Banned Books: How Censorship Leads to Increased Sales

                     

Across the world, hundreds of books are challenged every year, and some of these challenges result in the banning of these books from all public libraries and bookstores. Books can be banned on the basis of the actual content of the book or on how the book may be interpreted. For instance, some books have been banned due to the inclusion of excessive violence, profane language or sexual content, while others have been censored due to the political or religious agendas associated with them.

After the completion of Animal Farm in 1943, George Orwell found that no publisher would print the book due to its criticism of the regime of the USSR, who were a powerful ally of Britain. Once the book was eventually published, it was banned in numerous communist countries and is still censored today in the United Arab Emirates and Vietnam. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis was originally banned from sale in Australia due to its excessive violence, and today is censored to all Australians under 18 years old. More recently, The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky was banned in public libraries in the US for containing ‘explicit sexual content of a homosexual nature’, and the Fifty Shades trilogy by E. L. James is censored in Malaysia for containing ‘sadistic material’.

However, the banning of books does not always create the desired effect. In fact, in some instances, censoring books can actually have a paradoxical effect by increasing people’s interest in the book and, subsequently, the number of sales. For example, after the Vatican banned Just Love by Sister Margaret Farley, the book rose from number 142,982 to number 16 on the Amazon sellers list (Sister Farley’s revenge: Want to popularize a book? Ban it, 2012). During Banned Book Week in 2014, all but one of the 10 most challenged books saw a rise in sales (Does being ‘banned’ help book sales?, 2014). Additionally, certain banned books, such as To Kill a Mockingbird and The Great Gatsby are now thought of as classics, and are known as 'the banned books that shaped America'. So why does censorship increase people’s interest in banned books, and why do people seem to enjoy them so much?

Psychological Reactance

The scarcity principle states that opportunities with limited availability appear to be more valuable to us. Stemming from the scarcity principle, Psychological Reactance Theory (Brehm, 1966) proposes that whenever free choice is limited or threatened, we are motivated to retain our freedom by reacting against this censorship, hence the term psychological reactance. In terms of banned books, censorship restricts our free access to the book, so we react against this restriction by wanting and trying to possess the book more than before.

A study by Ashmore, Ramchandra and Jones (1971) demonstrated the effect of psychological reactance on student’s attitudes towards allowing police on campus. When a speech on the issue was banned, students who agreed with the subject of the speech became more favourable of it, while students who had initially disagreed with the speech changed their attitudes in favour of the speech. Further evidence for psychological reactance comes from a study by Worchel and Arnold (1973), who found that censorship of a speech caused potential audiences to align their attitudes with the views of the speech, resulting in a greater desire to hear it. Similarly, when a book is banned, people may change their attitudes towards the book and, subsequently, have a greater desire to read it.

                                        The ‘Romeo and Juliet Effect'

The ‘Romeo and Juliet effect' may also help to explain the increased interest in books that are censored. The ‘Romeo and Juliet effect' states that interference of any kind leads to increased psychological reactance, which subsequently leads to greater liking. For instance, a study by Driscoll, Davis and Lipetz (1972) found that parental interference led to couples showing greater love and a greater desire for marriage than those who did not have interfering parents. To illustrate the ‘Romeo and Juliet’ effect in terms of censored books, Zellinger et al. (1974) found that participants who learnt of an age restriction on a pornographic book wanted to read the book more and believed they would enjoy it more than those who believed the book was freely available to them (see Table 1). This may explain why certain banned books, such as Animal Farm, are some of the most well-liked books in history, still appearing on recommended book lists even decades after publication.

Table 1. Mean valuations of books with and without age restrictions

The Consistency Principle

Once a stand has been taken, there is a natural tendency to behave and adjust attitudes in ways that are consistent with that stand. The paradoxical effect of banned books and people's increased liking of them may be related to the consistency principle, as acquiring a banned book often takes quite a lot of effort. Evidence has shown that the more effort that goes into a commitment, the greater its ability to influence the attitudes of the person who made it. For example, Aronson and Mills (1959) found that college women who had to endure a severely embarrassing initiation ceremony in order to gain access to a sex discussion group convinced themselves that the discussion was more worthwhile and valuable than those who did not complete such an initiation (see Table 2). The greater effort and commitment that is needed to acquire censored books could involve defying a religious or political leader or lying about age, all of which would have negative consequences. This may explain why people seem to enjoy banned books more, and why a number of banned books are known today as classics.

