Thursday, October 17, 2013

Compliance Strategies

This essay will look at examples of compliance strategies which will then be discussed to see what extent they relate to the relevant compliance theory. As someone who ran a door-to-door business, I have used many compliance strategies in a various ways: recruitment, opening-pitch, closing the sale, and training. However, in this essay I will focus on my experience from knocking on a door until I have closed the deal. In this pitch there are a variety of compliance strategies that I will point out, however, the main focus that will be related back to compliance theory will be the examples of ‘foot-in the-door’ and ‘door-in-the-face’.

I worked for the charities sector of Cobra, essentially I would sell charity. The job was 100% commission. A sign-up of £5 per month would earn me £5; however, a sign-up of £6.50 would earn me double - £10. The commission continued to rise compared to sign-up but since remaining signed up for at least 3 months was a condition for us to get paid we aimed for the magic number £6.50. Here are the techniques I used to achieve this.

When the door opens there tended to be someone there who was not too impressed to see a guy in a suit selling something. So first thing you have to do whilst wearing a genuine smile and maintaining eye-contact is greet them and wait for a response. This is part foot-in-the-door; engaging them in conversation vastly reduces the likelihood of the door being slammed in your face. Second, you are setting them up for your ice-breaker because almost everyone will ask:

 ‘What are you selling?’ This is where you laugh while saying:

 ‘Don’t worry! I’m not as bad as I look….. I promise you, I’m not selling anything!’

Technically this is true but it is an example of low-balling because I’m giving the impression that I don’t want anything from them when actually I want them to commit to a long-term direct debit.

Next comes the classic foot-in-the-door technique, however, for us it was called ‘card-in-the-hand’. The card was just a laminated A4 brightly coloured information card with the charity logo and some pictures, but getting it in the customers hand was highlighted as the most crucial aspect of the pitch. The reason why this card is given is not to give the person information; actually, you don’t want them to have more than a glance at it. If they are looking at the card that means they are not looking at you. If they are actually reading the card; not only are they not looking at you, they aren’t listening either. The reason the card is placed in their hand is so they cannot shut the door without giving you it back.

In this situation, the card is the foot. It serves as a physical barrier stopping the door being shut. Furthermore, by placing it in their hand a small request has been agreed to; your request that they hold your card. In theory by complying with this small request, they are more likely to agree to a larger one. Freedman and Fraser (1966) investigated this phenomenon by contacting suburban housewives in their homes first with a small request and later with a larger more consequential request. They found that subjects who had complied with the trivial request were much more likely to comply with the larger one two weeks later. From my own experience, this is true; if the person does not take the card, there is no chance of a sale and most often your pitch will be interrupted and door abruptly closed. Whereas, in most instances where someone takes the card; they will at least hear you out. The small request of ‘hold this’ facilitates the larger request of ‘listen to me for a few minutes’ in this instance, and in combination with the various other compliance strategies may even lead to a sale. 

Freedman and Fraser believed that happened because people perceive their own compliance with the initial task and rationalise that they are the type of person ‘who does that sort of thing’ (p.201) which may result in an attitude change. Daryl Bem (1972) described individuals coming to know their own attitudes, emotions and internal states by inferring them from observations of their own behaviour and circumstances in which they occur. He states that when the individual’s internal cues are weak, ambiguous, or confused; they are in the same position as the outside observer. He called this the ‘self-perception theory’.

So far we have covered the ‘introduction’, where you establish a conversational tone and break the ice and the ‘presentation’ where you get the card in their hand. Now begins the ‘short story’ which is filled with compliance strategies.

‘I’ve just been running round letting all your neighbours know about a big-fundraiser that kicks off in a month for these kids (point to pictures on card). Have you heard about it?’ 

This one in sales is called ‘keeping-up-with –the-Joneses’; where you speak about all the neighbours getting involved.

Next tell them a little about what the charity does but finish the short-story with:

‘…but to keep up all these local projects up and running, we need raise £50,000 from this community fundraiser….Have you got a few grand you can help us out with?’

This is the ‘door-in-the-face’ technique and can actually have that effect. I have been reported as a con-man a few times because I got to this stage of the pitch before having my card thrown at me and the door slammed in my face. However, the more common response is laughter at such a ridiculous request.  

