In the first chapter of Cialdini’s Influence, the topic of “Expensive=Good” hit a little close to home. Within the past couple of months, my older brother was looking around for a ring for his girlfriend. I was lucky enough to look around with him and what we saw in the stores was sounded a little familiar when reading Cialdini. One technique I saw the salespeople use was they would always show us the nicer more expensive diamonds before they showed us the diamonds in our price range. Leading me to wonder why we came to these stereotypes and shortcuts that can hurt us in the end.
If we dive deeper to understand why we humans tend to make these decisions, we can see links between people and animals. As Cialdini stated, “Ethology- the study of animals in their natural settings”(2) and by studying animals in their natural habitats we can learn why they are triggered to act a certain way in a given situation. For instance, “Mother turkeys are good mothers…[and this] mothering is triggered by one thing: the “cheep-cheep” sound of young turkey chicks”. (2) This small sound that the chicks make helps the mother identify it as hers, but also tells the mother turkey whether the baby is healthy enough to raise as her own. This same idea is in every human because it is hardwired into our brains. Not only with our children but with life in general. We tend to make associations with things, such as if A was true then B must be true as well. One example is if the items are more expensive it must be better. Cialdini wrote about this when talking about the “foolish” vacationers overspending on jewelry that was marked up because “you get what you pay for”(5). To deal with our rapidly moving society we tend to create shortcuts. Cialdini truly caught my attention when he explained how “If [you] are talking to a beautiful woman at a cocktail party and are then joined by an unattractive one, the second woman will strike you as less attractive than she actually is”(12).
By looking at ethology, we can gain a better perspective and understanding of why we do what we do. For instance, if a mother is to hear her baby cry, her first reaction is to go and nurture her baby. The mother turkey had the same reaction when her chicks made the “cheep-cheep” sound. This is called the “click, whirr” sequence, the ‘click’ is the stimuli that trigger the ‘whirr’ which is the response. This “click, whirr” sequence is seen not only in motherly examples but seen all around our daily life. This action is done unconsciously, the individual just completes the tasks based on instinct. Next, the Idea of Expensive=Better is not always true, Jewelry stores do this by keeping the nicer diamonds in the glass cases with the perfect lighting it draws more attention to the cuts, sparkles, as well as the perfection of the stones. The cheaper stones tend to be kept in an inconvenient spot in the store, with less than perfect lighting to make them look insignificant solely because of their price. They do this because of a hardwire shortcut that society has beaten into our brains since birth, the more money the better the must product. We can also see this through different brands, and how some brands sell the same product and have higher prices. Only by creating the perfect situation, where they flaunt the nicer items and make the cheaper more affordable options look insignificant and cheap, are they able to manipulate you into buying a more expensive product. Lastly, this idea of perceptual contrast plays a major role when deciding on purchases. Perceptual contrast, in a nutshell, means ‘everything is relative’. Car salesmen and department stores take advantage of this. If you are going to spend $50,000 on a car that extra $250 for the XM package does not sound like that much more money. The same goes for spending $500 dollars on a suit, the extra $25 might not seem like that much. All of the reasons I have mentioned above show how our brains are hardwired to be triggered by certain characteristics. For some these characteristics might be as small as the way someone looks at you, but for others, it could be based on your previous experiences.
