"Don't be Stupid, This is the Shoot Out"

This is a clip from In Bruges, a film with so much swearing it might make your ears bleed. This is the story of psychopathic crime lord Harry (Ralph Fiennes) who sends two of his hit men, Ray (Colin Farrell) and Ken (Brendan Gleeson) to Bruges to lay low after a hit gone wrong. After a series of events, Harry decides that the only way to rectify the situation is to eliminate Ray and finds him at the hotel he is staying in, hence we find ourselves in the situation in this clip.

Harry and Ray are negotiating the circumstances of their shoot out. Marie, the landlady of the hotel, suggests they both put their guns down and walk away; this is laughed away as that scenario is way out of the Zone of Possible Agreement (ZOPA), the zone which contains the deals in which both parties will be happy to make, and in this case neither Harry or Ray are willing to put their guns down. 

So Ray proposes an idea. He suggests that he jump out of his bedroom window, into the neighbouring canal, giving Harry ample time and space to shoot at him from there. What Ray isn’t negotiating for is his life, as he knows walking away from the situation without the shootout is impossible, as this is below Harry’s Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement (BATNA). He’s done his research, he knows Harry is crazy and is not leaving without killing at least one person today. 

Instead, Ray is negotiating for what he values: the life of the landlady. Ray makes a concession for Harry in the form of allowing the shootout to take place, and in return he asks for Harry to leave the landlady alone. The Door in the Face technique is a prime example of using concessions as a way to get people to say yes; you start off with a big request which is likely to be rejected, and then follow this with a smaller request which seems a lot better in comparison to the previous request, hence people are more likely to say yes (Cialdini et al., 1975).

Harry accepts this request, under the conditions that Ray actually fulfils his side of the bargain and allows a fair fight (I’ll leave it up to you to find out if he does!) 

So, in a rather strange manor, each person is happy with the end result of the negotiation, and the shoot out takes place in true action film style!

Reference

Cialdini, R. B., Vincent, J. E., Lewis, S. K., Catalan, J., Wheeler, D., & Darby, B. L. (1975). Reciprocal concessions procedure for inducing compliance: The door in the face technique. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 31, 206 - 215

Sarah Briscoe - Blog 5

Claim Your Humanity

Just before the film ‘Fight Club’ starts on the dvd there is a very brief message from the character Tyler Durden. This appears for only a few frames after the copyright warning and in it, ‘Tyler’ attempts to persuade the viewer to really ‘live’ and not become complacent. His warning starts with a lot of rhetorical questions, taunting the viewer. It has been shown that rhetorical questions motivate more intensive processing of message content, and this increased concentration on the message increases it’s persuasiveness (Burnkrant & Howard, 1984). Furthermore the taunting of the viewer actually increases the persuasiveness even more through a technique called Jeer Pressure (Steele, 1975). Tyler telling us how we are wasting our lives and how pathetic we are increases our receptiveness to his message, and for the final blow Tyler himself (played by Brad Pitt) is a good looking guy and we are more likely to comply with attractive people, for example Chaiken found attractive people make better attitude change agents. There are many levels of irony involved in me analysing this message and then you reading about it, but it’s fine because no one reads these. So after reading these words you’ve wasted more seconds of your life and have been told what to think even more. So maybe you should start a fight. Claim your humanity. Yeah. Burnkrant, R. E., & Howard, D. J. (1984). Effects of the use of introductory rhetorical questions versus statements on information processing. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 47(6), 1218. Chaiken, S. (1979). Communicator physical attractiveness and persuasion. Journal of Personality and social Psychology, 37(8), 1387. Steele, C. M. (1975). Name-calling and compliance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 31(2), 361.

Toby Watson

Hitch - Love Consultant

Clip rolls, our beautiful Sara (Eva Mendez) is sipping on a Grey Goose Martini on her own, on what seems like an uneventful evening. In comes Chip, late-20s, white, 6-foot tall and confident, offering to replace Sara's empty glass with another drink (cue reciprocity as seen in Regan, 1971). She doesn't respond the way he would've liked, and proceeds to complement her on her eyes, hoping it will draw her to like him more (Pratkanis & Abbot, 2004). All this time however, Sarah has been an active agent in this tug-of-war, though passive she may appear. Up until this point she's been avoiding an escalation, but finally cuts to the chase and says she's not interested. He takes the hint, but instead of backing away, he goes with the change and escalates it even further by asking difficult questions. This effectively turns the conversation into a confrontation, and kills off any ambiguity and slight hope that was left for him to make a good impression.