Table 2. Mean ratings of discussion and other participants for the control, mild and severe initiation groups

In conclusion, the censorship of books has a paradoxical effect in terms of interest and sales due to the perceived reduction in freedom, which results in greater psychological reactance, and a greater desire to read the book. It also takes more effort to acquire censored books and the extra commitment leads to increased enjoyment.

References 

Aronson, E., & Mills, J. (1959). The effect of severity of initiation on liking for a group.

          Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 59, 177-181.

Ashmore, R. D., Ramchandra, V., & Jones, R. A. (1971). Censorship as an attitude

           change induction. Paper presented at the meeting of the Eastern

           Psychological Association, New York.

Brehm, J. W. (1966). A theory of psychological reactance. New York: Academic Press.

Does being ‘banned’ help book sales? (2014, October 21). Retrieved November 4,

          2016 from http://reason.com/blog/2014/10/21/does-being-banned-

          help-book-sales

Driscoll, R., Davis, K. E., & Lipetz, M. E. (1972). Parental interference and romantic

          love: The Romeo and Juliet effect. Journal of Personality and Social

          Psychology, 24, 1- 10.

Sister Farley’s revenge: Want to popularize a book? Ban it. (2012, June 21).

          Retrieved November 4, 2016 from https://www.onfaith.co/onfaith/2012/06/06/

          sister-farleys-revenge-want-to-popularize-a-book-ban-it/11433

Worchel, S., & Arnold, S. E. (1973). The effects of censorship and the attractiveness

         of the censor on attitude change. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology,

         9, 365-377.

Zellinger, D. A., Fromkin, H. L., Speller, D. E., & Kohn, C. A. (1975). A commodity

          theory analysis of the effects of age restrictions upon pornographic materials.

          Journal of Applied Psychology, 60, 94−99.

THE SPEECH THAT MADE OBAMA PRESIDENT

“There's not a liberal America and a conservative America; there's the United States of America.” Barack Obama.

Being one of the most influential men in the world, Obama has inspired and persuaded many people during his time as President. With his eight years in power soon coming to an end, it seems appropriate to look back at where it all began.

On July 27^th 2004, Obama took to the stage at the Democratic National Convention to give the keynote address. It is this speech that projected Obama from being a small name, only known by a few political circles, into a potential world leader. Obama managed to capture the attention of the nation by injecting hope, belonging and truth into the country. The overwhelming reaction from this speech allowed Obama to defeat Alan Keyes for the Senate seat and later become the 44th President of the United States of America on November 4th, 2008. 

Why was this speech so effective? 

1. Common ground: 

[Tonight, we gather to affirm the greatness of our nation not because of the height of our skyscrapers, or the power of our military, or the size of our economy; our pride is based on a very simple premise, summed up in a declaration made over two hundred years ago: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”]

According to Carnegie (2010), if you want to persuade someone, then you should find a common interest. People are more likely to listen and engage with a message if they think it is relevant to them. Obama creates relevance to his audience by implying he is the same as all Americans, emphasising his background and interests. This insinuates he knows what the nation wants, so therefore can make a difference. 

Evans (1963) carried out a study that illustrates the effectiveness of similarity as a persuasion technique. When reviewing the sale records of car insurance companies, it was found that customers were more likely to purchase insurance when the salesperson was similar in age, religion, politics and smoking habits to themselves. This is proof that similarity influences persuasion — the more we relate to others the more they will be persuaded, as it consequently leads to interest and interaction.

 2. Repetition: 

[…there's not a liberal America and a conservative America; there's the United States of America…There’s not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there's the United States of America.]

Repetition has been used as a persuasion technique for decades. The more familiar we are with something, the more we like it (Zajonc, 1968). Obama cleverly uses repetition to increase familiarity of the points he is trying to make, which consequently leads to liking and persuasion.

A study which demonstrates the use of repetition was created by Cacioppo and Petty (1989).  Participants were required to listen to an audiotape, either once or three times. Following this, participants filled out a questionnaire regarding the quality of the audiotape. The results revealed that message repetition can increase persuasion of a strong argument and decrease persuasion of a weak argument by enhancing argument analysis, as seen in Figure 1. This is evidence that repetition leads to liking, which in turn leads to greater social influence. We are often unaware that our opinion has been changed by repetition, making it a very powerful technique. Increase in scrutiny of Obama's speech due to repetition, therefore increased persuasion as it was a strong argument.

Figure 1: Average agreement level for strong argument (left charts) and weak argument (right charts) after 1 or 3 exposures.

3. Social proof: 

The speech was broadcast to approximately 9.1 million people.  Those who watched would have seen an arena full of people holding Obama banners. This would have acted as social proof to viewers that Obama is credible, due to the fact that he appears to have a lot of supporters. This then links to social norms, if other people are following Obama than we subconsciously think we should too. 

