Last week when I had the opportunity to read chapter 5 and 6 in the Cialdini book it was hard for me to pick which one I wanted to write about. I chose to write about chapter 5 because I feel that it was more relatable in a lot of ways growing up. The example I have this week is when I had to take my little cousin to the park. One day I had to take her to the park and I was trying to help her make a friend, I was asking her about different kids playing at the park behind her school and she begin to tell me why she doesn’t like them and who she would be friends with. Once I named everyone on the playground I finally asked who’s your ideal friend, she told me someone that is pretty like her which I thought was funny. Next, she told me someone that likes the same things she likes and finally she told me someone who calls her pretty. When she went on about her list I realized that I kind of choose my friends the same way. It all starts with a compliment and it’s all uphill from there!

This whole chapter was kind of easy to find quotes that talked about my connection to the book. For starters, Griffin et. al. states, “research has shown that we automatically assign to good-looking individuals such favorable traits as talent, kindness, honesty, and intelligence,” (171). On the next couple of pages Griffin et. al. states, “this fact seems to hold true whether the similarity is in the area of opinions, personality traits, background, or life-style,” (173). On the next page Griffin et. al. defines compliments by saying, “the information that someone fancies us can be a bewitchingly effective device for producing return liking and willing compliance,” (174).

In this chapter I immediately thought of my conversation with my little cousin. She has so much personality on her so I don’t expect every little kid to think the way she does but I noticed that I also think the way she thinks. When she said she wants someone that thinks she’s pretty, that is a direct correlation to the last quote talking about compliments. Then she went on to someone that likes the same things she likes, it’s easier to get along with someone that likes the same things you like and that’s exactly what the second quote told us. Finally, she said someone who is pretty. I don’t like that she thinks like that but its normal to want to be friends with someone that is physically attractive. In the book the first thing was physical attraction.

remmyyy

This week’s topic is on social proof. Social proof is when one means we use to determine what is correct is to find out what other people think is correct. When I read this chapter I automatically connected it to coming to a new team. When you are the new person on a team, you tend to sit back and watch what’s going on. For example, when I was new to the Baylor Women’s Basketball team I was confused about everything they did here. Every team runs everything differently, an instead of jumping in front I decided to sit back and wait to see what is right and what is wrong when it comes to warmups. For a whole year I sat behind someone in the warmup and watched their tendencies until they graduated and I became the one that the freshman watched. It is a cycle, that every team goes through. It is so that every coach doesn’t have to break down every little thing, you just watch what the person is doing in front of you.

I was a little confused when I first read the chapter, I was definitely reading too fast. They started the chapter out with a research that they conducted and I did not really understand why. On the following page when they decided to define what social proof was, I immediately connected it to multiple real-life analysis. In the book Griffin et. al. further defined social proof by saying, “we view a behavior as more correct in a given situation to the degree that we see others performing it,” (116). Another quote Griffin et. al. uses to further define social proof “the tendency to see an action as more appropriate when others are doing it normally works quite well,” (116). In the same paragraph, Griffin et. al. emphasizes his thoughts by saying, “usually, when a lot of people are doing something, it is the right thing to do,” (116).

These quotes definitely go more in depth with my analysis on a basketball team. I feel that the quotes emphasize my thoughts on the situation and why it is normal to feel the way I did when I came to the new team. The first quote shows why I decided to take a step back and watch what was going on. This not only connects with a basketball team, but in life. The second quote also emphasizes the situation because whatever the person in front of me did, I was going to do the exact same thing because clearly, she knows what she doing. Finally, the last quote just outlines the thought on people should sit back and watch before they start doing something. The easiest and most beneficial thing to do is sit back and watch.

The person I sat behind and watched for 2 years now

For today’s blog I think I am going to compare the topic consistency to a relationship. I know that one of my ‘must’ in a relationship is consistency. If you are going to be one way, just be that way for the rest of the relationship. In my current relationship, it Is a long-distance relationship and they started out calling me after every workout and meeting they had with their team. A couple of weeks go back and they started changing up our schedule. Now that I was programmed to get a call after every function, it was definitely a problem that I was not getting the calls as often. I brought it to their attention what was going on and how I felt about it, but the huge problem that I had with the whole situation is they were being inconsistent. Do not get me used to one thing then change up what you are doing.

In Cialdini chapter 3 he talks about consistency and inconsistency. He definitely reiterates what I want from a future spouse one day or in a relationship now. Early in the chapter, Griffin et. al. explains why consistency is a necessity by saying, “to understand why consistency is so powerful a motive, it is important to recognize that in most circumstances consistency is valued and adaptive,” (60). In the very next sentence, Griffin et. al. goes more in depth about inconsistency, “inconsistency is commonly thought to be an undesirable personality trait,” (60). Further down the page, Griffin. et. al. explains why I felt the way I felt when the schedule was broken by saying “without it our lives would be difficult, eratic, and disjointed,” (60).

