- [Announcer] This video is sponsored
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- So in the movie, "Ratatouille" there's this scene
where the villain, Chef Skinner, tries to pry Linguini
for information about ze rat and to do it,
he uses one of the oldest and most obvious
persuasion tactics in the book and he gets him drunk,
and unfortunately, for Chef Skinner, this does not work,
he wastes the entire bottle of wine
and learns basically nothing.
So perhaps instead of using alcohol,
he should have used one of the more successful
and subtle persuasion tactics that have been used
for thousands of years to successfully persuade people
to buy things, to go along with ideas.
So that is what we're gonna talk about in this video.
We're gonna go over five of the most common
and most successful persuasion tactics
that you and I, and basically everyone else in the world
are exposed to on a daily basis.
Now, I've been running my own business for 10 years,
so I have some personal experience with persuasion tactics
but the insights in this video, are gonna come
from a much more authoritative and thorough source,
which is Robert Cialdini's book
"Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion".
This has long been considered one of the, pun intended,
most influential books on the science of persuasion,
so it's a great read if you're looking
to dig into more detail on this topic,
but in this video, we're going to keep it short and sweet,
we're gonna go over these five persuasion tactics
and we're also gonna talk about how to defend
against them or at least to realize their influence on you
so when making a decision, you can divorce the merit
of the message from the persuasion tactics
that are being used.
So with all that said, let's get into our first one,
which is called commitment and consistency.
As human beings, we have this natural tendency
to act consistently with our past actions
and with what we've said in the past,
and this makes perfect sense.
We want people to act consistently on an unconscious level
so we can trust them.
So this is really a good thing at its core,
but people can also exploit it.
So for example, I just got this sticker in the mail
as part of a swag package for an online course
that I'm taking, and if you've ever bought an Apple product,
you will know that you get an Apple sticker,
very similar to this one in the box with the phone
or the computer that you've bought.
And Apple is not putting that sticker in there
just because they're trying to be nice,
trying to give you something for free,
they're hoping that you put that sticker
on something you own.
I've seen people put it on their cars, on their laptops
and all kinds of stuff, maybe even their baby's forehead,
I don't know.
But when you put a sticker on something that you own,
it's almost the same thing as writing out a statement,
that "I am an Apple person.", and when you've made
a public commitment like that, you are much more likely
to act accordance with that commitment
with your future decisions.
This is also why you see a lot
of what are called tripwire products.
These are products that are very, very cheap.
They're very easy sales to make,
and what they do is they turn you from being a prospect
into a customer, and it's this little commitment
you have to make, maybe it's a dollar purchase
within an online game like Fortnite or a mobile app
or something like that, but it makes
this mental shift happen, it changes your self-identity.
You go from being a prospect to a customer
who is now more likely to make bigger purchases
in the future.
So the defense here is to realize that when somebody
is offering you a small gift or a favor
or there's a free trial
or a really, really cheap offer, it is more likely than not
going to be something that is designed
to get you to make commitment, and that commitment
is gonna make you more likely to pay big bucks
for their bigger offerings down the line.
This doesn't mean you shouldn't take these offerings,
but you should keep this in mind when the next pitch comes.
The second manipulation tactic we're gonna talk about
also preys upon one of our natural tendencies,
and that is reciprocity.
As humans, we have this natural inclination
to repay favors or repay small gifts
that have been given to us.
There's this great book called "Debt: The First 5000 Years"
by David Graeber, and he argues that basically,
everyone is always in debt to each other.
You do a small favor for me, I do something for you
and it's almost always out of balance.
Money actually kinda muddies up the situation
because it allows us to sort of wipe out
the debt in the ledger, and that can actually
allow relationships to be broken up.
In pre-money societies, everyone's just kinda lending
each other things, borrowing things,
everyone's always in some amount of debt to one another
but we never really know where we all stand,
but what we do know is that we should reciprocate
when somebody does us a favor or gives us a gift.
This is a good thing, but again, it is vulnerable
to exploitation by people who have something
to sell, by people who want to manipulate
our emotions for their own gain.
For example, if you've ever gone to a car dealership,
you will know that one of the first things they do
is offer you free coffee or free water.
They are not a coffee shop, but they gladly do it
because it results in a lot more profit
when it actually comes down to the sale,
and the reciprocity principle in our minds
is not naturally even.
We don't think, "Oh, I now owe that guy a cup of coffee."
We're just gonna feel indebted and feel like
we should pay them back.
So what it's gonna make you more likely to do
is actually get in the car and take a test drive
if they offer one, and if you are ready to buy,
you're gonna be less likely to negotiate hard
when it comes to the price and more likely to just say yes
when they pitched you services like expensive warranties.
And because of this, they come out way ahead
due to the reciprocity principle.
And it should be noted that in the "Ratatouille" scene,
chef Skinner or tries to use this as well,
giving him free wine, and it's not inexpensive wine either,
it's some pretty great wine.
