nothing new there -- Zimbardo and Milgram showed that if somebody refuses an order to do something silly, dangerous, or immoral, all you have to do is ask somebody else. It won't be long before you find a willing stooge. On the other hand, it might take months before you find an entire group of still-sober people (who just walked into a pub) who will play along perfectly with a complicated trick.
I actually agree with you that Zimbardo and Milgram are relevant to the wallet-steal trick. Keep in mind that the studies you are referencing didn't involve random strangers being told what to do, they were people who had applied to take part in a study, were pre-screened and were being paid for their time. This is also how I suspect Brown's scenario played out, this man almost certainly went through a similar process and knew he was being filmed but was not acting according to a script.
Yes, it is unfathomable that people act like this. This stunt presents itself as an easy to understand trick that works like magic in making people do things like give you their wallet. This is appealing to viewers who can follow what's going on and can feel a sense of accomplishment in learning a new trick. I'm not saying this man was given a script or told exactly what to do. But I would say he was certainly part of a casting call and was "on the job" when this was filmed. The cameras were probably not even hidden.
419 scams are entirely different. They are typically sent out en-masse precisely because most people are not vulnerable to the scam. Also, they appeal to people's greed, the victims believe they will be getting a large sum of money for very little effort. On top of that, the victims are usually worked over for a period of time by seasoned con-artists before sending any money. There is no simple trick like here like handing someone a water bottle or saying a magic phrase.
It's possible it was staged. Part of the fun of Derren Brown is he will sometimes completely lie about how a trick was performed. For example, when he "predicted" the lottery numbers.
Supposedly, what Derren Brown actually admites to doing is filming a scene N times with volunteers, and then discarding the N-m people who didn't fall for the trick. If you try enough times, you'll hit on some confused and tired people.
>This is appealing to viewers who can follow what's going on and can feel a sense of accomplishment in learning a new trick. //
I don't really think that is true. Unless it's explained to them I don't see most viewers picking up on the subtly touches and strange hand/wrist holding, the body language mirroring, the use of the water bottle to distract, the placing and reinforcement of the suggestion?
Personally I think it appeals because it looks entirely like magic - "these are not the droids you're looking for" - to most observers the first time they watch. For me a great illusion is one where I can't see how it's done without at least watching a few times.
There are definitely some magicians using stooges, Dynamo is one who's pretty easy to spot, but if Brown is doing so then he's done really well to hide it as I'm sure the major news outlets would pay well for a person from one of his shows who could expose details to show it was a sham.
Brown's mix of NLP/hypnotism techniques with standard illusion and misdirection is what makes him so entertaining.
> I don't really think that is true. Unless it's explained to them I don't see most viewers picking up on the subtly touches and strange hand/wrist holding, the body language mirroring, the use of the water bottle to distract, the placing and reinforcement of the suggestion?
Yes, viewers can pick up on obvious things like handing someone a water bottle while telling them to give you their wallet and saying things like "You're happy to give that to me". It's only subtle enough for people to feel special in noticing it, but not so subtle for them not to notice it at all.
> Brown's mix of NLP/hypnotism techniques with standard illusion and misdirection is what makes him so entertaining.
What you brand as a demonstration of NLP/hypnotism I see as the psychology equivalent of "Divert auxiliary power from port nacelles to forward shields!"
There is probably a hell of a lot going on, the obvious stuff you do notice as well as very subtle stuff which all adds up. Certainly if you read up on NLP and hypnosis techniques, they talk about blood going to or away from the face depending on the state they are in. Patterns of eye movement corresponding to either remembering something or imagination depending on the direction.
I don't think they're entirely different. 419 scams mass e-mail people and are tailored to pull in the kind of people that fall for 419 scams. Likewise, the target of this video here was likely selected by the magician as someone who could have been fooled (walking alone, older, distracted, wallet in front pocket), and also cherry-picked as a video example.
First time I saw one I was sceptical but tempted. After a few you realise how obvious it is. (I am assuming a 419 scam is along the lines of the Nigerian prince wants to send you money - I haven't heard the term before).
With the amount these come up, it becomes increasingly difficult not to f* with them. You know they're a scam, but when they come up, it's impossible not to fantasize about your ability to scam the scammer. Who is better? Could you do it?
"Consider when you go to a restaurant for a meal. Olson says you are twice as likely to choose from the very top or very bottom of the menu – because those areas first attract your eye. “But if someone asks you why did you choose the salmon, you’ll say you were hungry for salmon,” says Olson.
Those things are not mutually exclusive - they can see the salmon near the top, and decide they are in fact hungry for salmon (as opposed to picking the burger right below or above it instead). It's rapid decision capitulation. People often are open to multiple choices, and get exhausted or annoyed the longer the process of choosing goes on.