‘No? You sure you don’t have a few grand in your back pocket? Hahaha….
Funnily enough, your neighbours couldn't spare that much either… 
But since we want to keep these projects running for as long as we can, they felt that they could spare a couple of quid a week and keep it going for as long as possible… 
I take it like everyone else that’s ok with you?’

Door-in-the-face can be understood through the theories of ‘perceptual contrast’ and ‘reciprocal concession’. The contrast effect is a psychological phenomenon that has been shown in countless situations. Dating as far back as John Locke (1690) who noted that lukewarm water felt hot or cold depending whether the hand was previously exposed to cold or hot water. Cialdini (1985) states that if we see two related things in sequence that are in some way different, we tend to see the second as being more different from the first than it actually is. Compared to thousands of pounds, £2 seems like nothing.

Cialdini claims that we are socialised to feel uncomfortable if someone has given us a gift or done us a favour that we have not returned. In this instance, a concession was made. The smaller figure does not sound like that much money when compared with the larger sum on the table a moment before. In addition, the person may feel that by accepting a lower number they “owe” you and make the small donation wanted all along.


References

Bem, D.J. (1972) Self-Perception Theory. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 4, 1-62

Freedman, J.L. and Fraser, S.C. (1966) Compliance without pressure: The foot-in-the-door technique. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 4, 195-202


Locke, J. (1690/1964). An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Fontana Library, London, (5th ed). A. D. Woozley (ed.), Abridged

Effect of violent song lyrics.

This essay will investigate the paper Exposure to Violent Media: The Effects of Songs with Violent Lyrics on Aggressive Thoughts and Feelings (Anderson, Carnagey and Eubanks, 2003). The paper claims a strong link between violent lyrics and subsequent aggression; this essay will examine the claim. We will begin with a general definition of aggression before looking at how it was operationally defined in the study. Next will be a look at the papers findings. Finally, with the help of other relevant articles the findings will be critically examined.

Aggression is an ambiguous term; in sport and business aggression can be synonymous with relentless competitiveness. In psychology, we describe this as ‘instrumental’ aggression; proactive rather than reactive means of attaining some goal other than hurting the target (Anderson & Carnagey, 2004). ‘Hostile’ aggression on the other hand, is defined by Anderson and Bushman (2002) as any conduct directed at another individual with the immediate intention to cause harm. Furthermore, they note that the perpetrator must believe that they will cause harm and motivate the target to avoid the behaviour. It is this ‘hostile’ aggression that is of interest to the researchers of the article. The authors use the General Aggression Model (GAM) developed by Anderson and Bushman (2002). This model states that any aggressive behaviour can be categorised according to four dimensions: degree of hostile or agitated affect present; automaticity; degree to which the goal is to harm the victim versus benefit the perpetrator; and degree to which consequences are considered. At the fundamental level, GAM focuses on how aggression develops within an on-going social interaction. At this level the model highlights three main issues: person and situation inputs, present internal state (i.e., cognition, arousal, affect), and outcomes of appraisal and decision-making processes (DeWall and Anderson, 2009).

In their article, Anderson et al (2003) concluded that violent content can increase feelings of hostility when compared with similar but non-violent rock music. In the first experiment they took two songs by the same artist and of the same genre; one with explicitly violent lyrics and the other with no or minimal violent lyrics. Afterwards, they had participants complete the State Hostility Scale (SHS); which contains statements describing current feelings which had to be rated. However, the respondents’ results for the statement ‘I feel wilful’ were dropped from the final result because it showed a low item-total correlation.

The second experiment was designed to measure aggressive cognition. It was identical to the first experiment but instead of filling out a SHS the participants were asked to rate out-of-7 how similar word pairs were. They consisted of aggressive-aggressive; aggressive-ambiguous; and ambiguous-ambiguous word pairs. The researchers hypothesised that if violent lyrics increased the accessibility of aggressive thoughts in the semantic memory then the aggressive-ambiguous word pairs would score significantly higher than with the non-violent lyrics. Their results supported their hypothesis; there was half a point difference from the control pairs.