A typical modern-day damsel in distress situation, enters Hitch (Will Smith) with a great timing, confidence and good looks, successfully fends off Chip who is starting to annoy our damsel. Sara, feeling relieved about not having to deal with Chip anymore, has owed Hitch a favor. However, for a smart woman like her, it's not difficult to deduce that the next guy could have just the same 'agenda' as the previous, and defend herself from another wave of reciprocity. Wasting no time at all, Hitch doesn't allow time for her to reflect on it, and lets reciprocity take effect by swiftly removing the drink that Chip had brought --> sitting down next to her --> getting her name and where she works. This, as you can see, is a clear Foot in the door technique (Freedman & Fraser, 1966; Taylor & Booth-Butterfield, 1993): closing in gradually and driving the conversation to more and more personal questions. Notice that they weren't explicit requests apart from the last one, but taking the liberty of removing without asking, and closing in on her personal space all ended with her silent approval.


Hitch goes on with plenty of wit and humor (King, 1988). Then without any notice the spectacle ended abruptly with him walking away just as she was beginning to be intrigued, effectively delaying the fulfillment of her recently acquired interest in this stranger. All of a sudden he became more attractive and valuable as he was leaving her sight and not available any more (Cialdini, 2007). A slightly confusing ending for the short clip, but if you've seen the movie, you'll know that he's just cleverly laying the ground work for a second approach!


Not to forget, the little gift at the end was another beautifully shameless attempt at reciprocity.



Qi Peng Wang


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References:

• Cialdini, R. B. (2007). Influence: The psychology of persuasion. S.l.: Collins. 
• Freedman, J. L., & Fraser, S. C. (1966). Compliance without pressure: the foot-in-the-door technique. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 4(2), 195. 
• King, K. N. (1988). "But I'm not a funny person": Humor in dispute resolution. Negotiation Journal, 4, 119-124. 
• Pratkanis, A. R., & Abbott, C.J. (2004). Flattery and compliance with a direct request: Towards a theory of toady influence. Unpublished manuscript, University of California, Santa Cruz 
• Regan, D. T. (1971). Effects of a favor on liking and compliance. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 7, 627-639

A Persuasive Video for Youth & Young Adult Suicide Prevention

Jessica Brett
Sophie Housden
Kimberley Brett

Canada on Strike

Canada goes on strike

It's Canada Appreciation Day in South Park. South Park doesn't appear to appreciate Canada. This is the pretext of Canadian President Abootman's imposed strike. I'm not kidding.

Nevertheless, this is South Park, and somehow this strike gets the attention of all the world leaders. When asked what they want, the reply is simple and abrasive: "more money".

I can tell you now, the negotiation is already lost.

Mr. Abootman is angry. His mood has already robbed him of an optimal negotiation;  as Druckman and Olekalns (2008) demonstrated that calm negotiators perform significantly better than emotional negotiators. Furthermore, Abootman has provided his negotiating partners with both critical and debilitating information: he has no concept of value in this negotiation, illustrated by the vagueness of his request, and he doesn't appear to be aware of his Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement (BATNA), as his strike was both impulsive and uninformed.

Nevertheless, Abootman's partners calmly explain that Canada does indeed deserve recompense. By employing the persuasive technique of rapport building (Drolet & Morris, 2000), elicited by showing sympathy and agreement to Abootman's cause, they open up the negotiation by showing a willingness to cooperate. In doing this, they expose the Zero Sum Fallacy, which contends that the are no winners in a negotiation. By cooperating, they create an atmosphere of mutual benefit in working towards the same goal and thus implying that both parties can win.

Abootman, however, shuts this lucrative atmosphere down, in storming out when declined his initial 
request. In doing this, Abootman denies the negotiation of a Zone of Proximal Agreement, the zone in which the two parties can agree upon. Abootman's alternative, however, proves costly. The strike continues, and Canada loses millions of dollars from it. Suddenly, Abootman's options are narrowed, and he becomes pressured by the starving Canadians. Time is now a pressure, and it's been empirically shown to negatively impact decision making (Benton et al, 1972). 

