Social Engineering Blogs

An Aggregator for Blogs About Social Engineering and Related Fields

Halo Good Looking! Are You as Talented as I Think?

Have you heard of the “halo effect?” For those with teens, I’m not talking about the Xbox game your kids might be playing where they seek to destroy aliens. The halo effect can be more insidious than the game when it leads us to harmful decisions.Let me describe the halo effect for you:You meet a tall, broad shouldered man, the new boss, and instantly assume he’s a good leader. You’re interviewing a former college athlete, someone who set records at your alma mater, and you think her training habits will translate into a successful business career.You’re introduced to someone and learn they have the IQ of a genius, which leads you to believe he would be a great asset to your organization.Do you get the picture? The halo effect leads us to make all kinds of assumptions about someone based on a few attributes that may have no bearing on the skills, abilities, or talents needed for the current role.Tall men are looked upon as being better leaders. That’s part of the reason taller men usually win political elections. Sure, we can think of exceptions, like Napoleon, but when we do we attribute their success to something like “the little man syndrome.” We assume they had to try harder because they were smaller and wanted to prove everybody wrong. Couldn’t they have simply had the right skills to lead?Good looking people tend to get elected more, hired more, make more money and get lighter sentences when they commit crimes. Like much of our thinking, we’re unaware of how our biases affect our decision making. After all, no one would say they voted for someone because of their looks, or paid them more money, or gave them a lighter sentence. But the statistics tell another story.In the Bible there’s a story about how the Israelites clamored for a king and defaulted to someone who looked the part rather than someone who would have been a good king based on merit. In 1 Samuel 9:2 we read, “He (Kish) had a son whose name was Saul, a choice and handsome man, and there was not a more handsome person than he among the sons of Israel; from his shoulders and up he was taller than any of the people.” Saul ended up being a poor king and was replaced by David, someone who didn’t look the part but was the greatest Israelite king.You might be thinking about all the athletes who’ve done well in careers after their competitive days are over. There are many examples but that’s partly due to the fact that we seldom hear about the failures or those who only do as well as the average person. When we do hear about the failures we just assume they were the exceptions and we would never be so foolish.It’s often assumed the smartest people, those with the best grades and highest IQs, will do the best in life. In recent decades something called emotional intelligence (EQ) has challenged the notion that high IQs is what it takes. Studies show those with higher EQs do better than those with high IQs. Still, old habits and legends die hard.Certainly tall people can be good leaders, athletes can take what they’ve learned through competition to succeed in business, and sometimes people with high IQs turn out to be wildly successful.The point of this week’s post is to alert you to how many times irrelevant factors play a big role in our decision making process without us being aware. My advice would simply be this – question your assumptions. Perhaps you’ll find your initial impression was correct but you might also realize you’re being swayed by factors that have nothing to do with what you’re really trying to assess.Brian Ahearn, CMCT® Chief Influence Officer influencePEOPLE Helping You Learn to Hear “Yes”.

Influencers from Around the World – Paradox of “The Bridge of Life”

