From Gabriel Weinberg’s book “Superthinking”
Dealing with Conflict
“arms race. The term was originally used to describe a race between two or more countries to accumulate weapons for a potential armed conflict. It can also be used more broadly to describe any type of escalating competition.”
“Unfortunately, situations like this are common in everyday personal life too: many people go into considerable debt trying to keep up with their social circles (or circles they aspire to belong to) by buying bigger houses, fancier cars, and designer clothes, and by sending their kids to expensive private schools. The phrase keeping up with the Joneses describes this phenomenon and comes from the name of a comic strip that followed the McGinis family, who were fixated on matching the lifestyle of their neighbors, the Joneses.”
“As an individual, avoiding an arms race means not getting sucked into keeping up with the Joneses. You want to use your income on things that make you fulfilled (such as on family vacations or on classes that interest you), rather than on unfulfilling status symbols. As an organization, avoiding an arms race means differentiating yourself from the competition instead of pursuing a one-upmanship strategy on features or deals, which can eat away at your profit margins. By focusing on your unique value proposition, you can devote more resources to improving and communicating it rather than to keeping up with your competition.”
“The most famous “game” from game theory is called the prisoner’s dilemma. It can be used to illustrate useful game-theory concepts and can also be adapted to many life situations, including the arms race.”
“Similarly, cooperation pays off in most long-term life situations where reputation matters. If you are known as a betrayer, people will not want to be your friend or do business with you. On the other hand, if people can trust you based on your repeated good behavior, they will want to make you their ally and collaborate with you.”
“reciprocity, whereby you tend to feel an obligation to return (or reciprocate) a favor, whether that favor was invited or not.”
“Giving someone something, even if they didn’t ask for it, significantly increases the chances they will reciprocate.”
“commitment—if you agree (or commit) to something, however small, you are more likely to continue to agree later. That’s because not being consistent causes psychological discomfort, called cognitive dissonance (see Chapter 1).”
“The sales foot-in-the-door technique follows the same principle, where a mattress salesperson tries to get a “small yes” out of you (asking, for instance, “Do you want to sleep better at night?”), since that makes it more likely they’ll get to a “big yes” (in answer to “Do you want to buy this mattress?”).”
Salespeople will also try to find common ground through a model Cialdini calls liking. Quite simply, you are more prone to take advice from people you like, and you tend to like people who share characteristics with you. That’s why they ask you questions such as “Are you a baseball fan?” or “Where did you grow up?” and, after your response, they might tell you, “I’m a Yankees fan too!” or “Oh, my cousin lives there. . . .”
“mirroring also follows this model, where you mirror the physical and verbal cues of people you talk to. People tend to do this naturally, but trying to do this more (for example, consciously folding your arms when they fold their arms) can help you gain people’s trust. Studies show that the more you mirror, the more you will be perceived as similar.”
“This is why word-of-mouth referrals are so important to businesses. Some even base their entire business model on them. Think of the many businesses that have sellers hold sales parties with their friends. This tactic was popularized in modern business with companies like Tupperware (containers), Amway (health and home products), Avon (skin care), and Cutco (knives, which, incidentally, Gabriel sold as a teenager).”
“A fourth influence model is known as social proof, drawing on social cues as proof that you are making a good decision. You are more likely to do things that you see other people doing, because of your instinct to want to be part of the group (see in-group favoritism in Chapter 4). Think of fashion and food trends or “trending” stories and memes online.”
Scarcity is another influence model, this one describing how you become more interested in opportunities the less available they are, triggering your fear of missing out (FOMO). So-called “limited-time offers” and “once-in-a-lifetime opportunities” prey on this fear.”
“authority, which describes how you are inclined to follow perceived authority figures.”
“One of the great commandments of science is, ‘Mistrust arguments from authority.’ . . . Too many such arguments have proved too painfully wrong. Authorities must prove their contentions like everybody else.” (See paradigm shift in Chapter 1.) Similarly, a lack of a certain credential shouldn’t be the sole basis for refuting a person’s argument either. We firmly believe that any intelligent person could learn about any topic with the right research and enough time.”
“(“Would you babysit my kids for fifteen dollars an hour?”) and the second is framed from a social perspective (“Can you please do me a favor?”). The difference in the way this situation is framed can be thought of as social norms versus market norms and draws on the concept of reciprocity from the previous section. When you consider something from a market perspective (like babysitting for money), you consider it in the context of your own financial situation and its impact on you in an impersonal way (“I can earn sixty dollars, but it may not be worth my time”). In contrast, when you consider something from the social perspective (like doing your friend a favor), you consider it in the context of whether it is the right thing to do (“My friend needs my help for four hours, so I am going to help her”).”
“You must be careful not to inadvertently replace social norms with market norms, because you may end up eliminating benefits that are hard to bring back (see irreversible decisions in Chapter 2). Once social norms are undermined, the damage has been done and they are no longer norms. So take pause when you’re thinking about introducing monetary incentives into a situation where social norms are the standard.”
“Economists use a game called the ultimatum game to study how the perception of fairness affects actions.”
“It is important that you keep this strong desire for fairness in mind when you make decisions that impact people important to you, such as those in your family (chore distribution, wills, etc.) or your organization (compensation, promotions, etc.). Just like social norms versus market norms, framing can have a substantial effect on the perception of fairness in various situations. Another pair of framings that come up often is distributive justice versus procedural justice.”