The third experiment took into consideration trait hostility. First, they had the participants complete a modified version of the Caprara Irritability Scale; excluding those who scored at the top and bottom ends of the scale. The recalled participants were to read aloud aggressive and non-aggressive words on a computer screen which had a programme measuring their reaction time for each word. They also had to complete a SHS and two other questionnaires measuring arousal and if the participants understood the lyrics. Significantly, the researchers found that task order was important. Those who filled out the SHS immediately after listening to the songs backed up the results from the first two experiments. However, when combined with the participants who completed one of the other tasks first the results showed no significant difference from the control. This infers that the effects of the songs are only in the short term and can be interrupted by other activities.

A clear flaw in the research is that the researchers set-out to measure ‘hostile’ aggression which in its definition explicitly states that the perpetrator must believe that they will cause harm to a target. Therefore, measuring ‘hostile’ aggression from aggressive cognition and affect inferred from participants response to aggressive words or ‘I feel’ statements seems rather ridiculous; there is clearly no victim involved. However, it is clear that conducting a true test of ‘hostile’ aggression by measuring the subsequent aggressive behaviour towards a target would be difficult to attain ethically.

In conclusion, we can see that the researchers found that listening to music with violent lyrics is likely to prime aggressive words in the word completion test, aggressive associates in the ambiguous word test, and lead to a higher score on the SHS. However, evidence of priming is not sufficient to conclude that violent lyrics make someone more aggressive. As shown in the third experiment, the effect on hostility of listening to violent songs ‘can be disrupted fairly easily by intervening activities’ (Anderson et al, 2003 p966)

The real world has a broad mixture of words and ideas; as a result, individuals contextualise aggression (Savage & Yancey, 2008) that may arise from listening to music with violent lyrics. Rather than contradict the catharsis theory, the authors may have actually shown evidence of how the catharsis theory works; through the contextualising and calming down that comes soon after the initial peak of aggressive thoughts and feelings arising from listening to violent songs. Of course, this is speculation and more research in this direction would be required. As to the extent that violent lyrics make someone more aggressive; the evidence suggests that violent songs can prime aggressive thoughts and feeling in the immediacy after listening to the song but these effects are easily disrupted. Nevertheless, it seems apparent that if someone lacked the ability to contextualise this arising aggression through some internal defect, from living in an overtly aggressive environment or perhaps even partaking in an aggressive event (Felson, 1996); the escalating effect of the violent music may in these instances be significant in the longer term, but again, this is speculation and more research is needed.
   
Words - 998
  
References


Anderson, C.A, & Bushman, B.J. (2002). Human aggression. Annual Review of Psychology, 53, 27-51.

Anderson, C.A. & Carnagey, N.L. (2004). Violent evil and the general aggression model. In A. Miller (Ed.), The social psychology of good and evil (pp. 168-192). New York: Guilford Press.

Anderson, C. A., Carnagey, N. L., & Eubanks, J. (2003). Exposure to violent media: The effects of songs with violent lyrics on aggressive thoughts and feelings. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 960-971.

DeWall, N.C. and Anderson, C.A. (2009) ‘The General Aggression Model. In M. Mikulincer & P. R. Shaver (Eds.) Understanding and reducing aggression, violence, and their consequences. Washington, DC, US: American Psychological Association.

Felson.  R.B. (1996).  "Mass Media Effects on Violent Behavior."  Annual Review of Sociology Volume 22: 103-128


Savage, J. & Yancey, C. (2008) ‘The Effects of Media Violence Exposure On Criminal Aggression: A Meta-Analysis’, Criminal Justice and Behavior; 35; 772

Social construction of society, space and place.

In this essay I will be looking at how the theory of social constructivism requires us to rethink the ways in which we make use of the spaces and places around us. I will illustrate this by looking at two themes which are closely related, Globalisation and the global food supply. Before discussing the two examples I will first investigate the term ‘social constructivism’. To explore this subject I have drawn material from documentaries, particularly the BBC’s new ‘Human Planet’ series from journals covering economics, sociology and geography; text-books and news sources  - the BBC and the Guardian.

