“Weapons of Influence” Cheatsheet

All animals have built-in fixed action patterns that are triggered by specific stimuli. For example, a mother turkey’s mothering instincts are activated by a specific “cheep cheep” sound. If a chick fails to make this sound, it will be ignored or even killed. If an inanimate object, or even a natural enemy such as the polecat, makes this “cheep cheep” noise, it will be taken in and cared for. It’s like a recording. Click, Whirr.

Humans also have a number of these fixed action patterns. They are shortcuts that help us process our social environment more efficiently. For example, if you ask someone to do you a favor, you will have better luck if you provide a reason, even if the reason makes no sense or is unrelated to the request. Because the recipient of your request reacts positively to the word “because.” Listed below are empirically proven weapons of influence that you can use to create unconscious biases that will improve compliance with your requests.

Reciprocation

• When people receive things from others, they naturally feel indebted. This is true in all cultures (Gouldner, 1960). Therefore unsolicited gifts increase compliance with future requests.
  • Example: A $5 check included with the survey produces more responses than the promise of $50 after responding (James & Bolstein, 1992).
    • Example: Waiters who give a piece of candy with the bill get 3.3% larger tips. Waiters who give two pieces of candy get 14.1% larger tips. Waiters who delayed the action of giving the second piece of candy, for emphasis, raised tips by 23% (Strohmetz, Rind, Fisher & Lynn, 2009).

Reciprocal Concessions: Rejection-Then-Retreat

• The rule of reciprocity also applies to non-material exchanges. So that if you make a large request, are refused, and then make a smaller request as a concession, you are three times more likely to get compliance than if you asked for what you wanted straightaway (Cialdini, Vincent, Lewis, Catalan, Wheeler, & Darby, 1975).

Commitment

• Once a person has made a commitment, they are likely to follow through even if they know that acting consistently with that commitment will not be beneficial
  • Example: Simply conducting a telephone survey asking people predict whether they will vote in an upcoming election is the most effective way to get them to actually do so (Greenwald, Carnot, Beach, & Young, 1987). Because when they answer “yes” it becomes a personal commitment.
  • Example: Toy manufacturers hype up a particular toy before Christmas, and then purposely undersupply it. That way, parents who have already promised it to their children buy an equal value of toys before Christmas, and then buy the requested toy in January after supplies are again made available.

Consistency

• Each time we comply with a request, even a trivial request, it modifies our attitudes and self-concept such that we will tend to act more consistently with that type of action (Bem, 1972; Vallacher & Wegner, 1985).
  • Example: People asked to place a small “Be A Safe Driver” placard in their windows were 60% more likely to comply with a request, two weeks later, to allow a large poorly-lettered “DRIVE CAREFULLY” billboard to be placed in their front yards (Freedman & Fraser, 1966).
  • Example: Many groups who ask you to sign petitions never do anything with the actual petitions. Once you have signed the petition, your self-concept is modified to include related types of civic action.
  • Example: Tribal cultures in which members submit to the most dramatic and stringent initiation ceremonies are those with the greatest group solidarity (Young, 1965).

Social Proof

• We determine what is correct by finding out what other people think is correct (Lun et al, 2007). This is particularly true in the presence of uncertainty (Sechrist & Stangor, 2007). We are particularly prone to follow the lead of people we perceive as similar to us (Park, 2001).
  • Example: Canned laughter causes people to rate shows as funnier (Provine, 2000)
  • Example: The use of shopping carts did not catch on until their inventor paid fake shoppers to push them around his store (Dauten, 2004).
  • Example: Publication of news stories about suicides increase both the number of suicides and fatal accidents among members of similar groups (Phillips, 1980).

