This transcript excerpt records Robert Cialdini explaining the persuasion principle of consensus/social proof and illustrating it with a field experiment his team ran in three Phoenix hotels. They randomized towel-reuse signs (standard environmental appeal; an appeal to "cooperate with us"; a general majority message; and a room-specific majority message) and measured towel-hanging behavior for guests (analysis restricted to people traveling alone). The environmental message produced about 38% towel reuse; the cooperation/partnership message performed worse; a general majority message increased compliance; the most effective message was a room-specific majority statement (e.g., "the majority of guests who stay in room 217, like you, reuse their towels at least once").
Questions this video answers
Three hotels in Phoenix.
About 38%.
They restricted the analysis to people traveling alone (so the reader of the sign was likely the towel-user).
"The majority of guests who stay in room 217, like you, reuse their towels at least once during their stay."
You don't have to be Warren Buffett to do this. There's a moment of power after you admit a weakness, pivot on the word however or, but and undercut that weakness. Last principle for us to consider consensus or social proof. If many people are doing, must be the right thing. So what the research shows is that we follow the lead of many others and of similar others. Here's the best evidence I know. It actually came from a study that was done by my research team. You all know that if you travel at all in about 70% of the hotel rooms where you stay, there's a sign somewhere in the room. Here's the one in your room. It's not from your room. I didn't go into your room. And get this. Here's the one that's in all our rooms at this hotel asking us to reuse our towels and linen. And most of these say, please do this for the environment. That's the typical sort of, you know, these signs will be hanging on racks or so on. Most of these say, do this for the environment. With my team, we asked, what could you say on this sign that would increase the likelihood that people would do this besides do this for the environment? Well, like has occurred here at the Venetian, there's a group of hotel managers who've said, please help us make a difference. Join us in making a difference. Cooperate with us toward this cause. You've seen that it's on your side. So we went into rooms. I live in the Phoenix area. We went into three hotels in Phoenix, and with the cooperation of the managers, randomly put that original sign, do this for the environment. Or this one. Join us. Cooperate with us toward this good cause. And we looked to see. We. We had the maids check whether people actually hung up their towels the next day. And here's what we found on the first night. We just looked at the first night. For some statistical reasons, I won't bother you with. For people traveling alone, because we wanted to be sure the person who read the sign was the last one who dealt with a towel. If the sign said, do this for the environment, about 38% of them hung up their towel. If the sign said, cooperate with us, join us in doing so. Any idea what that effect would be? The size of that effect? Any 50%? Nothing. In fact, less. What? Wait a minute. Isn't cooperation one of the things that leads people? Well, yes. Partnership is if it's a genuine partnership. Right. My idea of a partnership is that there is equal pain and equal gain for both sides. Here's what the hotels are asking us to do in their idea of a partnership. You pay us $299 tonight, and tomorrow you don't get to use a fluffy towel. That's their deal. That's their partnership. Wait a minute. All the gain is yours. All the pain is ours. And so people were not interested. But we had a third sign, one based on the idea of social proof that says people follow what those around them are doing. This sign said, the majority of guests who stay at our hotel do reuse their towels at least once during their stay. And that was true. And what happened there was now they got the most they had ever gotten. Now, that's not easy for you because the majority of practitioners are not using this. So let's see if we can defeat that problem by looking at something else that we know about the consensus principle. It's not just many others. It's similar others, comparable others. A way that I reduce my uncertainty of what I should do is not just to look around at what many others are doing, but to look around at what people like me are doing in that situation. So we had a fourth sign. It didn't say the majority of guests who stay in our hotel reuse their towels at least once. It said the majority of guests who stay in room 217, like you, reuse their towels at least once. Not the people in room 219. No, those are the people across the hall, like you. Like you. And under those circumstances, we get the most they have ever gotten.