Social constructivism emphasizes the importance of culture and context in understanding what occurs in society and constructing knowledge based on this understanding. This perspective is closely associated with many contemporary theories, most notably the developmental theories of Vygotsky (Kim, 2001).

Fundamental to Vygotsky’s theoretical system is the central role of the social environment in learning. Students are believed to be acculturated into their learning community and appropriate knowledge, based on their existent understanding, through their interaction with the immediate learning environment. Learning is thus considered to be a largely situation-specific and context-bound activity (Woolfolk, 2001).

The implications of this theory have been far reaching particular because we can now critically look at the spaces and places around us noting how they have been physically and socially constructed and think how they could be reconstructed to resolve any associated problems. To illustrate this I will now look at the example of globalisation.

Globalisation can usefully be conceived as processes which represent a transformation in the spatial organisation of social relations and trades, interaction, creating flows and networks of activity and power. It can be thought of as the widening, escalating, speeding up, and growing impact of global interconnectedness (Held, McGrew, Goldblatt, and Perraton, 1999).

Although globalisation can refer to an increase in international collaboration through organisations such as the United Nations and the European Union, it usually describes the world-wide growth of market capitalism in the early 1990’s. In Milton Friedman’s view, the more you let market forces rule and the more you open the economy up to free trade and competition, the more efficient and thriving your economy will be. Globalisation means the spread of free-market capitalism to practically every country in the world. Therefore, it also has its own set of economic rules — rules that are concerned with opening, deregulating and privatising one’s economy, in order to make it more attractive to foreign investment (1999). This resulted from international agreements reducing the barrier to trade and capital flow, the development of information technology, and, with the collapse of the USSR, the apparent elimination of any practical alternative to corporate capitalism (Heertz, 2001). The result was a global search for natural resources, markets, cheap labour and production costs, and, leading to a swift industrialisation of Third World countries and the global spread of technology (Honderich, 2005)

Supporters such as Joseph Stiglitz (2002), argue that opening up to international trade has helped many countries grow far more quickly than they would have otherwise as a direct result of stimulated economic growth and increased wealth. He points out that many people in the world now live longer than before and their standard of living is far better because globalisation has reduced the cost of living and made available a greater variety of goods to consumers.

Additionally, globalisation has brought the world together and reduced the sense of isolation felt in much of the developing world by giving people in the developing countries access to knowledge well beyond the reach of even the wealthiest in any country  a hundred years ago. Ironically, values such as self-interest and greed have come to be seen as promoting social good because they have been the main catalysts driving these changes; corporations are now considered important instruments for international development (Held et al, 1999). Corporate success has given enormous economic and military power to the industrialised West, the United States in particular (Honderich, 2005).

Despite this rosy view of apparent prosperity, it seems that every year there is a new appeal to help a nation experiencing famine, charity adverts quoting old proverbs like “Give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day, give a man a fishing pole and he can continue to feed his family forever” convey the message that the problem is that the region experiencing the famine does not have enough food; that the solution to the famine is infrastructure and tools to create more food. But is this really the case?

The World Bank advises these countries to shift from ‘food first’ to ‘export first’ policies, consequently, these Third World countries compete with each other leading to collapse in prices. Trade liberation and economic reform also include devaluation of currencies. Thus exports earn less, and imports cost more (Vidal, 2011). Since the Third World is being told to stop growing food and instead to buy food in international markets by exporting cash crops, the process of globalisation leads to a situation where agricultural societies in the southern hemisphere become increasingly dependent  on food imports, but do not have the foreign exchange to pay for imported food (Shiva, 2000).

For non-industrial countries economic globalisation has brought imports that undercut prices for locally produced goods; this in turn has forced workers to move to urban centres for jobs. These are often available only in harsh sweatshop working conditions for very low pay with long hours, and without union representation (Heertz, 2001).  Whereas salaries for management and technically trained professionals have greatly increased, pay for untrained labour has declined sharply. These changes have increased the gap between the rich and the poor (Honderich, 2005)

Vandana Shiva (2000) argues that the global food supply has been hijacked and is in just a few hands. Only six corporations control 90 per cent of the exports of grain from the US, Canada, Europe, Argentina and Australia; two, Cargill and Continental, each control 25 per cent. The world soybean crop is in the same hands. A few companies now control the world seed industry, a few others major sections of marine and aquaculture fisheries. The consequences are not beneficial to producers or consumers, says Shiva, but only to shareholders. The apparent benefits of cheaper food in the northern hemisphere, standardised production and the availability of previously seasonal and luxury products are outweighed by the calamitous destruction of communities, industries, habitats and groundwater supplies in the South.