Liking

• People “prefer to say yes to the requests of people we know and like” (p.142). So increasing the degree to which you are liked by someone will increase the probability that they will comply with your requests. We like people better and believe them more when they: are more attractive (Chaiken, 1979); are similar to us (Burger et al, 2004); like us (Berscheid & Walster, 1978); are familiar to us (Mita, Dermer, & Knight, 1977; Grush, 1980; Borstein, Leone, & Galley); are engaged in a cooperative effort with us (Kamisar, 1980); are associated with things we like (Manis, Cornell, & Moore); are present while we are eating (Razran, 1938).
  • Example: At in-home Tupperware parties, the strength of the social bond between the host and attendee is twice as likely to determine purchasing decisions as preference for the actual product (Frenzen & Davis, 1990).
  • Example: The Guinness Book of World Record’s “Greatest Car Salesman” sent out monthly greeting cards to each of his previous customers which read “I LIKE YOU” (p. 150).
  • Example: Study participants reported a higher level of agreement with political statements they were exposed to while eating, even though they were not aware of which messages had been presented while food was being served (Razran, 1940).

Authority

• Once someone has accepted you as an authority, they will follow your instructions even against their own judgement, ethics, and feelings (Milgram, 1974).
  • Example: Milgram’s (1974) obedience study
  • Example: Sanka made a commercial for decaffeinated coffee that was so successful that it ran for years, which featured an actor who had played a doctor on a medical show extolling the health benefits of decaf (p. 183)
  • Example: Nearly all pedestrians complied when an experimenter in a guard costume instructed them to pay someone else’s parking meter, even if the guard was no longer present (Bickman, 1974)
  • Example: 3½ times as many people will sweep out into traffic following a jaywalker dressed in a well-tailored business suit (Lefkowitz, Blake, & Mouton, 1955).

Scarcity

• People are much more sensitive to potential losses than to potential gains (Hobfoll, 2001). Therefore opportunities seem more valuable to us when they are less available (p.200).
  • Example: A salesperson can easily secure a commitment to purchase an item when it is presumed that the item is unavailable, while the information that a desired item is in good supply can make it less attractive (Schwarz, 1984).
  • Example: After the passage of a law to ban phosphate laundry detergent was passed in Dade County, Florida, Miami residents came to believe that phosphate detergents were gentler, more effective in cold water, better whiteners and fresheners, more powerful on stains, and easier to pour than non-phosphate detergents (Mazis, 1975).
  • Example: College students had a greater desire to read a book, and a greater belief that they would enjoy the book, when they were informed that it was “for adults only, restricted to those 21 years and older” (Zellinger, Fromkin, Speller, & Kohn, 1974).
  • Example: People become more sympathetic to arguments when they learn that the argument has been censored—even when they have never been exposed to the argument’s justifications (Worchel, Arnold, & Baker, 1975).
  • Example: People given a cookie from a full jar enjoy it less and report that it is lower quality than an identical cookie from a mostly empty jar (Worchel, Lee, & Adewole, 1975).

Read The Rest of Cialdini’s Work

This cheatsheet gives you a nice quick reference on how to exert greater influence in your interactions, but it is no replacement for Cialdini’s excellent books and lectures. You can find Cialdini’s own site here, and can buy his books through Amazon by clicking here.

Overview of Transformational Leadership

Under a transformational leadership model, the leader focuses on creating positive change in followers through behaviors which help them to “transform” into more motivated, satisfied, and harmonious members of the organization. Transformational leadership is generally characterized by four types of leadership behaviors, often referred to as the four ‘I’s: idealized influence, intellectual stimulation, individual consideration, and inspirational motivation (Fisher, 2009).

Idealized Influence

The concept of idealized influence is similar to what might generally be thought of as charisma. Although the vast majority of literature on charismatic leadership focuses on the potential for negative social consequences, there is also an argument to be made that charisma is a component of highly effective transformational leadership (Aaltio-Marjosola & Takala, 2000). In this sense, the exertion of idealized influence refers to a “leader’s ability to generate enthusiasm and draw people together around a vision through self-confidence and emotional appeal” (Fisher, 2009, p.362).

At a more tangible level, a leader can become a more idealized influence by modeling desirable role behaviors within the organization and culture. By positioning him or herself as a positive role model, a leader can thereby engender the trust, respect, and even admiration of subordinates. In mental health terms, this has similarity to what clinicians refer to as ‘fostering transference’ with their clients. By exhibiting the types of behaviors that one would expect from a leader in a given situation, one can generally assume that they will be automatically afforded greater deference within that situation.

