“Langer demonstrated this fact by asking a small favor of people waiting in line to use a library copying machine: “Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I’m in a rush?”
The effectiveness of this request-plus-reason was nearly total: Ninety-four percent of those asked let her skip ahead of them in line.
Compare this success rate to the results when she made the request only: “Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine?” Under those circumstances, only 60 percent of those asked complied.
At first glance, it appears that the crucial difference between the two requests was the additional information provided by the words “because I’m in a rush.”
But a third type of request tried by Langer showed that this was not the case. It seems that it was not the whole series of words, but the first one, “because,” that made the difference.
Instead of including a real reason for compliance, Langer’s third type of request used the word “because” and then, adding nothing new, merely restated the obvious: “Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I have to make some copies?”
The result was that once again nearly all (93 percent) agreed, even though no real reason, no new information, was added to justify their compliance.”
I managed to skip the entire line at Ohare security screening by just walking past people waiting patiently while I repeated “sorry, plane is boarding, excuse me, boarding, pardon me…” etc. Nobody bothered objecting and got out of the way for me.
My incoming flight was delayed, and immigration took forever, so once it was time to get to my connection the plane had started boarding. After security I had to run, and I got to the gate just in time.
“Langer demonstrated this fact by asking a small favor of people waiting in line to use a library copying machine: “Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I’m in a rush?”
The effectiveness of this request-plus-reason was nearly total: Ninety-four percent of those asked let her skip ahead of them in line.
Compare this success rate to the results when she made the request only: “Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine?” Under those circumstances, only 60 percent of those asked complied.
At first glance, it appears that the crucial difference between the two requests was the additional information provided by the words “because I’m in a rush.”
But a third type of request tried by Langer showed that this was not the case. It seems that it was not the whole series of words, but the first one, “because,” that made the difference.
Instead of including a real reason for compliance, Langer’s third type of request used the word “because” and then, adding nothing new, merely restated the obvious: “Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I have to make some copies?”
The result was that once again nearly all (93 percent) agreed, even though no real reason, no new information, was added to justify their compliance.”
Excerpt From Influence Robert B. Cialdini, PhD
Many of my friends are familiar with this study, and an inside joke of ours is to, when asking for something, end it with “because reasons.”
I managed to skip the entire line at Ohare security screening by just walking past people waiting patiently while I repeated “sorry, plane is boarding, excuse me, boarding, pardon me…” etc. Nobody bothered objecting and got out of the way for me.
My incoming flight was delayed, and immigration took forever, so once it was time to get to my connection the plane had started boarding. After security I had to run, and I got to the gate just in time.
This is more of an unwritten rule of airport security lines, the staff will let you through if you tell them you’re plane is boarding.
Better not argue with this idiot
“Sure”