Cialdini’s Principles of Social InfluenceConsistency
[Context: Commitments]
People desire to look consistent
within their words, beliefs, attitudes, and deeds
The Basics
- Good personal consistency is highly valued by society
- Consistent conduct provides a beneficial approach to daily life
- Affords a valuable shortcut through complex decision-making; being consistent with earlier decisions reduces need to process relevant information in future decisions
How It’s Exploited
- Profiteers exploit the principle by inducing people to make an initial commitment, take a stand or position that is consistent with requests that they will later ask of them
- Commitments are most effective when they are active, public, effortful, and are seen as not coerced and internally motivated – influence professionals will try to make it difficult to renege on your previous position
- If they are successful, abiding by this rule may lead to stubborn commitment to an initial position and to actions contrary to one’s best interests
- The rule may become self-perpetuating – people will seek to add new reasons and justifications for their behavior even after conditions have changed
Best Defense
- To resist this principle, learn to recognize and resist undue influence of consistency pressures on compliance decisions
- Do not be pressured into accepting requests that you do not want to perform and disregard unjust or falsely obtained initial commitments, however small they seem initially
- Be sensitive to situational variables operating on your decision, separate them from personal variables, external forces on the compliance from internal forces to justify it.
Prepared by Philip Zimbardo and Cindy X. Wang
©2006-2007, Philip G. Zimbardo
