How to Coach Yourself and Others How to Influence, Persuade and Motivate | страница 197

Procedures, customs, and traditions are often specifically established for
the purposes of creating psychological commitment. Consider fraternity
initiations, military boot camps, political rallies, protest marches, and
demonstrations. When we make our vows, beliefs, statements, or
endeavors public, we feel bound to them. We can back out on
commitments and claims we've made public, but we will pay a
psychological and emotional price. What's more, the more public we
made those commitments, the greater the emotional price tag will be.
A pair of researchers, Elliot Aronson and Judson Mills, claimed that
"persons who go through a great deal of trouble or pain to attain
something tend to value it more highly than persons who attain the same
thing with a minimum of effort."[7] Additional research confirmed their
assertion when coeds who were required to endure pain rather than
embarrassment to get into a group desired membership more than their
counterparts. In one particular case, the more pain one young woman
endured as part of her initiation, the more she later tried to convince
herself that "her new group and its activities were interesting, intelligent,
and desirable."[8]
Another study of 54 tribal cultures found that those with the most
dramatic initiation rituals also have the most unity and commitment,[9]
and these groups oppose any attempts to undermine or destroy these
customs, which render so much strength to their tribe and their culture.
Understanding the psychology of commitment through publicity can be
used to bring about good societal changes. Many organizations exist to
help individuals conquer bad habits, patterns, or abuses. For example,
weight-loss centers commonly encourage clients to share their goals with
as many friends, relatives, and neighbors as they can, understanding that
this public commitment and pressure often works when other methods
don't.
An experiment conducted by Pallak, Cook, and Sullivan in Iowa City
used an interviewer who offered free energy-saving hints to natural gas
users. Those residents who agreed to try to conserve energy would have
their names publicized in newspaper articles as public-spirited, fuelconserving citizens. The effect was immediate. One month later, when the
utility companies checked their meters, the homeowners in the publication
sample had each saved an average of 422 cubic feet of natural gas, a
decrease of 12.2 percent. The chance to have their names in the paper had
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