People Refuse Less When Dealing with Abnormal and Charitable-related Request

In chapter one of Freakonomics, Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt describe how when incentives are strong enough, many usually honest people from different walks of life will cheat in order to gain financially or climb the ladder in their careers. The authors define an incentive as “a means of urging people to do more of a good thing or less of a bad thing.” This chapter covers three varieties of incentives: Economic, Social and Moral. Economic incentives motivate people with the promise of money or goods. Social incentives motivate people to respond in a certain way because they care about how they will be viewed by others. Moral incentives motivate people on the basis of right and wrong. We look at four

Emily Andrews argues in her essay “Why I Don’t Spare “Spare Change”” that it does more harm than good to give money to beggars on the street rather than giving to an organization such as United Way to help the needy, pointing out that “one cannot be certain that one is giving to a needy individual” and that by giving to a charitable organization “ones money is likely to be used wisely.”

The use of effective persuasion techniques will not only the marketing and sales personnel to make more sales and meet the targets but also enable them to have an edge over the competitive environment. So of the techniques used in the commercial video from state farm insurance company on one hand show an effective means of communicating to convince the audience while on the other hand, the video is too complex to comprehend for an a normal and uneducated citizen. Here are some of the effective persuasion techniques that have been used in the commercial to reach out and convince their target audience to use and stick to the company’s insurance services. Moreover, these techniques are aimed at making the incumbent customers to become more loyal to State Farm insurance. According to Petty, Richard and Cacioppo (1984), there are two routes effective persuasion no matter the kind of media used to deliver the message to the audience. First, one can persuade effectively by building a central argument(s) in the message. Secondly, the persuader can effectively deliver the message to his or her target audience by trying to appeal to the audience by associating the message with what they can accept favorably. Usually, the favorable peripheral cues in the message lures the

This study constitutes an attempt to induce higher income households to donate a greater percentage of their disposable income to charitable causes. The way in which it seeks to achieve this goal is through the administration of an online survey whose primary intent is the elicitation of dissonant processes, which may serve to enhance the subjective valuation about the charity, Hunger Free Colorado. According to their website:

In many instances, people will not have the motivation or incentive to benefit a charity unless they get something out of it. Most people believe this to be a selfish act. Why can't someone do something nice for the community and not expect anything in return? Offering incentives for charitable acts is a easy way to bribe people, but sends a morally wrong and selfish message.

First, the experiment Solomon Asch began in 1955 gives an example how social influence can sway or perception of reality. The results are an example of normative social influence and informational social influence. Additionally, the participants exhibit the need to gain a person’s approval, and was willing to accept others opinions about reality. Consequently, a persons moral sense

Today, one can see the tactic of persuasion being used as a standard avenue to influence a person’s attitude or beliefs by presenting them with different messages that encourage things like using certain brand name products, vote a certain way, or where to take a vacation just to name a few. There are four types of people that include gullible people, skeptical people, firm believers, and people who are leaders who trust others as well as make others follow their ideas. Persuasion is a widespread topic of social psychology and may be done in different ways. There are two types of cognitive processes by which to persuade someone, which are the central route or the peripheral route. For this assignment I used mostly the central route approach as well as using a little of the peripheral route approach. To reinforce the peripheral route approach the use of pathos was also used during the video to play on the emotions of the watcher. This PowerPoint is effective at using the central route of persuasion, peripheral

The author initially proposes an argument supported by the Rogerian model of persuasion, which is used to incline the reader to hold belief of predisposed open mindedness and willingness

In regards to the experiment conducted by Lerner and Simmons, I agree with their finding that seeing an innocent person suffer without a reward motivates people to find a more appropriate fit between the person and their fate. I find myself acting like this when encountering homeless people asking for change. Normally, I assume that they are asking for money to help fund their personal habits such as drugs, alcohol, or gambling. It is an unfortunate generalization that society has engrained into our minds.

Social Psychology demonstrates different techniques for convincing people to comply with a request while making the person appear consistent in their thoughts. For example, this comic strip relates to the idea of lowballing. Lowballing is what happens when an offer or deal is changed after it has already been agreed upon. The comic strip is similar to the idea of a car dealership retracting its’ offer after the salesperson knows that the person buying the car is already hooked, and that they are willing to pay anything to have the car. Social Psychology is present in our everyday lives. While the overlying principle of this cartoon is lowballing, it also demonstrates door-in-the-face. The salesperson knows that the first request is almost certain to be refused. This is shown when the salesperson makes the large request price, but lowers it in a “just for you” approach. The person making the purchase feels like they are “special” and should go ahead and take advantage of it. While the first price first seemed unreasonable, the price of four-thousand dollars makes people feel like they have no choice but to agree because they are plagued by the thought of how much money they are saving. In actuality, the only way that they would be saving money is if they did not make the

Currently, organ transplants require the donation of material; however, this introduces a challenge of receiving inadequate quantities of organs. One solution considers offering an incentive of money for donating organs. Unfortunately, this brings along additional, unethical difficulties. The current, altruistic means of donating organs supports the process of humbly helping the unfortunate. Involving money introduces class struggles. Society would create a schism between the upper and lower classes; the wealthy purchase the organs of the poor. The large expenses prevent those in the most desperate need of transplants from receiving them, and only allowing the wealthy to transplant organs. Voluntarily donating biomedical material eliminates class differences, and focuses on the exigent issue: who needs immediate help. Alternate options provide answers for how to increase donations. One solution begins with spreading awareness on how to donate and aid the sick, not on bargaining for

This journal article looks at proposals wanting to change the charitable contribution deduction. The proposals fall into four categories, consisting of: caps, floors, credits, and grants. This study measured changes in revenue and giving using a “low” responsiveness (price elasticity of -0.5) and “high” responsiveness (elasticity of -1.0). The results found floors to be the most cost-effective proposal because they usually do not affect incentives at the margin. Caps look to create a more progressive system by reducing benefits to the wealthy; however, the introduction of a cap would have the largest negative effect on donations. A credit gives an equal incentive to all taxpayers regardless of their tax rate. Due to this a credit turns away

In this article, Drevitch insists that economic incentive can change people’s behavior by putting aside their morality for “financial calculation.” This type of behavior is called extrinsic motivation or referred to as “crowding out” and it is a powerful social reaction that’s been influenced by society. Based on

Petty and Cacioppo (1981) have developed the elaboration likelihood model of persuasion which explains the peripheral route to persuasion and the central route. In the peripheral route, persuasive influences are more tangential to the issues at hand. For egg- in a PSA targeted against smoking in youth, the peripheral route will show the teenagers having a better sex life after quitting smoking. (William G. Shadel, January 2009) Central processing occurs when the person at hand is aware about the main message of the PSA and is motivated to consider its content. We will analyze the use of celebrities for both these routes of persuasion and try to find out the effectiveness in each case.

The central route to persuasion requires high efforts of processing which occurs through a complex structure, thus leads to longer lasting effects of persuasion. However, if an audience is lacking in motivation, in which they are not analytical or involved with the message they are more likely to take the peripheral route to persuasion. In this case, peripheral cues are used in which these cues trigger an acceptance of the messages thus leading to persuasion, which is usually a temporary effect [Myers et al 2016 p190-191].