Behaviour Change

PROPAGANDA FOR CHANGE is a project created by the students of Behaviour Change (ps359) and Professor Thomas Hills @thomhills at the Psychology Department of the University of Warwick. This work was supported by funding from Warwick's Institute for Advanced Teaching and Learning.

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Want to work for the FBI?

So I tried to get this to be put up as a youtube extension, but I couldn't so here is a clip of Jack Crawford and Will Graham from the show Hannibal. Jack Crawford here is trying to recruit Will into being a consultant for the FBI.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNGPYkEISaQ

I know not all of us are going to need to be able to negotiate our way into hiring an overly empathic man, in order to help the FBI catch a cannibal. But the techniques used by Jack Crawford appear to have been successful, as Will was roped into working for the FBI, despite him knowing the consequences.

So what should have been done instead? And how did Jack Crawford manage to get Will to say yes?

First of all, Will should’ve allowed himself more time to think about the offer. This would’ve allowed him to realize what aspects would have been beneficial and are important to him, and how much he may have to pay for the consequences. In the show Jack put a time pressure on Will, this is known to reduce the motivation to accurately process the information such as the costs and benefits. Additionally, it has been shown that high levels of time pressure end up getting a less integrative agreement, due to the lower ambitions and level of demands in those that are at the receiving end of the pressure, meaning that in this case, Jack increases the chances of getting exactly what he wants (De Dreu, 2003; Pruitt & Drew, 1969).

Secondly, Will should know what he wants to get out of this proposed scenario. This will allow him to create a list of alternatives, to develop a BATNA (the Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement). This will allow him to know what the other alternatives are and it will increase his sense of perceived power in the negotiation (Pinkley, Neale, & Bennett, 1994). This would have stopped Will from feeling backed up in a corner, feeling that he can only say yes to the proposal Jack gave him. Instead, because he did not have this established in his mind, he ends up being manipulated by both Jack, and his new friend/therapist, Hannibal Lecter, into staying in his agreed upon position.

 The techniques used by Jack Crawford could be linked back to in Cialdini's book (1993). Within the first few seconds of Jack Crawford interacting with Will, he introduces himself as being the "Head of Behavioural Science Unit" for the FBI. This automatically shows his high status within the bureau, and gives him a sense of authority. This increases his credibility (Bushman, 1988) and so will would be more likely to trust him and agree to what he is saying.

He then goes to mention that him and Will have met before, this is to create familiarity and a relationship, which is beneficial for Jack, because it has been shown that if the goals of two individuals are similar enough, there is a greater chance of them collaborating on the joint interests (Thompson & DeHarpport, 1998).

There were many techniques used by Jack, and he appears to be the more knowledgeable in this domain of the two. Maybe Will should read up on some of these tactics so that he could end up getting what it is that he wanted, which is less time with Jack, and more time with Winston and his other pet dogs.

References:
Bushman, B. J. (1988). The Effects of Apparel on Compliance A Field Experiment with a Female Authority Figure. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 14(3), 459-467.

Cialdini, R. B. (1993). Influence: The psychology of persuasion.New York: Morrow.

De Dreu, C. K. (2003). Time pressure and closing of the mind in negotiation.Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 91(2), 280-295.

Pinkley, R. L., Neale, M. A., & Bennett, R. J. (1994). The impact of alternatives to settlement in dyadic negotiation. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 57(1), 97-116.

Pruitt, D. G., & Drews, J. L. (1969). The effect of time pressure, time elapsed, and the opponent's concession rate on behavior in negotiation. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 5(1), 43-60.

Thompson, L., & DeHarpport, T. (1998). Relationships, goal incompatibility, and communal orientation in negotiations. Basic and Applied Social Psychology,20(1), 33-44.

Ariadna Rodriguez Barclay

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