Intellectual Stimulation

Transformational leaders help to provide intellectual stimulation for their subordinates. In practice this means that transformational leaders foster more democratic working environments than other types of leaders, because they are frequently engaging their team members in creative and innovative problem solving (Fisher, 2009). This may be a key reason for the significant association between transformational leadership and feelings of psychological empowerment among subordinates (Fuller, Morrison, Jones, Bridger, & Brown, 1999).

Psychological empowerment is a state of increased intrinsic motivation. Empowered individuals have a sense of agency in their work roles; they feel as though they are doing their jobs in ways that they choose and for reasons that they choose (Fuller et al, 1999). It is easy to see how engagement in problem-solving tasks related to the work situation itself would help to instill this sense of agency and improve personal investment in the workplace, because individuals are being actively recruited as collaborators in shaping their own organizational culture.

Individual Consideration

This leads naturally into the next aspect of transformational leadership, which is individual consideration. This refers to the ability of the leader to ‘get to know’ team members and show them individual respect and concern. If team members are being recruited as intellectual collaborators in organizational problem solving, their personal needs and preferences will naturally emerge.

Leaders can further the sense that individual consideration is being by regularly assessing their followers’ personal goals and working to create new opportunities which match those goals (Fisher, 2009). Monitoring followers’ progress and providing mentoring along the way will help to enhance this effect while also bolstering the leader’s position as an idealized influence. The leader’s requests will be more likely to be perceived as in the followers’ best interests, and so should be more likely to be fulfilled with enthusiasm.

Inspirational Motivation

Finally, a transformational leader “moves team members toward action by building their confidence levels and generating belief in a cause” (Fisher, 2009, p.362). This is highly compatible with the previously discussed aspects of transformational leadership. Through individualized consideration and mentoring, individuals are led to work toward improving themselves and their status within the organization. By providing a positive role model, individuals are given direction and momentum for guiding their own role behaviors. And by providing intellectual stimulation and making individuals active participants in their workplace, they are led to see how their own growth and development corresponds to the growth and development of the organization as a whole.

This latter effect is the key ingredient in inspirational motivation. Transformational leaders put this into practice by drawing team members around a vision of what the organization can be in the future. By setting high expectations for the organization as a whole and behaving in ways that are congruent with those expectations, transformational leaders are able to inspire their subordinates to hold similar expectations and to work toward realizing those expectations.

Benefits of Transformational Leadership

Transformational leadership behaviors have been associated with a variety of positive organizational outcomes across industries and across cultures. They are positively associated with overall leader effectiveness (Jung, Yammarino, & Lee, 2009). Employee effectiveness is also positively affected, with extra perceived effort, organizational citizenship behaviors, and job satisfaction all being associated with transformational leadership (Fuller et al, 1999). In this section we will discuss three effects of transformational leadership that may be particularly important for mental health care administrators: group cohesiveness, psychological well-being, and creativity.

Group Cohesiveness

Group cohesiveness is a concept that is well-known to mental health workers providing group therapy services. When there is cohesiveness among group members, each individual member is propelled by the group to accomplish more than could be done alone. The same is true of work teams.

According to Wang & Huang (2009), group cohesiveness among work teams results in more and better group interaction, stronger group influence, and greater individual involvement in the group. Studies have shown that group cohesiveness is associated with emotional intelligence, and this is a quality that mental health workers should exhibit relatively high levels of due to the demands of their profession. However, the primary mediating factor between emotional intelligence and work team group cohesiveness is transformational leadership (Wang & Huang, 2009).

Particularly in service agencies where turnover rates are high because of provider burnout, higher levels of group cohesiveness may serve as a protective factor by increasing the level of support that workers receive from one another. The higher levels of group interaction that cohesiveness brings about should also increase consultation between colleagues, resulting in a higher quality of services.