Although underdeveloped countries can qualify for loans from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, usually they must agree to trade deregulation, privatisation of state industry, reductions in public welfare, limited government, and fewer environmental restrictions and protections for workers’ rights – restricting the authority of borrowing countries in these areas (Held and McGrew, 2002).. The World Trade Organisation, which oversees economic globalisation, can require compensation from member nations, including wealthy ones, for loss of profit due to laws protecting the environment or health for example, thus further eroding local democratic control (Honderich, 2005).

Because of these negative consequences of capitalist globalisation, the word itself has been appropriated to the extent that whole groups of people object to something that is quite fundamental to their beliefs. The term has been seized by the powerful to refer to this specific form of international economic integration. Consequently, supporters of other forms of globalisation are described as ‘anti-globalisation’; and many of the left and the workers movements, accept this term. Movements which were built on the principle of international solidarity, globalisation in a form that attends to the rights of people, not private power system (Chomsky, 2002)

Agriculture remains central to the economy of many countries, including the US, Canada and Australia but, more importantly, to the so-called developing countries. All are affected by increasing globalisation and its attendant rules and restrictions on production and trade. However, if the welfare and social fabric of many millions of rural people, who are already amongst the poorest in their societies, are to be undermined by external and largely unaccountable corporate organisations, the world should be prepared for tragic consequences (Vidal, 2011). Perhaps the charity advertisement should say “Give a man a fish, because soon the corporation that exploits him will rape every piece of goodness from the soil in the pursuit of profit leaving a poisoned wasteland for his family to starve to death on before they move on to taking advantage of the next guy”

So in reality, current food shortages and famine happen not from lack of production but from the globalised corporate capitalist method of distribution. So we have seen that with both the topic of globalisation and global food supply, corporate capitalism is heavily featured in discussion of the flaws and structured inequalities. They have been socially constructed through the eyes of capitalism but this is not the only form that globalisation can take. Globalisation as Chomsky pointed out may be in a form that attends to the rights of the people. Globalisation can be socially constructed to favour any values we as a society choose. Social constructivists argue that the facts do not speak for themselves; that scientific observations are not independent from social influences and preconceptions; that the truth value of scientific statements is not determined by the degree to which they correspond to a world external to them (Demeritt, 1996).

This brings us back to the question of how we can rethink the ways we make use of the spaces and places around us. As we have seen, there are many great advantages to globalisation and many of those who object to ‘globalisation’ are actually against the particular capitalist model and not the idea of international solidarity or a fair global distribution of food. Stiglitz sums up the globalisation conflict when he writes, "Globalisation itself is neither good nor bad. It has the power to do enormous good. But in much of the world it has not brought comparable benefits. For many, it seems closer to an unmitigated disaster” (Stiglitz, 2002, p20) 

As city-dwellers in the UK we don’t have to look far to see the effects of corporate globalisation, from the keyboard I’m typing on that was shipped in from China to the constant war with corporate pop-up ads on my screen; From the trainers I’m wearing sewn together in India to the beef that I had for dinner all the way from Argentina. But how can we rethink how globalisation and the food supply are constructed?

To achieve this seems easy but has proved difficult to implement; we simply have to readjust our values and place fairness above greed. If we socially construct fairer and sustainable methods for producing and distributing food and produce then we avert the road to the Malthusian disaster that we are on.

The first call must be to ensuring local supplies are prioritised for local people and only when there is excess can it be used in international trade or to be more efficient, supply the nearest cities that are incapable of self-sufficiency. This would ensure that the ‘carbon footprint’ of each commodity is kept as low as possible.

