Never Say Sell

CHAPTER 18Discipline 7: Master the Art of the Ask

Psychologists have long speculated that when you give a person something of value, they then feel motivated to do something nice in return to balance things out. In 1971, Dennis Regan was a PhD candidate in Stanford's psychology department and decided to test this hypothesis. Regan recruited 81 Stanford freshmen and paid them $1.75 to participate in an experiment on aesthetics. Each student was paired with a second person to work on the aesthetics project. The second person, however, was not one of the 81 students; unbeknownst to the student, he was a “confederate” of the experiment. A secretary invited both the student and confederate into a room, told them to wait there, and then left the room. After some time, the phone on the secretary's desk rang, the confederate answered, and in half the cases, he is nice to the caller, saying he is sorry but he doesn't work in the building and doesn't know when the secretary will be returning. With the other half, the confederate answers the phone and says, “Hey, look, there's no secretary here…. Hey, I don't work here, lady, for chrissake. Just call later…,” before hanging up abruptly without saying goodbye. In a parallel test with the same two individuals, Regan sat the confederate and student in a room to fill out a questionnaire on some art reproductions he presented them. When they were done, Regan said they would need a few minutes before they could continue. Then dividing the test ...