It is also pertinent that group cohesiveness induces higher levels of personal involvement with the group. A study of health care organizations found that employees’ personal involvement in their organizations was negatively correlated with their stress levels (Skela Savic & Pagon, 2008). In that study, the single greatest predictor of successful individual involvement was transformational leadership.

Psychological Well-being

Psychological well-being is the subjective experience of being in a positive state of mental health. Several studies have found that a leader’s behavior can affect the mental health of his followers, but there has been little research examining the possible mechanisms for this interaction. Arnold, Turner, Barling, Kelloway, & McKee (2007) noted that there is an established connection between transformational leadership and the sense that one’s work is meaningful. Since deriving meaning from events has been called a “fundamental human motive,” they hypothesized that the positive effects of transformational leadership on psychological well-being could be accounted for by this enhancement of meaningfulness. In their two studies of Canadian health care workers, they found that after controlling for humanistic beliefs about their work, the relationship between transformational leadership and psychological well-being was fully mediated by workers’ perceptions that their work was meaningful.

It is notable that these studies were carried out among health care workers, as most people would agree that this work—like mental health—is intrinsically meaningful. Yet it is not uncommon to hear workers in mental health service organizations describe their work experience in terms of a progressive loss of meaning. High case loads, inadequate funding, and arduous paperwork all contribute to the type of personal crisis that leads to burnout. It is the sense that one is simply making no difference in the world by continuing on with his or her work.

By directly enhancing the sense that there is meaning in the work that mental health care providers are doing, transformational leadership has a potential to strongly affect worker satisfaction and reduce burnout. And because this effect improves psychological well-being, it may also help clinicians to exercise a higher level of clinical judgment than they would otherwise be capable of. This improves the quality of services that are provided and so circularly enhances the sense that meaningful work is being done.

Creativity

We have discussed the possibility that transformational leadership could improve clinical judgment, but most mental health workers would agree that a high degree of creativity is also required for their clinical work. Interventions must frequently be designed on-the-fly, and should ideally be tailored for each individual on the basis of their present behavior considered alongside their full history. There is some evidence to suggest that transformational leadership may increase creativity at both the individual and organizational levels.

Gumusluoglu & Arzu (2009) performed a study on transformational leadership in another field requiring a high degree of creativity: software research and development. They studied Turkish personnel and managers from organizations of various sizes in order to determine whether transformational leadership had an effect on creative output. They found that the most creative workers were those whose managers exhibited the most transformational leadership behavior. In examining possible mechanisms for this association, they found that psychological empowerment was the strongest mediating factor.

Whether by creating a culture of psychological empowerment within the organization or through some other mechanism, this effect seems to also be true at the organizational level. In a study of 50 Taiwanese electronics and telecommunications companies, a positive relationship was found between overall organizational innovation and transformational leadership behaviors from the CEO (Jung, Wu, & Chow, 2008).

Although neither of these studies were performed within the mental health industry, it seems likely that similar effects could be found among mental health care providers and administrators. Higher levels of personal investment, psychological well-being, and support from other employees should reasonably be expected to enhance the individual creativity of clinicians and to foster a culture of creative clinical intervention.

Transformational Leadership is a Natural Fit for Mental Health Administrators

Fisher (2009) has pointed out that adherence to any leadership model tends to produce better results than leadership which is not guided by any model at all. Therapists have long held a similar view of theoretical orientation as it applies to the psychotherapy situation. When a therapist or leader operates in accord with a coherent theoretical model, it provides a consistency and predictability. This helps people to feel safe and affords them an understanding of their situation which they could not otherwise have. This may be why both transformational and transactional leadership styles are associated with providers having positive attitudes toward adopting evidence-based practices (Aarons, 2006).

Regardless, there is some reason to believe that the transformational leadership model may be a natural fit for the social service fields, including mental health. For example, a study of social service supervisors found that they generally tended to use transformational leadership techniques spontaneously, whether or not they consciously identified themselves as doing so (Arches, 1997).

