it is the correct way to be. He will begin to pay attention to facts he
hadn’t noticed before about the value of community service. He will
make himself available to hear arguments he hadn’t heard before favor-
ing civic action. And he will find such arguments more persuasive than
before. In general, because of the need to be consistent within his system
of beliefs, he will assure himself that his choice to take public-spirited
action was right. What is important about this process of generating
additional reasons to justify the commitment is that the reasons are new.
Thus, even if the original reason for the civic-minded behavior was
taken away, these newly discovered reasons might be enough by
themselves to support his perception that he had behaved correctly.
The advantage to an unscrupulous compliance professional is tre-
mendous. Because we build new struts to undergird choices we have
committed ourselves to, an exploitative individual can offer us an in-
ducement for making such a choice, and after the decision has been
made, can remove that inducement, knowing that our decision will
probably stand on its own newly created legs. New-car dealers fre-
quently try to benefit from this process through a trick they call
“throwing a lowball.” I first encountered the tactic while posing as a
sales trainee at a local Chevrolet dealership. After a week of basic in-
struction, I was allowed to watch the regular salesmen perform. One
practice that caught my attention right away was the lowball.
For certain customers, a very good price is offered on a car, perhaps
as much as four hundred dollars below competitors’ prices. The good
deal, however, is not genuine; the dealer never intends it to go through.
Its only purpose is to cause a prospect to decide to buy one of the deal-
ership’s cars. Once the decision is made, a number of activities develop
the customer’s sense of personal commitment to the car—a raft of pur-
chase forms are filled out, extensive financing terms are arranged,
sometimes the customer is encouraged to drive the car for a day before
signing the contract “so you can get the feel of it and show it around
in the neighborhood and at work.” During this time, the dealer knows,
customers automatically develop a range of new reasons to support the
choice they have now made.
Then something happens. Occasionally an “error” in the calculations
is discovered—maybe the salesman forgot to add in the cost of the air
conditioner, and if the buyer still requires air conditioning, four hundred
dollars must be added to the price. To keep from being suspected of
gouging by the customer, some dealers let the bank handling the finan-
cing find the mistake. At other times, the deal is disallowed at the last
moment when the salesman checks with his boss, who cancels it because
“We’d be losing money.” For only another four hundred dollars the
car can be had, which, in the context of a multithousand-dollar deal,
Robert B. Cialdini Ph.D / 75