Hoh Kim has been a guest blogger for Influence PEOPLE since I began the Influencers from Around the World series more than five years ago. I met Hoh when we went through the Cialdini certification training together. At the time Hoh had his MA but it’s with great pleasure I can now say Hoh now has his doctorate, as well! Hoh received his Ph.D. in Culture Technology from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology; his dissertation title was “Psychological and neural influences of public apology on audience responses in corporate crisis situations.” I know you’ll enjoy his post on the paradox of “the bridge of life.”Brian Ahearn, CMCT® Chief Influence Officer influencePEOPLE Helping You Learn to Hear “Yes”.Paradox of “The Bridge of Life”On September 1, 2015, Seoul city metropolitan government announced that they would discontinue “The Bridge of Life” which was established in August 2012 by cooperation between Seoul city metropolitan government and Samsung Life Insurance. Cheil Communication, the largest advertising agency in Korea, a subsidiary firm of Samsung Group, developed the idea. The idea and project received positive spotlights from both local and international media. “The bridge of life” received more than 30 international awards including Titanium Lion winner at Cannes Lions and Clio Awards in 2013. What is the bridge of life? It is an interactive storytelling bridge and as you walk across the bridge, the bridge talks to you. Click here to watch a short video.For your information, Korea has unfortunately been the number one country among OECD (The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) in terms of the number of suicides for more than a decade. Mapo Bridge is one of the 31 bridges crossing Han River in Seoul, and it has a notorious nickname — “the bridge for suicide” — as more people tried suicide on this bridge than any other in Seoul. That’s why city government made the bridge of life. What were the results? In 2012, 15 people “tried” suicide on the Mapo Bridge. Then, “the bridge of life” was established. Surprisingly 93 people “tried” suicide on the bridge. There is an argument. In 2012, 60% of the people who “tried” suicide on the Mapo Bridge were saved, but in 2013, 94.6% (85 out of 93) was saved from the suicide attempts. In 2014, 184 people “tried” suicide on the bridge (I don’t have the number of people who survived in that year). Regardless, the survival rate, it was clear that many more people tried suicide in “the bridge of life.”What was the problem? A possible explanation can come from “side effects” of social proof principle. When Dr. Cialdini explained the principle of social proof – i.e., people follow the lead of many/similar others – he warned to be careful not to use it with negative information. Even though I have lived in Seoul for more than 40 years, I came to know the fact that more people tried suicide on the Mapo Bridge than any other bridge in Seoul through the “Bridge of Life” campaign. I think the side effect of social proof influenced the surge of suicide trials on the bridge. However, to be honest, when I first heard about the campaign around 2013 from TV News, I thought the idea of the bridge was fascinating, and could not predict the side effect of the social proof principle. What are the lessons out of it? Two things. First, when we design a campaign, we have to look at closely at whether there are any side effects of the campaign. How can we do that? The “red team” from the American soap opera “Newsroom” might help. Red team is a sort of Devil’s advocate. Red team intentionally attacks an idea so that we can cross check whether there is any downside of a project. Second, the Bridge of Life project was a persuasion project where the campaign tried to influence to reduce actual suicide and suicide attempts. When there is any persuasion project, the best reference would be six principles of influence by Dr. Cialdini as he reviewed influence psychology of more than 60 years and found six universal principles. By applying and checking against the principles, you can create a better persuasion campaign and avoid any pitfall of the campaign. When I first heard about the Bridge of Life, I should have carefully thought about the campaign against the principles, both their applications and side effects. Hoh Kim, Ph.D.Founder, Head Coach & Lead Facilitator, THE LAB hE-mail: [email protected] Home: www.THELABh.com

Will the Price of Cubans Rise or Fall?

There’s a Seinfeld episode in which Kramer orders some Cubans. Jerry thinks he’s ordering cigars but Kramer actually brought three Cuban men over so they could roll cigars for him. He didn’t get cigars because they were illegal.When America cut ties with Cuba after Fidel Castro took over, it became illegal to do business with Cuba. Whenever something is banned or difficult to get all of a sudden people want the banned or difficult to get things even more. That’s the principle of scarcity at work on the human psyche. Here are just a few examples.There was a point in time when you could only get Coors beer west of the Rockies. As a kid I remember my dad and his brothers talking about how good Coors was when they could get it. None of them drinks Coors now.Yuengling is another example of a beer that was hard to come by, at least in Ohio, until recent years. I recall traveling with a friend who made it a point to stop at a conveience store in West Virginia just to buy a case of Yuengling. Twinkies started flying off the shelf when it was announced Hostess was discontinuing the cake-filled treat.Back in 2001, Oldsmobile exceeded it sales goal by a higher percentage than better-known brands such as BMW, Kia, Porsche and many others, when it was announced the car line was being discontinued.I’m a Scotch lover and asked an expert at a tasting event his thoughts on aged Scotch (25 years and older). He said he tries a glass but doesn’t buy a bottle because age doesn’t necessarily mean better taste. He said the reason the price is so much higher for aged Scotch is just because there’s less of it. Why do we naturally feel compelled to take advantage of scarce resources or opportunities? From Influence Science and Practice:“One prominent theory accounts for the primacy of loss over gain in evolutionary terms. If one has enough to survive, an increase in resources will be helpful but a decrease in those same resources could be fatal. Consequently, it would be adaptive to be especially sensitive to the possibility of loss.” (Haselton & Nettle, 2006) Now here’s the interesting thing – once something is no longer scarce we don’t want it as much. There’s a good chance we’ll see this play out with Cuban cigars. Now that relations between the U.S. and Cuba have been normalized it’s a sure bet Cuban cigars will be easier to get. In all likelihood there will be a rush to get them when they initially hit the store shelves. However, as they become more commonplace it’s likely people won’t value them as much.Humans are not always predictable so there’s no guarantee I’m correct in my assessment of what will happen with Cuban cigar prices. Only time will tell. However, given how scarcity works on the human mind and surveying similar scenarios from the past, if I were a betting man I’d bet on a price fall shortly after Cubans – cigars that is – hit the U.S. market.Brian Ahearn, CMCT® Chief Influence Officer influencePEOPLE Helping You Learn to Hear “Yes”.