"We want more money!". President Abootman is a prime example of a poor negotiator

Eventually, a telephone call arrives from the World Leaders, who are convinced by a schoolboy, Kyle, to offer Canada thousands of gum balls and Bennigan's vouchers. What happens? You've guessed it; Abootman accepts. He has allowed frequency, demonstrated by the ludicrous number of gum balls offered, take precedence over quality (that being none) of the offer (Alba, & Marmorstein, 1987). This is an example of peripheral, heuristic decision making, which entails making decisions based on aesthetic cues such as size, number and appearance (Chaiken, 1987). During negotiation, Abootman should have employed System II thinking (Kahneman, 2011); evaluating the true monetary value of the offer, compared it to possible alternatives, and calculated the cost of the strike to determine whether the offer leaves him better off. Indeed,  two Canadians later point out that the gum balls and vouchers amounted to $3,008, while the strike cost Canada $10.4m! 

As is normal Canadian convention, the President and his are banished by the public on an ice slab 

President Abootman is a prime example of a poor negotiator. He made no attempt to research his own or his partners' values or BATNAs, he did not provide an ideal setting for negotiation, and later accepted an offer that didn't even satisfy the one value he established!

Perhaps Abootman should look to France for successful striking tips in future...


References
Alba, J. W., & Marmorstein, H. (1987). The effects of frequency knowledge on consumer decision making.    Journal of Consumer Research, 14-25.

Benton, A. A., Kelley, H. H., Liebling, B. (1972). Effects of extremity of offers and concession rate on the      outcomes of bargaining. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 24, 73-83.

Chaiken, S., & Stangor, C. (1987). Attitudes and attitude change. Annual review of Psychology, 38, 575-    630.

Drolet, A. L., & Morris, M. W. (2000). Rapport in conflict resolution: Accounting for how face-to-face           contact fosters mutual cooperation in mixed-motive conflicts. Journal of Experimental Social                     Psychology, 36, 26-50.

Druckman, D., & Olekalns, M. (2008). Emotions in Negotiations, Group Decision and Negotiation. 17,1-    11.

Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. Macmillan.




Laura Cunniffe (Blog 5)

Cultural differences in giving bargains

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OO_Fc-OT1Pg

Apart from Russell Peters racist comments, his humor is an accurate portrayal of various cultures. This video highlights the fact that Indians cannot live without a bargain and Chinese don’t like to give a bargain. This was highlighted when Russell asked for a reduction in price for a bag that cost $35, sold by a Chinese man. This process involved two main negotiation techniques, which in the end didn’t even yield a successful buy.

The first technique used, involved a higher authority. When Russell asked the Chinese man to reduce the price he responded by saying he will confront his wife first. This is used as a delaying tactic, and gives the buyer an impression that they can’t talk to the real decision maker. As a result, the buyer feels pressured to negotiate at a price with the seller to avoid the delay and unpredictability of the situation (Schatzki, 2004).

The second technique used was knowing your best alternatives to the negotiated agreement (BATNA). In this case, when Russell asked for a further reduction in the discounted price the chinese man indicated that he was providing the best deal for the bag compared to alternatives. However Russell didn’t know the price of his alternatives so he was pressured to give into the price. According to Brett, Pinkley and Jackofsky ( 1996),  negotiators with BATNA have higher individual outcomes than those who don’t. Therefore in this case Russell didn’t know his BATNA and therefore was more unable to get what he wanted when negotiating.

In conclusion, by using the authoritative figure the buyer felt like he was in a weaker position which can make the buyer give into the seller more. Secondly knowing their BATNA would put the buyer in a stronger position to bargain as they know what they are competing against.

REFERENCES

Schatzki, Michael. (2004). Managing the Sales Negotiation Process. The Negotiator Magazine.

Brett, J. F., Pinkley, R. L., & Jackofsky, E. F. (1996). Alternatives to having a BATNA in dyadic negotiation: The influence of goals, self-efficacy, and alternatives on negotiated outcomes. International Journal of Conflict Management, 7(2), 121-138.