Mary (2005) found similar results in a survey of members of the National Network for Social Work Managers and the Association of Community Organization and Social Administration. When asked to think of a leader they had worked with and to rate them on the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire, she found that the leaders discussed generally operated in a manner consistent with the transformational leadership model. In addition, transformational leadership qualities were positively correlated with leader effectiveness, satisfaction with the leader, and extra effort on the part of workers. These results match those of Gellis (2001), who found that transformational leadership factors in social service administrators were positively correlated with similar positive organizational outcomes. Social workers were more likely to engage in requested activities and reported feeling more satisfied with their leader when more transformational leadership qualities were present.

Conclusion

There is substantial evidence that the transformational leadership model produces organizational outcomes which mental health administrators would generally find desirable. By providing a practical means for generating positive role identification, intrinsic motivation, personal investment in the workplace, motivation and resiliency, transformational leadership promises to enhance the quality of services provided while reducing negative effects on workers. Because provider burnout is such a widespread and troublesome phenomenon in social service agencies, the benefits of transformational leadership may prove particularly compelling in this industry.

As we have seen, transformational leadership is already prevalent among social service organizations. Furthermore, the degree to which it is practiced corresponds to leader effectiveness, among other positive organizational outcome variables within these types of agencies. It results in better group cohesiveness, which will help workers to feel better supported and to feel more personally involved in their agencies. It also results in lower stress and greater psychological well-being for health care workers.

Transformational leadership also increases individual creativity and organizational innovation among workers in some creative fields, and this benefit may also apply to mental health workers. More creative workers will be more capable of adapting their skills and techniques to the needs of individual patients, thereby resulting in a higher quality of services and better clinical outcomes. For all of these reasons, the transformational leadership model is a natural fit for the mental health field, and its implementation should be considered an integral part of best practices for mental health administrators.

References

Aaltio-Marjosola, I. & Takala, T. (2000). Charismatic leadership, manipulation and the complexity of organizational life. Journal of Workplace Learning, 12(4), 146-164.

Aarons, G.A. (2006). Transformational and transactional leadership: Association with attitudes toward evidence-based practice. Psychiatric Services, 57(8), 1162-1169.

Arches, J. L. (1997). Connecting to communities: Transformational leadership from Africentric and feminist perspectives. Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare, 24(4), 113–124.

Arnold, K.A., Turner, N., Barling, J., Kelloway, E.K., & McKee, M.C. (2007). Transformational leadership and psychological well-being: The mediating role of meaningful work. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 12(3), 193-203.

Fisher, E. (2009). Motivation and leadership in social work management: A review of theories and related studies. Administration in Social Work, 33, 347-367.

Fuller, J.B., Morrison, R., Jones, L., Bridger, D., & Brown, V. (1999). The effects of psychological empowerment on transformational leadership. The Journal of Social Psychology, 139(3), 389-391.

Gellis, Z. D. (2001). Social work perceptions of transformational and transactional leadership in health care. Social Work Research, 25(1), 17–25.

Gumusluoglu, L. & Arzu, I. (2009). Transformational leadership, creativity, and organizational innovation. Journal of Business Research, 62, 461-473.

Jung, D., Wu, A., & Chow, C.W. (2008). Towards understanding the direct and indirect effects of CEOs transformational leadership on firm innovation. The Leadership Quarterly, 19, 582-594.

Jung, D., Yammarino, F.J., & Lee, J.K. (2009). Moderating role of subordinates’ attitudes on transformational leadership and effectiveness: A multi-cultural and multi-level perspective. The Leadership Quarterly, 20, 586-603.

Mary, N. (2005). Transformational leadership in human service organizations. Administration in Social Work, 29(2), 105–118.

Skela Savic, B. & Pagon, M. (2008). Individual involvement in health care organizations: Differences between professional groups, leaders and employees. Stress and Health, 24, 71-84.

Wang, Y. & Huang, T. (2009). The relationship of transformational leadership with group cohesiveness and emotional intelligence. Social Behavior and Personality, 37(3), 379-392.

Who Are The Mentally Ill?