“If your rich grandfather leaves his fortune to all his kids equally, that would probably be perceived as fair from a distributive justice perspective. However, if one of the kids was taking care of your grandfather for the last twenty years, then this distribution no longer seems fair from a procedural justice perspective. Many current political debates around topics such as income inequality and affirmative action revolve around these different formulations of justice.”
“Influence by manipulation of emotions, whether created by perceived injustice, violation of social norms, or otherwise, is called appeal to emotion.“
Fear is a particularly strong influencer, and it has its own named model associated with it, FUD, which stands for fear, uncertainty, and doubt. FUD is commonly used in marketing (“Our competitor’s product is dangerous”), political speeches (“We could suffer dire consequences if this law is passed”), religion (eternal damnation), etc.
“A related practice is the use of a straw man, where instead of addressing your argument directly, an opponent misrepresents (frames) your argument by associating it with something else (the straw man) and tries to make the argument about that instead.”
“In complex subjects where there are a multitude of problems and potential solutions (e.g., climate change, public policy, etc.), it is easy to have two people talk past each other when they both set up straw men rather than address each other’s points. In these settings it helps to get on the same page and clarify exactly what is under debate.”
“Another related mental model is ad hominem (Latin for “to the person”), where the person making the argument is attacked without addressing the central point they made. “Who are you to make this point? You’re not an expert on this topic. You’re just an amateur.” It’s essentially name-calling and often involves lobbing much more incendiary labels at the other side.”
“Influence models like those we’ve been discussing in the past two sections can also be dark patterns when they are used to manipulate you for someone else’s benefit (like at the casino).”
“Trojan horse, a large wooden horse made by the Greeks to win a war against the Trojans. The Greeks couldn’t get into the city of Troy, and so they pretended to sail away, leaving behind this supposed parting gift.”
“A Trojan horse can refer to anything that persuades you to lower your defenses by seeming harmless or even attractive, like a gift. It often takes the form of a bait and switch, such as a malicious computer program that poses as an innocuous and enticing download (the bait), but instead does something nefarious, like spying on you (the switch).”
“Potemkin village, which is something specifically built to convince people that a situation is better than it actually is.”
“Nevertheless, there are certainly real instances of Potemkin villages, including a village built by North Korea in the 1950s near the DMZ to lure South Korean soldiers to defect, and, terribly, a Nazi-designed concentration camp in World War II fit to show the Red Cross, which actually disguised a way station to Auschwitz.”
“The reason that there is no winner in Global Thermonuclear War is that both sides have amassed enough weapons to destroy the other side and so any nuclear conflict would quickly escalate to mutually assured destruction (MAD). As a result, neither side has any incentive to use its weapons offensively or to disarm completely, leading to a stable, albeit tense, peace.”
“A tactical approach to deterrence is the carrot-and-stick model, which uses a promise of a reward (the carrot) and at the same time a threat of punishment (the stick) to deter behavior. In our household, we sometimes try to deter fighting between our kids using dessert as the carrot and loss of iPad time as the stick. It’s a form of good cop, bad cop.”
“Consider how businesses sometimes capture customers through a loss leader strategy, where one product is priced low (the gateway drug) to increase demand for complementary products with higher margins. The prototypical example is a supermarket discounting milk to draw in customers, who will almost certainly leave with more items.”
“war of attrition, where a long series of battles depletes both sides’ resources, eventually leaving vulnerable the side that starts to run out of resources first.”
“Big companies often use this strategy against upstarts through various means, such as protracted lawsuits, price wars, marketing campaigns, and other head-to-head face-offs, bleeding them dry.”
“if you see that you are going to lose a war of attrition, you need to find a way out or a way to change the game. One way to do that is to engage in guerrilla warfare, which focuses your smaller force on nimbler (guerrilla) tactics that the unwieldy larger force has trouble reacting to effectively”
“guerrilla marketing, where startup businesses use unconventional marketing techniques to promote their products and services on relatively small budgets. Examples of this type of marketing include PR stunts and viral videos, often taking direct aim at larger competitors, much like guerrilla warriors taking aim at a larger army.”
“The most effective strategies, tactics, and especially technologies change over time. If your opponent is using outdated tactics and you are using more modern, useful ones, then you can come out the victor even with a much smaller force.”
“Don’t bring a knife to a gunfight. This concept is far-reaching, describing any situation where circumstances have changed significantly, leaving the status quo unequipped to deal with new threats.”
“When deploying such tactics, you will want to reevaluate your odds as the game goes on, to make sure you are on the right track. Are your odds improving? Are you effectively changing the game to be in your favor?”
“endgame. This concept has been extended to refer to the final stage of any course of events. Whether you started a conflict or were drawn into one, at some point most conflicts will end and you need an effective plan either to lock in your gains or minimize your losses. Your credible strategy to exit a situation is called your exit strategy.”
“In any case, coming up with a well-defined exit plan will keep you from doing things you might later regret. For instance, given the benefits of preserving optionality (see Chapter 2), you should probably come up with an exit strategy that avoids burning bridges, or ruining relationships with individuals or organizations in a way that thereafter commits you not to going back to them (to cross that bridge ever again).”
“If a solid exit strategy isn’t forthcoming, one tactic is to throw a Hail Mary pass, a last-ditch, long-shot final effort for a successful outcome.”