Influencing others

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Influencing others
Dr. Richard Kool Royal Roads University
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Influencing People

• but some people are even more connected than
  others

Six degrees of separation, at least in our
small worlds
Youre at the hub
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Influencing People
agent or sender
Where do you put your efforts? Can the efforts be
justified?
and in Canada, the amount of time spent on the
internet is nearly that of TV
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• Is the message acceptable? wanted?
• Is the message understood?
• What does the message do?

Intents Purposes Reasons
Intents Purposes Reasons

• Will the sender accept the feedback?
• Will the sender modify their message?

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Influencing People
Changing
Use
But at the end of the day, it is what people do
DIFFERENTLY that counts
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Facts from a guy with a red bow tie are clearly
not to be trusted
I know the facts!
Bull... his facts are garbage!
There is a problem with giving just the facts!
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What are the facts?
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naive beliefs
Present facts both supporting and challenging
beliefs
... many public controversies are intractable in
the sense that science is not only unable to
resolve the dispute but tends to exacerbate it by
providing information that can be used in
opposing ways by the sponsors of competing
perspectives. Herrick, 2004
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Compliance
Compliance is often a quick-fix solution to a
social problem. Compliance doesn't require the
target to agree with the advocacy--just simply
perform the behavior
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Persuasion

• Persuasion attempts to win the heart and mind
• Persuasion must induce attitude change, which
  entails emotion-based change, leading to
  conformity to your goal.

• Although persuasion is more difficult to
  induce, its effects last longer because the
  target actually accepts and internalizes the
  advocacy.

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Persuasion Tools of Change

• Reciprocation
• Consistency
• Social proof
• Liking
• Authority
• Scarcity

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Reciprocation
All societies subscribe to a norm that obligates
individuals to repay in kind what they have
received.

• Charities
• When they ask for help- lt20 return
• If they give you something, gt35 return
• Retail
• stores offer free samples
• exterminators offer free in-home inspections
• health clubs offer free workouts

What can you give???

• New England Journal of Medicine (1998)
• 37 of researchers who published conclusions
  critical of the safety of calcium channel
  blockers had received prior drug company support.
  
• 100 of researchers whose conclusions supported
  the drugs' safety had received free trips,
  research funding or employment.

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Consistency

• We seem to have the desire to be, and to appear
  to be, consistent
• to our commitments

• Foot in the doorgetting someone to say yes
• Charities and petitions

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Social Proof

• One way that we decide what to do in a situation
  is to look to what others are doing or have done
  there.
• If many individuals have decided in favor of a
  particular idea, we are more likely to follow...

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Liking
People prefer to say yes to those they like

• Compliment
• Salespeople are trained in the use of praise.
  Compliments produced just as much liking for the
  flatterer when they were untrue as when they were
  genuine.

• Cooperation
• Salespeople often strive to be perceived by
  prospects as cooperating partners. Automobile
  sales managers frequently cast themselves as
  "villains" so the salesperson can "do battle" on
  the customer's behalf.

• 1994 solicitors canvassed a college campus
  asking for contributions to a charity. When "I'm
  a student, too" was added to the requests,
  donations more than doubled.

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Authority
Milgram 65 of average Americans were willing to
electrocute a total stranger if an authority
told them it was OK. A non-authority couldnt
induce the subjects to electrocute the stranger

• 1955 a man could increase by 350 the number of
  pedestrians who would follow him across the
  street against the light by changing one simple
  thing.
• Changing casual clothes for a suit and tie.

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Scarcity

• Research study
• random sample of customers to purchase beef.
• random sample of customers, but added that a
  shortage of Australian beef was anticipated
  because of certain weather conditions there.
• Purchases doubled.
• random sample of customers, told them (1) about
  the impending shortage of Australian beef and (2)
  that this information came from his company's
  exclusive sources in the Australian National
  Weather Service.
• Orders increased by more than 600

• A great deal of evidence shows that items and
  opportunities become more desirable to us as they
  become less available.
• one-of-a-kind character of their offerings
• "limited time only" promotions
• "limited supply."

Not only was the beef scarce, but the information
that the beef was scarce was itself scarce.
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• http//www.toolsofchange.com

http//www.cbsm.com
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Messages
How should you craft your communications?
Should you be positive or negative in your
messaging???
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Giving the wrong message
Iron Eyes Cody
Your heritage is being vandalized every day by
theft losses of petrified wood of 14 tons a year,
mostly a small piece at a time Sign in Petrified
Forest National Park
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Giving the wrong message

• Public officials try to mobilize action against
  socially disapproved conduct by depicting it as
  regrettably frequent
• Puts a counterproductive descriptive norm in the
  minds of their audiences.

• FDA Commissioner announced that more than 3
  million youths in the US smoke and that 3,000
  become regular smokers each day
• To combat tax cheating, proponents described the
  problem as rampant and cited the estimated 70
  billion in losses each year

Look at all the people who are doing this
undesirable thing also says Look at all the
people who are doing it.
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Social Norms

• Descriptive norms (norms of is)
• what is commonly done
• which motivate by providing evidence of what is
  likely to be effective and adaptive action
• Descriptive norms inform via example

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Dont toss that towel!

