In Cialdini’s book, “Influence, The Psychology of Persuasion” breaks down some of the best strategies of persuasion and why they all work so well. For instance, Reciprocity can be seen as a mental shortcut that we use to make decisions quickly and efficiently. This theory of reciprocity can be simplified as the feeling that we have to give back for what we receive. Hollywood captures this in most of their police interrogations where they walk in and hand them food, water, or a cigarette. By reaching out and making this first offer the person who received then feels obligated to return the favor one way or another. In this example, return with information that is going to help the police close the case.

Although this theory seems to be hidden from the everyday consumer, the live blindly and walk by reciprocity in their everyday life.  One of these examples includes free samples in grocery stores. Yes, it is nice to enjoy some of the food before you buy it but it is triggering the deeper unconscious reaction of indebtedness. According to Cialdini, by receiving the gift engages you in the reciprocity rule, that “free samples can release a natural indebting force inherent ina gift while innocently appearing to have only the intention to inform”(26).  Cialdini also stated that “One important reason concerns the clearly unpleasant character of the feeling of indebtedness. Most of us find disagreeable to the state of obligation” (34). This feeling was was “trained from childhood to chafe, emotionally, under the saddle of obligation…[The indeptedness] is so undesirable [that] we will sometimes agree to an unequal exchange in order to dodge them” (35). So in a sense would it be possible or even pleasurable to ‘cash in’ your favors to win over elections?

In essence, reciprocity is something we see in our everyday lives. We blindly become victims to this kind of persuasion and unknowing answer to its will. In line with Georgia’s beliefs on rhetorical theory, a persuasion is a tool that can be used to aid in persuasion but also used to take advantage of people who don’t know any better. The idea of free samples in a store is perfect for this kind of behavior. It is important to address the fact that this tactic works, I personally have fallen victim to this and now attempt to avoid tasting because I know that I will fall victim to it. It is always a nice person who is always smiling and invites you for a free sample. Once you have eaten the free sample and talk to them for a bit, telling them how much you actually enjoyed it, even if it’s awful, they push to have you buy their product. You might not feel obligated at first, but because they took the first step and gave you FREE food you now feel like you need to buy their product. This feeling of being in debt to someone has been used against us since we were children. It has actually been proven that one can ‘upgrade’ their return. I personally have done this numerous times. When I was a young, dumb teenager I would always go play in the mud in my jeep and inevitably one time I just sunk. I was deep in mud and I needed to call a favor from a friend. Because I once helped my friend jump his car when it would not start I called him. He came along and we worked for four hours to get my jeep out. My favor took me five minutes, in return I got four hours worth of help to get my jeep out.