Lecture 5 articles- Pre reads PLO

The Six Principles of Interpersonal Influence

Robert Cialdini is a Professor of Psychology at Arizona State University and has spent many
years devoted to the scientific investigation and research of persuasion techniques. His book
"Influence" has become a classic. Within his book Cialdini lists six basic social
and psychological principles that form the foundation for successful strategies used to achieve
influence

1) Rule of Reciprocity
- This rule requires that one person try to repay what another person has provided. By
obligating the recipient to an act of repayment in the future--the rule for reciprocation
allows one individual to give something to another with the confidence that it is not
being lost
-Again, a possible and profitable tactic to gain probable compliance would be to give
something to someone before asking for a favor in return. 

door-in-the-face technique, relies heavily on the pressure to reciprocate concessions.

By starting with an extreme request that is sure to be rejected, the requester can
then profitably retreat to a smaller request--the one that was desired all along.
This request is likely to now be accepted because it appears to be a concession. 

 1. People have a desire to look consistent through their words, beliefs, attitudes
and deeds and this tendency is supported or fed from three sources: 1. Good
personal consistency is highly valued by society.
 2. Consistent conduct provides a beneficial approach to daily life.
 3. A consistent orientation affords a valuable shortcut through the complexity of
modern existence. That is-- by being consistent with earlier decisions we can
reduce the need to process all the relevant information in future similar
situations. 

3. Similarity--people are more inclined to follow the lead of others who are similar.
- People prefer to say yes to individuals they know and like. This simple rule helps to
understand how Liking can create influence and how compliance professionals may
emphasize certain factors and/or attributes to increase their overall attractiveness and
subsequent effectiveness. 
- Physical attractiveness seems to engender a "halo" effect that extends to favorable
impressions of other traits such as talent, kindness, and intelligence. As a result,
attractive people are more persuasive both in terms of getting what they request and in
changing others' attitudes.
- Similarity--is a second factor that influences both Liking and compliance. That is--we
like people who are like us and are more willing to say yes to their requests,
4. . Praise—
 is another factor that produces Liking, though this can sometimes backfire when they
are crudely transparent. But generally, compliments most often enhance liking and can
be used as a means to gain compliance.
5.  Increased familiarity--through repeated contact with a person or thing is yet
another factor that normally facilitates Liking. But this holds true principally when that
contact takes place under positive rather than negative circumstances. 
6. According to the Principle of Scarcity--people assign more value to opportunities
when they are less available. The scarcity principle holds true for two reasons: Things
difficult to attain are typically more valuable. And the availability of an item or
experience can serve as a shortcut clue or cue to its quality.

According to psychological reactance theory, people respond to the loss of

freedom by wanting to have it more. 

Article 3: Pitching Novel Ideas to the Boss: The Interactive Effects of

Employees’ Idea Enactment and Influence Tactics on Creativity
Assessment and Implementation

Employees’ creative ideas often do not receive positive assessments from managers and,
therefore, lose the opportunity to be implemented. 

  use of both high levels of idea enactment behaviors (characterized by use of

demos, prototypes, or other physical objects when presenting ideas) and high
levels of upward influence tactics will have an interactive effect on the extent to which
their creative ideas are positively assessed by their supervisors  

we also demonstrated that the benefits of using this dual approach are more likely to accrue when
selling a more novel idea rather than a less novel, more mundane one . 

  we explore the concept of “idea enactment”— that is, the illustration of abstract
ideas in more tangible forms using demos, PowerPoint presentations, or other
physical objects such as prototypes, animating boards, drawings, mock-ups, and
simulations.
  that creativity is a necessary condition for innovation, considerable research has focused on
the development of creative ideas by employees, with the expectation that these ideas will
be ultimately implemented (Zhou & Hoever, 2014). Yet academicians and practitioners
alike continue to lament the slow pace of innovation and seek remedies to accelerate it
 In a surprising twist, the less-than-hoped-for pace of innovation may stem from the
fact that employees’ creative ideas often do not readily receive a positive
assessment by managers. 
 Eg:  For instance, although Kodak’s research lab invented the first digital camera,
its managers’ failure to appreciate this new product idea permitted Sony to
eventually overtake Kodak as the market leader in the digital photography space
  Similarly, while Xerox developed a blueprint for the first personal computer, insufficient
investment by its managers allowed Steve Jobs and Apple to snatch the opportunity away
and exploit it (Burkus, 2013).
 An added complication is that managers notoriously have busy schedules, with time and
attention being scarce resources (Pfeffer, 1992). As novel ideas, by definition, involve
notions that are not previously familiar and can be difficult to categorize, assessing
them requires a considerable investment of already constrained managerial
cognitive resources
