Commitment and Consistency
People have a general desire to appear consistent in their behaviour. People generally also value consistency in others.
Compliance professionals can exploit the desire to be consistent by having someone make an initial, often small, commitment. Requests can then be made that are in keeping with this initial commitment.
People also have a strong desire to stand by commitments made by providing further justification and reasons for supporting them. This pattern of behaviour toward or resulting in a negative outcome is called escalation of commitment.
Read more about this topic: Influence: Science And Practice
Famous quotes containing the words commitment and/or consistency:
“A two-parent family based on love and commitment can be a wonderful thing, but historically speaking the “two-parent paradigm” has left an extraordinary amount of room for economic inequality, violence and male dominance.”
—Stephanie Coontz (20th century)
“People who love only once in their lives are ... shallow people. What they call their loyalty, and their fidelity, I call either the lethargy of custom or their lack of imagination. Faithfulness is to the emotional life what consistency is to the life of the intellect—simply a confession of failures.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)