The average use will look at a menu in a "F" pattern[1]. Try to imagine a big "F" over the menu, then pick something outside of it.
Try to stay clear of images too. If they require an image to sell you the product, there's a reason.
Avoid fancy descriptions and titles. Something called "Fried rice with chicken" will often be just as good and often in bigger quantity than "Le Coq au Vin du Chef". Foreign words and country of origin are a big red flag you are buying dreams and not quality + quantity food.
TL;DR: Pick the thing that looks good but "meh". Fancy restaurants have chefs that will make everything flavourful. The only reason it has a "meh" description is because the profit margin is lower.
>Avoid fancy descriptions and titles. Something called "Fried rice with chicken" will often be just as good and often in bigger quantity than "Le Coq au Vin du Chef". //
Um, ok. So if I have "chicken braised in red wine with lardons, vegetables, mushrooms, cooked in the Chef's style" that fails with being a "fancy" description and mentioning the country. But le coq au vin du chef is also disallowed because it uses foreign words?
So no coq au vin ever?
Customer: "What's the 'chicken stew'?
Waiter: "chicken braised in red wine with small pieces of bacon, vegetables, and mushrooms, cooked in the Chef's style, sir"
C: "You mean coq au vin?"
W: "Yes, sir."
C: "Oh, ok, I'll have the boeuf bourguinon."
W: "One stew prepared with beef braised in Burgundy flavoured with garlic, onions, herbs, with pearl onions and mushrooms."
Customer2: "I'll take the terrine of Brussels pâté, does it come with Melba toast?"
W: "OK, one lumpy paste of pork ofal made in a rectangular pot. We _can_ do very thinly sliced slowly cooked dry toast if you'd like."
Saying no French is like saying no proper nouns, no Waldorf salad say, but having to describe the ingredients.
Sorry, I couldn't come up with a better exemple on the spot.
The idea isn't to void all recipe that have fancy names. It's to be on the look for those recipes that have very simple names and are located in areas of the menu that aren't optimal. Those hidden gems will often get you all the quality and taste for a lower price and/or bigger quantity.
If there the whole menu is written using imaginative titles and there's a "beef stew" hidden in a corner, you can well be certain that it's a "boeuf bourguinon". There are many reason why it is hidden so. In the end, the main reason is that the meal in question isn't as profitable for the restaurant. It's up to you to decide if it is profitable for you.
Ok, that works for you. I do the opposite - I look at the pictures and point. Not because I'm ignorant; because the pictures tempt me and that is a better indication of what I'm 'hungry for' than words.
And why on earth would you want to screw with the restaurant profit margin? What possible gain is there in that for you?
Sure, if all the product have a picture, go for it. Most menu however will only have pictures for "featured items". Featured items are not items that have the greatest value for you. They are the items that has the greatest value for the restaurant.
As for profit margins, what I meant is that a recipe with a fancy name is often sold at double the price of everything else while being dead simple to make and uses simple inexpensive products.
Thai food is a great example. I used to pay, let's say, $20 for something that seemed exotic and complex to me. I went with an asian friend at the very same restaurant and he laughed at me for taking this meal at this price.
To him, it was the equivalent of "meat and potatoes". Cheap, inexpensive, fast to make.
He recommended I try the "chicken rice" (no fancy description). Well, turn out the chicken rice uses the same spices as the meal I was paying premium for, had a bigger quantity and even had some other ingredient that to me, were just as fancy and exotic. The "chicken rice" is about $8 cheaper than what I used to take AND I now have enough to bring some home to eat at launch the next day if I want.
(Don't pay attention to the exact prices, I can't remember what it was.)
I think Joe's point is that a person who is manipulated into making a certain choice, is not necessarily worse off for making it. In this case, the photo of the high-margin dish not only increases your likelihood of choosing it from the menu, but also increases your desire and satisfaction for having made that choice.
I have some ridiculously expensive designer furniture at home that rationally makes no sense to choose over something from IKEA. Despite that, they give me a lot of satisfaction and I can feel justified in my decision because of that.
That's not to say that everybody makes decisions that they are happy with, there are lots of ways people are manipulated into decisions that they later regret. However, you really should take into account how people feel about a decision before judging whether or not they have been cheated.
SO if I read that right, you were happy and getting a good meal and it tasted great - exotic and complex were the words you used.
Then, apply that cynical value-proposition argument and suddenly, unhappiness. Why? Because a friend was critical? Because it no longer tastes good? I'm not convinced of the efficacy of that mental model.
I was paying $20 for a product that in reality is worth $8 to produce.
Now, I am paying $12 for a product that is equal in quality and has an increased quantity.
The only difference is that with the first product, I was tricked into thinking I was getting a better value. The description was fancier, the name of the recipe was exotic, there was an image on the menu, it was at the top of the page.
