TWO SAMPLE ANSWERS FOR CIALDINI FROM PREVIOUS QUARTERS:

1."Click, Whir" effects appear to be universal, how could we render their effects nulled among humans?

The Click/whir effect describes the automatic response that people make: The click is the appropriate automatic thought and the whir refers to the automatic behavior. In order to prevent the click/whir effect the individual should slow down, listen to the message, then think about the "appropriate" response before taking action. However, it would require too much time and energy on behalf of an individual to think about every response, so it is not really possible to totally eliminate click/whir effects.

2. What aspects of human behavior might we classify as "mimic"- such as we find in the animal kingdom?

Mimic-behavior describes the use of a "fake" stimulus that resembles a "real" stimulus which ultimately triggers the behavior desired by the deceiver. For example, in the animal kingdom, the mother turkey will react to the sound of a recorded "cheep cheep" noise (fake stimulus) as though the recordings represented a real chicks (real stimulus). An example of a mimic-behavior in a human is when "we ask a person to do us a favor we will be more successful if we provide a reason" (Cialdini, 1993, p. 4). If our request is accompanied by a reason, then the request will usually trigger an automatic response even when the reason is not a "real" reason. The fake reason given by the deceiver is successful in triggering the desired response from the unaware person (click/whir).