Don't Spin that Wheel!

Ever heard of the Poppy Seed Festival? Well if not, it’s an annual parade and festival in the Georgetown square which they host each Spring. Last year, my friend Allyson and I went as we were in the parade, and then we decided we wanted to walk around and check out the vendors. While we were walking we were stopped by a young good looking gentleman with a uniform shirt on asking us if we wanted to spin a wheel to try and win a free vacation. At first I was hesitant, but Allyson convinced me it was just for fun and since we were 21, we could play. We were each allowed one spin each. Allyson spun and she did not land on the win sign, but when I spun, I watched the wheel spin around until it landed on big white letters spelling W.I.N. Allyson was really excited, and I wasn’t sure what to think, I guess winning couldn’t be bad right? So the gentleman seemed excited for us, and had told us we won two nights in a hotel with their resort and handed us some paperwork to fill out, as well as a pamphlet so we could decide where we wanted to stay. Allyson seemed excited, but I was skeptical. I asked him what the catch was, and he said there was no catch, you had to pay a 40 dollar down payment (which we were to split) and then we were given two nights at resort plus access to all the resort amenities, all we had to do was take a one-hour tour of the facilities. Seemed simple enough, so we accepted the offer and signed up. 

The next month, we were headed to San Antonio on our vacation, although come to find out when we received our information in the mail, we would not actually be staying on the resort grounds, but at a La Quinta close by. The hotel was nice, and we received complimentary breakfast, but once we arrived, we realized our La Quinta resort was not even in San Antonio, but in a small town outside of it, and a total of 40 minutes away from the resort we were to go tour the next day. After the long drive to get to the resort, we received visitors and discovered our tour was a first come first serve basis, and during the wait, we only had limited resort access. After waiting for over an hour, we took our tour, which lasted almost two hours, and realized that this was no regular vacation, but we were being suckered into purchasing a vacation timeshare home. After our tour, we were taken to a room with hundreds of representatives and “tourists” and my ears bled for about an hour and a half while this man tried to convince me to buy a timeshare. Of course, we left empty handed and disappointed in our “vacation”. I guess that was what I got for exhibiting compliance. 

Compliance, a sub category of social influence (how people are affected by the real or imagined pressure from others around them) is the act of a person yielding to a direct request (Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004; Kiesler & Kiesler, 1969). Within compliance lies a specific technique known as lowballing, which I unfortunately have to say my example perfectly demonstrates (Cialdini et al. 1978). According to Cialdini, lowballing is a compliance technique where someone secures you to a commitment which you believe is a great deal, but then they either add on bad parts or take away good parts of the deal. Remember that nice, young and attractive young man I met at the festival who sold me that great deal? Well he sure knew how to successfully use the lowballing technique to get both Allyson and I sucked in to the time share “vacation”. He gave us such a great sounding vacation for only 40 dollars with unlimited resort amenities, a two-night stay, and even another two-night stay at any hotel on their list across the United States if we just completed that one-hour tour. Of course, once we sealed the deal, he forgot to mention before about the fact that we weren’t even staying at the actual resort, amenities were actually limited, the tour was almost two hours, and that we would be poked and prodded to buy a timeshare vacation home for over an hour. His lowball technique worked, and we both complied with his offer. This experience really showed me that you have to be careful on those too good to be true deals, because in the end, that’s probably exactly what it is.

Until next blog, 

Your social psychista

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Cialdini, R. B., Cacioppo, J. T., Bassett, R., & Miller, J. A. (1978). "Low-ball procedure for producing compliance: Commitment then cost". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 36, 463 – 476.

Cialdini, R. B., & Goldstein, N.J. (2004). Social influence: Compliance and conformity. Annual Review of Psychology, 55, 591-621.

Kiesler, C. A., & Kiesler, S. B. (1969). Conformity. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.