Bandura and Menlove (1968) conducted an experiment which demonstrates the power of social proof. Children who were afraid of dogs were able to reduce their fear by watching a clip of another child playing with a dog. Videos were just as effective as watching a live demonstration (Bandura, Grusec & Menlove, 1967).  Children's fear was most effectively lowered when the video clips demonstrated a variety of children playing with their dogs, as seen in Figure 2. Social proof therefore has the most impact when proof is depicted by many people, hence why Obama’s speech was so effective, as he had thousands of supporters present.

Figure 2: Median approach scores pre-test, post-test and follow up after viewing a single model interacting with a dog, multiple models interacting or control.  

Ten years on and Obama’s speech is still being talked about. Imagine if these persuasion tactics had not been used, Obama may not have been President and we may not have witnessed such an impressive man take control of such a powerful country.

References:

Bandura, A., Grusec, J. E., & Menlove, F. L. (1967). Vicarious extinction of avoidance behavior.   Journal of personality and social psychology, 5, 16.

Bandura, A., & Menlove, F. L. (1968). Factors determining vicarious extinction of avoidance behavior through symbolic modeling. Journal of personality and social psychology, 8, 99.

Cacioppo, J. T., & Petty, R. E. (1989). Effects of message repetition on argument processing, recall, and persuasion. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 10, 3-12.

Carnegie, D. (2010). How to win friends and influence people. Simon and Schuster.

Evans, F. B. (1963). Selling as a dyadic relationship-A new approach. The American Behavioral Scientist, 6, 76-79.

Zajonc, R. B. (1968). Attitudinal effects of mere exposure. Journal of personality and social psychology, 9, 1.

Emma Horton

How you can make more money pt1- tips

How you can make more money pt1- tips

Ok so here’s the situation. Two summers ago, I desperately needed money to afford rent for my student house, so I got a job at a local pub, occasionally working on the bar, but mainly waiting on tables. The pay wasn’t great, and after doing some calculations, I realised that even if I worked all summer, I’d still be around £1000 short of what I needed.

Could I have sold some of my stuff? Yes, but my stuff is cool, and I wanted to keep it. Could I have got a second job? Yes, but that would involve more work, and I’m not about that life. Could I use psychological research to subtly manipulate customers into giving me more money in tips? As a psychology student, it would have been wrong for me NOT to do this.

After reading a couple of papers, it became clear that the main finding is people tip more when they like the server. So how to get multiple tables of people to like you? Being attractive helps (Lynn & McCall, 2000), but there are more ways than having good bone structure and a symmetrical face to getting people to quickly like you, and thus give you more money.

I present to you 5 top tips for getting top tips

*disclaimer* You may think some of these tips are morally questionable, and I don’t disagree. But at this point in my life, money>morals was basically my motto.

Tip 1- Introduce yourself 

Telling the customer your name will make them like you more. You stop being “the waitress from Nandos” and start being “Helen”. This makes you appear more friendly and more likeable, which in turn makes the customer more likely to give you better tips. Also if you can find out the customer’s name (they’ll usually give it after you introduce yourself), then use it. People love it when you use their names, there’s a whole chapter on it in How to Win Friends and Influence People (well worth a read).

Tip 2- Find a way to compliment them

Who doesn’t love a compliment? It doesn’t even need to be sincere (Chan & Sengupta, 2010). Complimenting a customer’s coat, sports team, or even meal choice will land you in favour with them and make them like you more. Flattery literally does get you everywhere, because everyone out there is vain in some respect. (Spence, 2012). So throw in a compliment or two. Just don’t be creepy

Tip 3- Be relatable

Find some kind of common link, or, if you can’t find one, make one up (see disclaimer). It can be really trivial as well, such as the customer having the same name as your aunt, or your cousin going to the same university they went to, or your Grandad being from the part of the world as the customer (notice these relations are all slightly too far removed to warrant further questioning, you do not want to get caught lying). Of course honesty works best, because then you can have a genuine conversation on a topic of shared interest. And when you share something in common with someone else, you essentially form an in-group with that person. And people are more generous to people within their in-group (Tajfel, 1974)

Tip 4- Pretend to go the extra mile 

This is another one that is morally questionable, but it works. Essentially, just make things look like more effort than they really are. Don’t use this one all the time, only when opportunity strikes. If a customer makes a trivial request (I don’t want cheese on my pizza), hit them with the line “I’m not sure if we can do that, but I’ll see what I can do”. By saying that, you make it seem like you’re putting in extra effort, that you care about them and what they want. (Tjosvold, Johnson & Johnson, 1981) You will be liked more as a result, just by saying this simple line.