Combined with prioritising the locals, there would have to be the re-diversifying of the produce grown/created. Along with ensuring a range of products with a low ‘carbon footprint’ this will stop the practice of mono-cropping - where a single variety of a specific crop is used repeatedly over a wide area – which is known to be harmful to soil quality over time.

Sufficient amounts of staple foods should be produced to ensure that prices are kept down. However, this may present a catch-22 because what is to stop the population of the world continuing on its present exponential rate of growth to some point in the future where food production does peak with several converging problems such as depletion of global fish stocks and environmental degradation from pollution and over-farming, forcing an inevitable boom in food prices leading to mass worldwide starvation on an unimaginable scale. However, with an ethos of fair distribution of food combined with human ingenuity who can predict the population capacity of future generations after all ‘necessity is the mother of invention’.

However, a move towards a sustainable existence relying solely on renewable sources for all our products is the ideal goal for a globalised world. It would mean that even if we can’t find some way of plateauing the population growth. Our imposing numbers have the least detrimental effect on the earth and future generations that rely on it. 

For a sustainable existence I think that we will have to find some other way of filling our time than needless consumerism. For this we may have to redesign our town centres which are currently just sprawling shopping centres. There is currently an ambitious project being built in Abu Dahbi – the first carbon neutral city. Featured on the ‘Cities’ Episode of ‘the Human Planet’ (BBC, 2011) The genius of the city of Masdar will be combining 21st Century engineering with traditional desert architecture to deliver ecologically friendly comfort. The architects are turning the desert's greatest threat into their greatest advantage – the sun. They are building the largest solar farm in the Middle East to power the city.  

The UAE has seen building booms only made bearable by air conditioners, which use a lot of oil-guzzling energy. But Masdar will have to be low temperature and low carbon. Part of the solution is the city wall. Unlike the upward and outward sprawl of Dubai or Abu Dhabi, Masdar is compact like ancient Arab cities. Streets are narrow so buildings shade each other, and the walls and roofs of buildings will do their bit to shed heat too. The vertical faces are dressed with screens which keep the sun out but let the breeze in. And as architect Gerard Evenden says: "Lunar technology has begun to influence our thinking." (bbc.co.uk)

These are not the only innovations for this future-proof city but it serves as an example of how awareness of dangers posed to future generations allows for an entire new city to be purpose built with a social construct towards sustainability. Obviously we cannot rebuild and redesign existing towns and cities around the world on the same scale that is being tried in Abu Dahbi but with enough people trying new ways to achieve a sustainable living hopefully we can find out what works and methods to practically redesign our existing spaces and places.

Words – 2376

References

BBC NEWS (2011) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8586046.stm - accessed 10/03/2011
Chomsky, N. (2002). The Croatian Feral Tribune 27 April 2002 ZMAG.org  accessed 07 March

Demeritt, D. (1996) Social Theory and the Reconstruction of Science and Geography, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, New Series, Vol. 21, No. 3,pp. 484-503: Blackwell Publishing Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/622593. Accessed: 10/03/2011

Friedman, T. (1999) The Lexus and the Olive Tree, New York: Anchor Books.

Heertz, N. (2001) The Silent Takeover. Global Capitalism and the Death
of Democracy, Heinemann, London

Held, D. and McGrew, A.. (2002) Globalization/anti-globalization, Cambridge: Polity.

Vidal, J. (2011) Food speculation: 'People die from hunger while banks make a killing on food, 23 January 2011. The Observer

Held, D., McGrew, A., Goldblatt, D.  and Perraton, J. (1999) Global Transformations: Politics, Economics and Culture, Polity: Cambridge.

Human Planet (2011) BBC,  Episode 8: Thursday 3 March 2011: Cities.

Kim, B. (2001). Social Constructivism.. In M. Orey (Ed.), Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology. Stable URL:http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/ Accessed: 10/03/2011

Nanda, M. (1997) ‘Restoring the Real: Rethinking Social Constructivist Theories of Science’. In Panitch, L. The Socialist Register – Ruthless Criticism of All that Exists. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1997.

Stiglitz, J.E. (2002) Globalization and its Discontents, New York: W.W. Norton and Company.

Woolfolk, A. (2001). Educational Psychology (8th ed.). Allyn and Bacon.