My discussions with contemporary psychologists lead me to believe that most therapists use terms like mental health and mental illness in an attempt to normalize their patients’ experiences. They conceive of mental illness as a spectrum parallel to that of medical illness, and assume that their patients feel the same way. And, for patients who are cultivating a dependency upon the mental healthcare system, this is the case.

However, I believe the average person has a very different idea of what mental illness is. The average person conceives of “the mentally ill” as the sort of folks who one sees babbling incoherently on the street, frightening children on public buses, and overturning chairs in psychiatric hospitals. There are some fairly good historical bases for this association, owing largely to the language used by mental health professionals over the past century and the inadequate treatments that have been available for severe mental illness.

People are afraid of the mentally ill, and you’re not doing anybody any favors by trying to tell them not to be. It is simply not an efficient approach to reducing stigma. A better way is to adjust your terminology so as to not activate preexisting stigmas.

The Message Of Psychotherapy

In other words, psychologists have entirely missed the point of their own services, and in so doing have degraded the entire profession. The message of psychotherapy is that any individual, at any stage of maturity and any station in life, can gain better control over his or her own mind. That’s it.

There is a wide body of literature which demonstrates that psychotherapy can improve the quality of life of normal people with no diagnosable psychological disorder. That it can improve relationships, coping, and enjoyment. That it can improve physiological health, both in healthy people and in people suffering from medical conditions. That it can prevent medical and psychological conditions for which one is at risk. There is scientific proof that psychotherapy can make people better.

And yet we focus exclusively on the curative aspects of our profession. We use terms like ‘mental health’ which draw on 20th-century associations to ‘mental patients.’ We offer ourselves up for relational handholding, condescending analysis of cognitive errors, and pseudo-medical advice-giving.

Psychotherapists have a unique, and extremely lucrative, opportunity to place themselves at the very cusp of the oncoming transformation of medicine from a remedial art to a preventative and cosmetic one. And, for the most part, we are wasting that opportunity.

What Can Psychotherapists Do?

It is our responsibility as therapists to reduce the stigma associated with our profession and with our patients. In the cultural climate that we have helped to create, this sounds like a very difficult thing to do.

Indeed, there is a fair amount of literature in which prestigious and otherwise intelligent flop around the issue of what can possibly be done to intervene in mental health stigma. They tend to focus on small presentations from individuals who have suffered from mental illness, and tend to show small to moderate effectiveness in modifying the attitudes of group participants.

Nope, That’s Not It

The narrowness of this approach is striking. Remember, it was not that long ago that psychotherapy (or at least psychoanalysis) was considered a luxury service. It was a sign of affluence to attend thrice-weekly sessions at substantial expense. There was an air of mystery and exploration around the process, and it was highly sought-after. And we actually have a lot more to offer now than we did back then!

But if there is one thing that contemporary psychotherapists seem to adore, it is demystification. And for the life of me I cannot understand why that would be. It does not add any benefit to the treatment, does not help keep patients in therapy, and does not help attract new patients to therapy. And yet we seem to want to give the impression that everything is all figured out and that we’re not really doing that much at all.

The human mind is incredibly deep and mysterious. In developing our intuitive sense of its inner logic, its cryptic compensations and metaphoric leaps, we are making ourselves nothing less than the shamans of the modern age. The process of psychotherapy should absolutely be based on scientific understandings, but we must not delude ourselves that we have really fully figured out what is going on in there. We have not.

And when we market our services based on the pseudomedicalization of functional disruption, that is exactly what we are implying. We are not only misrepresenting ourselves, we are actually doing so to our own detriment and to the detriment of our patients.

So Here’s What We Need To Do

If we are going to rectify the situation, we must begin using our knowledge of psychology to market our services for what they are and for what people want them to be. We must reintroduce the mystery of being human and suggest that we can help to explore, deepen, and enrich that mystery.

We must advertise the incredible improvements that skillful psychotherapy can introduce into a person’s life. We need to stop going on about this misguided notion of “mental illness” and instead start focusing on what people stand to gain from coming to see us. This is not rocket science; it’s not even slick advertising. It’s just plain good business.