the psychology of persuasion by robert b cialdini

French anthropologist, Marcel Mauss, in describing the social pressures surrounding the gift-giving process in human culture, can state, “there is an obligation to give, an obligation to receive, and an obligation to repay.”.Another person can trigger a feeling of indebtedness by doing us an uninvited favor.Cultural anthropologist Lionel Tiger and Robin Fox view this “web of indebtedness” as a unique adaptive mechanism of human beings, allowing for the division of labor, the exchange of diverse services (making it possible for experts to develop), and the creation of a cluster of interdependencies that bind individuals together into highly efficient units.By virtue of the reciprocity rule, then, we are obligated to the future repayment of favors, gifts, invitations, and the like. If a woman does us a favor, we should do her one and return if a man sends us a birthday present, we should remember his birthday with a gift of our own If a couple invites us to a party, we should be sure to invite them to one of ours. The rule (of reciprocation) says that we should try to repay, in kind, what another person has provided us.Simply put, if the second item is fairly different from the first, we will tend to see it as more different than it actually is.

There is a principle in human perception, the contrast principle, that affects the way we see the difference between two things that are presented one after another.

Unlike the mostly instinctive response sequences of non-humans, our automatic tapes usually developed from psychological principles or stereotypes we have learned to accept.

It is odd that despite their current widespread use and looming future importance, most of us know very little about automatic behavior patterns.

You and I exist in an extraordinarily complicated stimulus environment, easily the most rapidly moving and complex that has ever existed on this planet.

In fact, automatic, stereotyped behavior is prevalent in much of human action, because in many cases it is the most efficient form of behaving, and in other cases, it is simply necessary.

People simply like to have reasons for what they do. A well-known principle of human behavior says that when we ask someone to do us a favor, we will be more successful if we provide a reason.They (ethologists) have begun to identify regular, blindly, mechanical patterns of action in a wide variety of species…Called fixed-action patterns, they can involve intricate sequences of behavior….

The psychology of persuasion by robert b cialdini