Impressive Title
Robert Cialdini’s book Influence itself has been quite influential, having sold millions of copies worldwide since its first edition was published in 1984. And as it turns out, the fact of its popularity has enhanced its popularity. Nothing succeeds quite like success.
We’ve been working our way backwards through the book over several posts, going from the effects of influence on groups of people to individuals. At the individual level, influence works on us because we take mental short cuts when trying to figure out the validity of a claim. Rather than trying to figure out the truth of every claim we hear, we rely on observing how others respond. This is a very efficient way of making decisions, as it turns out. Even if it can lead us astray, either because others use it to gain advantage, or because we’ve gone down a rabbit hole all on our own, finding support in the existence of others who believe the same things that may potentially be patently wrong.
Sometimes we don’t pay as much attention to a claim as we do the source of the claim. Since we can’t possibly be experts in everything, we rely on others who have expertise to help us decide. This outsourcing of judgment means relying on others’ credentials. Thus, we take note of others’ titles of academic study or official licensure. Advertisers and marketers know that we use this shortcut when seeking advice in order to persuade us. They put forward experts with titles representing specialized expertise to advocate for their products and services.
The advertising can wander into the realm of the preposterous. A famous series of TV advertisements from the 1980s and 1990s, for instance, featured a soap opera actor who stated, “I’m not a doctor, but I play one on TV” in order to establish authority. The advertisers used this because it worked. Sometimes the association with expertise is sufficient to persuade more of us to trust a claim than might otherwise.
The title of expertise itself isn’t always necessary. The internet has given us access to the experiences reported by complete strangers who post their experiences in the form of product reviews. Almost everyone who shops online reads product reviews online, too, in the hopes of finding out more about the product they are in the market for. The identities of the reviewers and their credentials are less important to online shoppers than are the outward signs of trustworthiness in the reviews. Features that make us suspicious of user reviews are ratings that are too high. Products with five out of five stars as their average ratings suggest to us that the sellers have used their own paid reviewers rather than genuine users.
Groups of anonymous strangers influence our choices in other subtle ways. Marketers have come to understand that telling shoppers what products are most popular is a great way to promote them. This shortcut has less to do with users’ written product reviews than with the apparent endorsement of fellow shoppers. Increasingly, online retailers promote specific products as the “best sellers” in a given product category. They do this because it works.
I'm not a smart person, but I play one online in comment sections like this one.
Wait. Did I *actually* type that out loud? Sheesh!
Must be the after-work beer typing. Think I might need to start looking for a new brand. I think these suds are startin' to get a little bit too big for their bottle.
Good afternoon!