Tip 5- Give them a present 

How many times has a waiter or waitress given you a discount coupon, or a sweet, just before giving you the bill? That my friends, is the principle of reciprocation (Cialdini, 1987). This works on two levels. Firstly, it’s hard not to like someone who’s giving you a free present (have you ever met a Santa Claus hater?). Secondly, by giving the customer something, they feel inclined to give you something in return. The timing of the present (just before the bill is received) is vital, as customers are presented with an opportunity to reciprocate your kind gesture within minutes. By tipping you.

Thanks for reading!

References

Carnegie, D. (2010). How to win friends and influence people. Simon and Schuster.

Cialdini, R. B. (1987). Influence (Vol. 3). A. Michel.

Chan, E., & Sengupta, J. (2010). Insincere flattery actually works: A dual attitudes perspective. Journal of Marketing Research, 47, 122-133.

Lynn, M., & McCall, M. (2000). Gratitude and gratuity: a meta-analysis of research on the service-tipping relationship. The Journal of Socio-Economics, 29, 203-214.

Spence, D. (2012). Flattery will get you everywhere. BMJ, 345, e6346.

Tajfel, H. (1974). Social identity and intergroup behaviour. Social Science Information/sur les sciences sociales.

Tjosvold, D., Johnson, D. W., & Johnson, R. T. (1981). Effect of partner's effort and ability on liking for partner after failure on a cooperative task. The Journal of Psychology, 109,147-152.

The Perfect Presidential Stump Speech

This is from previous presidential speech writers and is an abstract, Orwellian in generality, speech that is compelling and yet entirely a cold read of the average electorate.   Click here to read it along with the speech writer's notes. 

How to Get Your Housemate to Do Your Washing-Up For You

Many of you will live with housemates. A lucky few of you will have housemates with whom it would feel cruel to practice your newly learned methods of persuasion on; those who already do your washing-up on a regular basis just because they're such sickeningly wonderful exemplars of the human species. 

Fortunately for me, my housemate is the type that's always busy doing important things with important people, with no time to spare doing unimportant things, such as washing-up, for unimportant people, such as myself. I knew this endeavour would be no easy feat. Putting the rule of reciprocity to it's greatest test yet, I attempted to get my housemate to do my washing-up for me. 

Not too many nights ago, my housemates and I had pre-drinks at ours with around 20 people from all our friendship circles. Needless to say, the kitchen/lounge was left a complete mess with bottles and cans littering every surface. The next morning, whilst my housemate slept and recovered from the night before, I took it upon myself to begin the first step in subjecting her to the social pressure that is reciprocation. 

I tidied and cleaned the entire kitchen/lounge before she woke up, angelically sitting bright eyed and beaming when she arose and came down for breakfast. My housemate was so thankful and stunned, little did she know the sense of future obligation had been planted. 

Dennis Regan (1971) practically demonstrated the rule of reciprocation in an experiment. In this study, a confederate, Joe, made participants eager to help him out in buying some raffle tickets as a result of his doing them a favour previously in buying them a bottle of Coke. This small favour led to the participants to feel as though they owed Joe, and this sense of obligation caused these subjects to buy twice as many raffle tickets as those subjects who did not receive the prior favour. 

With Joe as my inspiration, I proceeded to test the rule later the next day. Through tidying the lounge I had done the equivalent of buying my housemate a coke, a small gesture that would hopefully instil in her a sense of obligation to repay the favour in the future. With this in place, I went ahead and asked my housemate if she wouldn't mind doing my washing up for me whilst I ran a few errands. To my utter delight, with a smile she willingly agreed and my washing up was all done when I returned a few minutes later. 

Studies show that simply asking actually produces a higher level of consent than a lot of people realise (Clark & Hatfield, 1989). To really put the rule of reciprocity to the test, I should've asked my housemate straight out initially if she would do my washing up for me. Assuming she would deny this request (being the busy, important person she is and despite the social influence of asking), my pseudo experiment would have more weight to it, as it is more likely the rule of reciprocity was taking effect, rather than the confounding variable of simply asking. 

References

Cialdini, R.B. (2013) Influence: Pearson new international edition. 5th edn. Harlow: Pearson Education

Hills, T. (2014) ‘If You Want More Out of Life, Just Ask’, Psychology Today

Regan, D.T. (1971) ‘Effects of a favor and liking on compliance’, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 7(6), pp. 627–639