The other one was simply "chicken rice", on the back of the menu, squeezed between meals that had names that sounded better. Don't judge a recipe by its name.
In fact, I was paying more for less.
Edit: Yes, I was happy with the first recipe before knowing that I was paying premium for a meal that was in fact, very simple.
The issue isn't my overall happiness. It's the fact that I was tricked into buying a product only by its description and position on the menu. Since it had a picture and I am always in a hurry, I picked it over the more simple "chicken rice" that was in fact just as good (same ingredients, same spices, same chef) while being cheaper.
Was I happy with the original recipe? Yes. Was I wasting money on it? Yes.
Am I as much happy with the new cheaper meal as I was before? Yes. Am I saving money? Yes.
There's that utilitarian viewpoint again. No, I didn't miss the point. I'm taking a chiding tone, suggesting that by counting the cost, you miss the value. If you enjoy the meal, and its in your budget, then all is well.
You could be enjoying more meals by counting the cost - or working less and enjoying more free time. I feel like that's more along the lines of the point.
If you're spending that much time analyzing what food to get when you're out to avoid getting "ripped off", I think maybe you should just learn to cook for yourself because it's a lot cheaper and rewarding in the long run.
Someone who thinks that way probably isn't a good tipper either, so enjoy the free ride on the restaurants' pathetic cashflow.
There's a reason why margins are high on certain menu items in restaurants; running restaurants are a rough business, labor-heavy, and the day-to-day take is volatile and meager, often to do factors entirely out of your control.
Calm down, no need to be throwing plates at each other.
Nobody is stealing anything. We are talking about picking the most cost effective option on the menu while intelligently avoiding traps made by the menu's designers. Picking the item that is "under the fold" instead of the one that has been carefully crafted by the designer for you to pick.
Personally, I use the money I save by taking those items over the featured items by ordering more wine! Everyone is winning here.
>And why on earth would you want to screw with the restaurant profit margin? What possible gain is there in that for you?
I think the idea is that a consumer can get better value for money, and/or a better culinary experience by resisting those items that are heavily pushed. It assumes that restaurants employing these tactics seek to promote dishes with the most mark up on them.
> Olson says you are twice as likely to choose from the very top or very bottom of the menu – because those areas first attract your eye.
Unless you're a vegetarian and there's one option tucked away on page 2.
Which illustrates one way of countering these sorts of manipulation tricks: a very slight offset from the mainstream.
If you find that when you're looking for a product you only end-up with one option that meets your requirements, or perhaps even only one that only partially meets them, then you're pretty much unsusceptible to 'buy this now' pressure.
They're not mutually exclusive, but it's easy to test how switching things around on the menu will alter the order ratios.
Overall we are exceedingly good at rationalising choices, even when we provably had no influence on them (look up experiments done on patients with severed brain stems).
You are certainly right that people get annoyed with multiple choices, though. I don't remember if it's Cialdini ("Influence") or Jonathan Haidt ("The Happiness Hypothesis") that cites experiments that shows that people are happiest with their choices when they have a small-ish number of alternatives. Above a relatively small number of alternatives, peoples satisfaction with the choice they end up making drops rapidly. Not only is the process of choosing tiresome, but we get far more room for doubt about whether or not we made the right choice.
I've usually decided what I want before I get to the restaurant and then get annoyed when I get there and find it's not on the "lunch" menu or they're out of that. Usually, my choice of restaurant to eat at was made because I was in the mood for something specific, which was influenced by the advertising on the train on the way to work... either way, it had very little to do with the ordering of the menu. Some days, it has nothing to do with the menu at all. If I'm feeling particularly brave, I'll just ask the server to bring me their favourite dish. So I think it's a bit of a reach to say "twice as likely." I'd say it's at best as likely... it totally depends on the chef and their ability to make whatever they've placed on the menu.
I'll second that recommendation though honestly all of that book just seemed like common sense to me. He was covering things that I learned as a child.
I'd be interested to see if any of these techniques have a measurable impact on decisions with any consequence.
It seems like all these decisions are completely arbitrary, and I know that I'm always looking for any dumb excuse to pick one arbitrary option over another.
> I'm always looking for any dumb excuse to pick one arbitrary option over another
Flip a coin.
I sometimes get paranoid that cultural belief systems, cultural environments and all the knowledge of humanity has indoctrinated me into a specific modality of thinking that is so well formed and 'correct' that I don't even think to question it's influence on me, because that would be ridiculous, right? It's just so hard to argue against, because it's like a wall of reason, logic, observation, and rationality. That, or pretending I have magic powers - which I do.
When you stop to think about how much you assume to be true without looking for hard evidence of those assumptions actually being true - because those assumptions are based on assertions by people you assume are more intelligent/educated or influential than you, and then you base all your decisions on those assumptions, some of which may actually be flawed, invalid, untrue or manipulated to someone else's agenda, it's hard to know just how much of your thought process is authentically your own... right down to the fabric of society that is woven into your psyche.
