Month: February 2020

“The Road to Auschwitz Wasn’t Paved With Indifference” is a moving article featuring people’s inability to walk on their own path and fall into social pressures. With the internet taking over the world, we have all seen a video of that one tired teenager in his class who happens to fall asleep during the lecture. Once the teacher notices he very quietly asks the other students to start clapping their hands. Once they all start clapping the sleeping student wakes up and starts clapping their hands. This is a great example of social proof. When your preception is everyone is doing it, that perception soon becomes your reality. I have fallen victim to this when I was looking for a good dessert place after a good dinner. I was walking around downtown San Francisco and saw a line that was out the door. Naturally, I waited because I thought it would be amazing. Little did I know that they just had slow service and were not the best dessert place.

When looking at different instances of social proofs influencing society, there is always an intense pressure to conform to society. Ms. Weinberg (Author of the article, and professor in philosophy) Claimed that “The road to Auschwitz was built by hate but it wasn’t paved with indifference. It was paved with collaboration” (1). Because Poland was highly anti-Semitic, there was greater collaboration between the people, the police and the enforces, leading to more people doing it. According to Raul Hilberg and Hannah Arendt, ” The correlation between local enthusiasm and the genocidal murder rate of the Holocaust is strong and stark” (1). Unlike in Italy and Bulgaria, which had lower amounts of anti-Semitics, “the populations didn’t cooperate with the murder of Jews”(1). Although there is a dramatic difference, this can be seen in today’s school children. We try to teach them the “Upstander ideology directs us to “stand up” to bullies and hate” but this is hard because not a lot of people are doing it. (2)

Lastly, this Idea of doing it because everyone else is doing it is not always the best angle to look at things but it can be hard to turn your back on. Since a young child, whenever I would get into trouble and would blame one of my friends my mother would say “If so and so jumped off a bridge would you follow?” And To this day I know I should say no but I understand why I would say yes. Given the dramatic difference in circumstances, I can understand why some good people broke due to the social pressures during the holocaust and fearing for their lives. Through collaboration, the word was spread about what was happening and the more evil minds that talked the more it seemed that everyone was doing it, which only made the social proof power stronger. This collaboration paved the way into a more ‘accepting’ society willing to do anything to fit in and avoid sure destruction. When looking at the individual countries, the tie between the number of Anti-semitic believers and the number of murders are directly correlated. The fewer believers the less it was talked about. The less it was talked about the less it seemed people were into it which lead to lighter social pressures from society resulting in fewer murders. This power of influence is also seen in less brutal events observed in the school playground. We all understand that hate and bullying is not good amongst society, and schools have lessons on how to react and what to do. I’m not going to say the schools are wasting their time because awareness is very important, but you can not teach someone to be a hero. The only way you can teach someone to be a hero is if everyone is doing it.

In the third chapter of Cialdini’s book titled Commitment and Consistency, shows how it is human nature to strive for consistency, as well as how we tend to dig deeper into situations we would not usually go based on a small commitment we made earlier. I have personally fallen victim to this with a door-to-door salesman. He was selling a concentrated cleaning product that I knew my mother loved. It all started when I have left home alone, and my mother telling me to keep the house clean. I went about my day not thinking too much of it. Until I walked into the garage and tracked oil into the house. Me being the wonderful kid I was, mixed with not wanting to get yelled at, I started cleaning. But none of the stuff we had could get the oil out of the carpet. Then my saving grace was the salesman with the best cleaner in the world. Based on the commitment I made with my mother before she left, I bought it so I could clean it up and not get into trouble.

Looking more into how these weapons of influence actually persuade us, it becomes clear that it is unlike any other form of influence.  Cialdini defines consistency as an “obsessive desire… [to] make a choice or take a stand, we will encounter personal and interpersonal pressures to behave consistently with that commitment”(57). Among this, he gives the example of the horse race and how once you bet on a horse you believe more that the horse will win the race even though nothing has changed. Cialdini further goes into detail how “consistent constitutes a highly potent weapon of social influence, often causing us to act in ways that are clearly contrary to our behaviors”(60). In addition to consistency Cialdini also mentions commitment and how one small adjustment can change results dramatically. When a charity was calling asking for donations for the less fortunate, just by asking “how are you feeling this evening” lets the person realize they are doing well, then they lead in with asking for donations for the less fortunate. Once this is stated, “it becomes much easier for the solicitor to corner you into aiding those for whom all is not well”(68). This tactic is used by many nonprofit organizations and sales critters every day.

This obsessive desire to remain consistent affects everyone on a day-to-day basis. It is most evident in today’s politics. When looking into politicians and who we are going to vote for we find comfort through consistency. This helps us reinsure that we are voting for the correct politician. Furthermore, just like the horse races, once we vote we believe ever more slightly that our contestant is going to win even though nothing has changed. We feel pressured to back up what we have claimed by the people around us as well as ourselves. Inevitably, no individual likes to feel self-doubt. As a central motivator for our personal actions, consistency has the ability to influence us and change our actions and do something we normally would not want to do. We change our actions to be consistent with what we said we were going to do. If we say we are going to watch someone’s house while they are away, we are going to feel obligated to keep an eye out and react to make sure our words match our actions. Which leads to commitment. In a study done, it was proven that people are more suspectable to agreeing to help or to donate if they have previously stated they would help. In the sales world, a salesman might give you a small product even though there is no money to be made with smaller transactions. But by doing so, the foot-in-the-door technique can fly. This smaller purchase just cracks open the door for future possibilities to swing it off the hinges. Leading to bigger orders and more financial rewards solely based off of the initial small purchase. This happens because once you sell the individual one item they are comfortable doing business with you and continue down the path of being a committed customer. Cialdini was right to put consistency and commitment in his weapons of influence.