While reading chapter three last week I immediately compared the whole thing to relationships and what I expect from the person I am supposed to spend the rest of my life with. In my opinion consistency is a vital characteristic that people have to possess in order to be successful in anything they do. Life calls for consistency. The quotes that I used from the reading further explain my scenario simply by emphasizing the problem I had with the change in our daily routine. In the first quote Caildini supported idea as a whole, that consistency is just a vital trait to have. The second quote supports my views on why I want consistency in a relationship, by saying why inconsistency isn’t valued. Lastly, the third shows why I felt the need to bring it to their attention that something was going different in our daily routine. When they stopped calling around the same time of day it kind of threw my day off, my days were becoming a little difficult because I felt that I was missing something and I was. THEIR PHONE CALL.

Since I am not in a relationship, here’s who consistently facetiae’s me <3

Blog #3 and I am still talking about none other than basketball. When I found out responsibility was the topic for this week I automatically thought about my role on a basketball court. On any team everyone has a role, whichever team executes their roles the best will come out on top. My role or responsibility on the team last year was to shut down the opposing team’s best offender. That responsibility alone is one of the biggest responsibilities on a team. I took that responsibility to heart, an executed it to the best of my ability in order to get my team to where I needed.

Responsibility is a huge thing in the world today. In this reading there were multiple quotes that emphasize the importance of responsibility. For example, Griffin et. al. stated “the experiment had instructed their opponent to retreat gradually from his initial demand no matter what the subjects did,” (50). In the same paragraph Griffin et. al. goes deeper into it by saying “the result was that they felt more responsible for the final outcome of the negotiations,” (50).  Another quote Griffin et. al. states “a person who feels responsible for the terms of a contract will be more likely to live up to that contract” (50).

The biggest test of my responsibility on the team last year was when we played the University of Connecticut and I had to guard the best player in the country at that time. The first quote really explains what my coach would tell me before every game. Which is no matter who is front of you, you guard them like they are the best player in the country. The second quote really emphasizes the Connecticut game because when they gave me the responsibility of guarding the best player I suddenly got nerves but also gained this feeling of confidence that the whole team believed in me to do this huge task. I know that if we would have lost that game I would have felt the most responsible for it because I had the BIGGEST task on the team. Finally, the last quote really is really based on confidence in my opinion. Like the Connecticut game, when I was assigned this task I had no choice but to live up to it. I just did not want to let my team down. At the end of the day I had to live up to it, there were so many people there. We had a sold out crowd and a team depending on me.

everything was for them!

It took me a while to really understand perceptual contrast, I read the example multiple times trying to figure out If I had been through this and if I did when was it. Finally, It kind of clicked where this could apply to my life clearly I connected it to none other than basketball. In practice Mulkey makes us use a tennis ball to warmup with. At the beginning of every practice we dribble with this little ball because the concept is that if you can handle a smaller ball than the actual basketball you can handle an actual basketball any day of the week. At the end of the warmup we move on to the weight ball for the exact same reason, it is still something that should make the regular basketball easier to handle in a game. I felt that was a great way to describe perceptual contrast in my everyday life.

In the book that we read for this week there were plenty of quotes that supported this example, one being Griffin et. al. emphasizes the point being, “that the same thing in this instance, room temperature water can be made to seem very different, depending on the nature of the event that proceeds it,” (12). On the very next page, he states “it is much more profitable for salespeople to present the expensive item first, not only because to fail to do so will lose the influence of the contrast principle, to fail to do so will also cause the principle to work actively against them, (13). Finally, the last quote that ties this all together is “the ability to manipulate without the appearance of manipulation” (11).

These quotes definitely support my claim by showing why it could be perceptual contrast. The first quote supports by giving another example that used to show what perceptual contrast was to another group of people. That way is definitely a way that could be used to support that case. The second quote basically shows the exact same thing except it is being used in a clothing store. Coach Mulkey gives us the little basketballs in order for the normal sized basketballs to feel more comfortable when we get them. She sales us the smaller balls before the bigger balls. Its kind of like playing mind tricks on people without even knowing it. The last quote ties it all together by showing what all of the different examples of perceptual contrast really is. The idea of perceptual contrast is just being able to manipulate the mind without telling the mind that it is being manipulated.

our minds are being manipulated and we didn’t even know it!