Look around you and ask yourself how much of it is actually authentic and makes any real difference in your life. Is any of it authentic? Is any of it really you? How much of it is manipulated by the media, who are really just a proxy for the influencers of the network owners... the choices of shows on available to us on the TV, the way the news is portrayed, the mood of ads that barrage us constantly, the influence of corporations on government that use lobbyists to pass bills that propagate the cycle...
I daresay that a miniscule portion of your thought process is actually your own [hypothetical you, not actual you]. Much of what we do going unexamined until something major happens in our lives - divorce, job loss, health issues, death that causes us to stop and examine life and ask ourselves - How much does any of this routine matter? How much of it makes any tangible difference?
I do that too, but I still notice patterns. Then the mechanic for constructing of 'anti-patterns' for a choice mechanic is patterned itself.
I just do my stuff for thinking new thoughts. I did a zen thing where I deconstructed every concept and word, and essentially "broke" it in my mind - gave it no power in it's meaning, and thus could not use it in reasoning. I did this over and over and over.
The important part is that I didn't need a reason to destroy the meaning - because I've always lived maintaining my theories until they are proven incorrect, while accumulating information to build on them. But some stuff doesn't prove itself incorrect, because it's a self perpetuating pattern.
That's where I became paranoid about viral ideas, things that are true simply by the virtue of their construction. The construction is considered correct, therefore application of the construction can never be questioned. And I don't know if that really means anything about human existence, but I know it pisses me off when I feel like I've been spoon-fed a way to think.
Mine is useful for sitting alone in my room, staring at a wall of books. I don't really have a lunch problem. I eat lunch at my desk.
That's because 99% of human decisions are made emotionally. We may be masters of justification, but ultimately the decision is made emotionally, using logic and rationale to justify our emotional needs. If you sway someones emotion, they will justify their emotional needs by whatever means at their disposal. This is why manipulation works.
This is also why religious debates and wars transpire - even in a developer environment where we pride logic and meritocracy above all: Visual Studio is clearly better than Eclipse, the PC will always be better than the Mac, Android is better than the iPhone and Git is better than TFS ;)
> The secret, apparently, is to linger on your chosen card as you riffle through the deck. (In our conversation, Olson wouldn’t divulge how he engineers that to happen
I've done this trick plenty of times and it never fails to blow peoples' minds. I do it by taking the card I want them to see and slightly push down the card in front of it. This will cause a small break when flickering through.
When I first learned a real card trick back in 2002, the video had a "force" in it. There are quite a few different forces, I only learned one (involving fanning out the cards in such a way that the participant selects it).
Regardless of how you achieve the force, once you've got someone to select a card which you knew of ahead of time, shit just gets crazy. This is basically all of David Blane's up close street magic he does on video.
Like when he goes and asks someone to pick a card then throws the deck at the window and the card they chose is stuck on the outside of the window. No-one would notice the card stuck on the outside of the window before he threw the deck at it.
Another one was where he went to some NBA team's training and had them pick a card, then he got a basketball from a pile of basketballs and cut it open, and the card the guy picked was inside.
If you don't know that you were forced to choose the given card, it's the closest you can get to feeling as though magic genuinely happened.
Going along with it is fine, but doing so blindly is as banal as attempting to throw the trick. Understanding why you picked what you did for the illusion to be fulfilled is quite fascinating.
I feel that a lot of these effects are more effects of nudging a customer to take action rather than making a customer buy something they normally wouldn't. Increasing conversion rates from a typical 2% to 2.2% isn't that huge.
I'm more interested in the outliers, in what cases do you get a 200% effect?
And in what cases can these tricks influence important decisions? What house you buy? What medical insurance to get? Thoughts?
>> “But if someone asks you why did you choose the salmon, you’ll say you were hungry for salmon,” says Olson. “You won’t say it was one of the first things I looked at on the menu.”
Or she might actually be hungry for salmon. And as we know, our mind sees what it wants to see[1].
I guess the question is, given perfect information, can we get the probability of a decision given a brain state? What does it mean for "free will" (whatever that means) if the answer to that is YES? What about NO?
If the answer is YES and the probabilities are not all either 100% or 0%, or if the answer is NO in any case, then it means that "free will", in a sense that is precisely equivalent to randomness, is either true, or, if it is false, the determining factors are outside of the brain state.
If the answer is YES and the probabilities are all either 100% or 0%, that means nothing for free will, though it is consistent with a completely determined will. It's also consistent, however, with a free will (by pretty much any of the definitions) that determines brain state before any other empirical evidence of the decision of the will is available.
There were already studies (with people in fmri) that showed computer model can predict decision from brain scan few seconds BEFORE test subjects make it consciously :)
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