• "Help the hotel save energy"
• "Help save the environment"
• "Partner with us to help save the environment"
• "Help save resources for future generations"
• "Join your fellow citizens in helping to save the
  environment"

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Keeping up with the neighbours

• Door hangers on the doors of San Diego-area
  residents once a week for a month with a message
• they could save money by conserving energy
• they could save the earth's resources by
  conserving energy
• they could be socially responsible citizens by
  conserving energy
• the majority of their neighbors tried regularly
  to conserve energy
• control group simply urged energy conservation
  but with no rationale

• 2,500 Californians
• those who thought their neighbors were conserving
  were more likely to conserve themselves

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Social Norms

• Injunctive norms (norms of ought)
• what is commonly approved/ disapproved
• which motivate conduct by promising social
  rewards and punishments
• Injunctive norms inform via informal sanctions

In situations characterized by frequent
undesirable conduct, present the injunctive norm
regarding the conduct
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Research in Petrified Forest N.P
Describe what most good people do
Tell people what they should do

Please leave petrified wood in the park.
Many past visitors have left the petrified wood
in the park, preserving the natural state of the
Forest.
Tell people what they ought NOT to do
Implies many are doing what you dont want done
Many past visitors have removed the petrified
wood from the park, changing the state of the
Forest.
Please dont remove the petrified wood from the
park.
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The Constructive, Destructive, and Reconstructive
Power of Social Norms (May 2007, Psychological
Sciences) California, n290

• descriptive normative information would decrease
  energy consumption in households consuming more
  energy than their neighborhood average.
• constructive power of social norms normative
  information can facilitate proenvironmental
  behavior.
• descriptive normative information would increase
  energy consumption in households consuming less
  energy than their neighborhood average.
• destructive power of social norms a
  well-intended application of normative
  information can actually serve to decrease
  proenvironmental behavior.
• providing both descriptive normative information
  and an injunctive message that other people
  approve of low-consumption behavior would prevent
  the undesirable boomerang effect in households
  consuming less energy than their neighborhood
  average
• reconstructive power of injunctive messages
  eliminate the untoward effects of a descriptive
  norm

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• Descriptive-plus-injunctive-information condition
• Same information as the descriptive-norm-only
  group, with one addition

• Descriptive-norm-only condition
• handwritten information about how much energy
  (kw-h/day) they had used in the previous week
• descriptive normative information about the
  actual energy consumption of the average
  household in their neighborhood during that same
  period
• preprinted suggestions for how to conserve energy

• The valence of the emoticon was used to
  communicate an injunctive message of approval or
  disapproval

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Our results suggest that for those individuals
who tend to engage in destructive behaviors, a
descriptive normative message can be a guide to
engaging in more constructive behavior in
contrast, for those individuals who already
engage in the constructive behavior, a
descriptive normative message can be a spur to
engaging in more destructive behavior.
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.
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• By awarding the Nobel Peace Prize for 2007 to
  the IPCC and Al Gore, the Norwegian Nobel
  Committee is seeking to contribute to a sharper
  focus on the processes and decisions that appear
  to be necessary to protect the worlds future
  climate, and thereby to reduce the threat to the
  security of mankind. Action is necessary now,
  before climate change moves beyond mans control.

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What is the Problem

• Identify and describe the problem(s) you want to
  solve or the situation you want to change.
• Do you really understand the problem?
• Do other people think it is a problem?

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Determine baselines
Actions
Set Objectives
Decide on the specific actions you want people to
take to help solve the problem

• Set measurable objectives that can help you
  monitor and evaluate your progress.
• Decide how you will measure the achievement of
  these objectives.
• Who will help you establish the objectives?
  Community? Politicians?

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Getting Information

• current level of participation in the activity
• the levels of change in participation that
  others have achieved
• circumstances that may affect your ability to
  achieve similar results
• the size of the population you wish to impact
• organizations promoting competing alternatives
• whether a financial incentive will be required

• Decide what information you will need in order to
  base your program on a solid foundation

What do you need to know?
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Barriers

• Desired actions can be made more attractive to
  citizens by minimizing key barriers.
• reducing costs (price)
• expanding distribution (place)
• adequately informing consumers (promotion)
• redefining the actions themselves (product).

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Targeting the Audience

• What groups are discouraged or prevented from
  doing the desired activity?
• Why?
• Solutions?

• What groups are not doing the desired activity?
• Why?
• Solutions?

• What group would benefit the most?
• Why?
• Solutions?

• What groups would be the most receptive
• Why?
• Solutions?

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Get people motivated
appeal to norms
involve individuals personally
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Moving to action
Find ways to make it easier for people to take
each next step.
Choose ways to help people remember to do the
action.
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Sustaining Momentum

• make a link to actions that people are already
  doing
• recognize and reinforce their current motivation
• involve them personally in further steps

• obtain an oral or written commitment

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Sustaining Momentum
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Measuring Achievement

• Whenever practical, pilot test your program
  before implementing it widely

• Decide what measures you will monitor frequently,
  and infrequently, to ensure that your program
  stays on track

• Wherever possible, make use of control groups
  randomly selected groups of people who were not
  exposed to your program