Unfortunately for him, it doesn't work,
and hopefully, for the next car salesman that you talk to,
it doesn't work too well for them as well
because you wanna learn how to defend against this,
and here's how you do it.
Number one, realize that if somebody is offering you
a favor or a free gift, and it's in a sales
or a marketing context, they're probably trying to play
on our natural tendency to reciprocate, so be wary of that.
And number two, realize that a small gift
is often being leveraged to get you to give something
much, much bigger in return.
Another tactic that you really wanna learn
how to defend against is the exploitation of social proof.
As humans that live in complex societies,
we know unconsciously that we often can't rely
on our animal instincts or our personal knowledge alone
to know what to do in certain situations.
So we often look at social cues,
we look at what other people are doing
to guide our decisions.
If you've ever been at a concert and you've looked
at where other people are lining up to get in
to figure out where you should stand,
then you have benefited from social proof.
But again, this is a concept that is open to manipulation.
You've probably seen commercials with testimonial videos
from people who are just like you, but what you often
don't see is very small, fine print texts
at the bottom of the screen saying
that they are paid actors, and it often goes
way further than that.
Marketers that don't have an ethical bone in their body
will often make up fake testimonials
and then just put stock photos right next to them.
I know this because as somebody who designed websites
for a long time, I often went through stock photo websites,
trying to find photos for clients,
and later on in life, I would see sales pages
with stock photos next to their testimonials,
and I'd say, hey, I actually recognize that photo,
that's from a stock photo website.
So people will often straight up lie to try to engage
this social proof that we are manipulated by,
and even when it's real, you still have to be skeptical.
Only happy customers tend to write testimonials
and in many cases, customers can be incentivized
to write testimonials.
So whenever you're looking at an instance of social proof
that's trying to sway your decision-making
when it comes to a product or an idea or whatever it is,
ask yourself, what is the incentive for number one,
this person to say what they've said, and for number two,
for me to even be able to see it in the first place?
Why was it placed on this sales page?
It doesn't mean that the product isn't worth your time,
but again, you want it to force the merit of the message,
the actual factors that go into your decision
that will affect your life from the social proof elements.
And in many cases, you may wanna also seek out
dissenting voices or at least more critical voices,
less bias sources, reviews on third party websites
that don't use affiliate links, that kind of thing.
And going back to the "Ratatouille" example,
Chef Skinner does use some elements of social proof
on Linguini as well here when he pours the wine,
he says, "You have to be an idiot
of elephantine proportions not to enjoy
this particular wine.", which is mostly using
the next tactic we're gonna talk about,
but it does have some elements of social proof
in there as well.
"I like this wine, everyone likes this wine,
you would have to be an idiot not to enjoy this wine."
But mostly what he's engaging here is our fourth tactic,
which is authority.
Now, I live in the United States and in Western culture,
we have this very individualistic nature,
and we like to think that we have contempt for authority
and we make our own decisions independently,
but the reality often couldn't be further from the truth,
we defer to sources of authority all the time
and use them to aid our decision-making.
This happens from the moment we're born.
We have to, we have no choice, but to defer
to our parental figures for not only physical care,
but also for helping us make decisions and stopping us
from doing stupid stuff,
like putting our fingers into outlets.
And as adults, we also defer to figures of authority
all the time.
We defer to our doctor's authority,
we trust cooks at restaurants to cook our food
to a safe temperature and not ruin it
'cause none of us is an expert on everything.
So we have to put trust in other people to help us
live the lives we wanna live, but the problem is,
authority is very easy to exploit because we usually
place trust in the symbols of authority,
not in the substance.
This book has a lot of citations to psychological research
and peer reviewed journals to backup its claims.
So there's a lot of authority here,
but when we make decisions on a daily basis,
we often aren't looking for the substance,
instead, we unconsciously placed trust
in the symbols of authority,
and those are much easier to fake.
We place trust in confidence, we place trust in labels.
We even place trust in the way people dress.
This outfit communicate something
that the previous one didn't.
So if someone's trying to convince you
that they know how to make a lot of money
or have they have a lot of business experience,
they're probably gonna be wearing something like this,
maybe even filming their video inside of a Bentley,
because that establishes a certain amount of authority.
And this effect is even more powerful
when it comes to occupation-specific attire.
Take for example, the classic white lab coat.
If you've ever seen a commercial
for a weight loss supplement, you're almost always
going to see a doctor on screen talking
about how great that medication is and they're wearing
that lab coat, and it says they're a doctor,
and in many cases, yeah, they're a doctor,
but they're a doctor
with a completely different specialization,
or they may be have the relevant qualifications
to talk about weight loss, but they're being paid
to endorse this medication.
So how can you defend against implicitly
placing trust in figures of authority?
Well, it's really two-fold, number one,
learn to recognize when the symbols of authority
are really doing the heavy lifting and the substance is not.
Many times, the symbols can be faked,
they can be easily gained.
Qualifications are easy, putting on a suit is easy,
but real authority with real substance,
that takes a lot more work.
Secondly, even when the authority source is legit,
ask yourself, "Is this person using their authority
in my best interests or are they using it
for their own personal gain?"
From there, you can divorce the authority, again,
from the merit of the actual message
and make a better decision, just like Linguini did
when he did not reveal any information
about ze rat to Skinner.
And I don't think this was a conscious decision on his part,
he was a little tipsy in that scene,
but it is absolutely true that Skinner
was trying to use authority as part of his manipulation,
and this was established from the get go in the movie.
He's got this fancy office with all these symbols
of authority in it, and in this interaction,
he uses it to imbue the wine that he's offering Linguini
with a bit more legitimacy, but really what he's using here
is the final tactic that we're gonna talk about,
which is liking.
In this scene, Skinner is trying to get Linguini
to like him.
He is complimenting him,
which is very uncharacteristic for Skinner.
He's giving him free wine, he's saying,
"Let's toast to your non-idiocy."
Everything he's doing here is an attempt
to establish rapport, to establish a relationship
because we are more likely to comply with requests
from people that we like, but you have to recognize
that likability is another area
that is ripe for exploitation.
Let's go back to the car dealership example.
The moment you walk into that dealership,
the car salesman is gonna try to get you to like him.
He's gonna shake your hand, he's gonna compliment you,
he's gonna ask you about your interests.
He may just so happen to have the same favorite sports team
or same favorite movie that you have.
This is all an attempt to get you to like him
and to build rapport so you're more likely
to buy a car from him.
So to defend against this, if you notice
that you're starting to like somebody suspiciously quickly
in an interaction, especially one where there might be
a sale on the line, you need to step back and ask yourself,
"What are this person's incentives for being
so friendly right now?
Are they truly interested in my life or are they just trying
to get me to like them so they can close a sale.
Now, this can be pushed too far.
If you're always wary of everyone, you're gonna become
a skeptical person, and you might find it hard
to make friends and build good relationships,
but a healthy dose of skepticism in this context
is very, very useful.
Now, there is one other huge manipulation tactic
that is often used in conjunction with all the others
that we've talked about in this video,
and that is the principle of scarcity.
The less abundance something is, the rare it is,
the more we inherently value it and want it,
and marketers love exploiting this.
So if you'd like to see some examples of scarcity tactics
in action and also learn how to defend against them,
you'll find all that in the extended version
of this video on Nebula where that bonus section
actually replaces this ad because Nebula is ad free.
We're calling these extended sections Nebula+
and you're gonna see them
in all my new videos going forward.
They're places where I can share extra details
that come up with the research process,
but artificial scarcity can be used
to have people make bigger decisions that often
have huge financial consequences or make videos
that are just too long for YouTube's algorithm,
and that really is what Nebula is all about,
it's a streaming service that I built with other creators
like Ali Abdaal, Wendover Productions,
BrainCraft, TierZoo tear and lots of others,
and it gives us the opportunity to experiment,
to try things that just wouldn't work on YouTube
or that would get demonetized, and that includes
extended versions of videos, yes,
but it also includes originals.
In fact, a great followup to this video
and a place where you can start applying
what you've learned here is Tom Scott's
original game show, "Money", which creates
a great opportunity for some creators
that you probably recognize like Mike Boyd or Sam
from Wendover Productions to try manipulating each other
to win some prize money,
and what's even better is that we've teamed up
with CuriosityStream, which is the go-to resource
for the best documentaries on the internet.
The team over at CuriosityStream
absolutely loves supporting educational content.
So we got together and we formed a deal
where when you go to CuriosityStream,
use link and description down below,
and you sign up, you get access to Nebula for free.
And here's a relatively harmless example
of scarcity in action.
Right now, CuriosityStream is running a sale
for Earth Day, where when you go
to curiositystream.com/thomas, you can get a full year,
of both CuriosityStream and Nebula for less than $12.
That's a whopping 41% off, and once you're in,
you're gonna have access to some of the best documentaries
on the internet from people like David Attenborough,
Sigourney Weaver and my home's actual patron
Saint, Nick Offerman.
So again, if you use that link down in the description
to sign up, you're gonna get a full year
of both CuriosityStream and Nebula, all the ad-free videos,
extended sections, originals for 41% off,
or you can go over to curiositystream.com/thomas
to get to that same landing page.
Doing so is a great way to support both my channel
and educational content in general, so if you do, thank you.
So to wrap up, I do have one question for you,
what is your best real-world example that you've experienced
of one of these manipulation tactics in action?
Leave your answer down to the comments below
and together, we can all learn and become
a little bit more perceptive.
Beyond that, I've got a playlist of additional videos
on decision-making that you can check out right here,
if you want some extra content to watch,
subscribe there or do literally none of that
and go do anything you want, because as always,
I'm not your dad.