Two negotiating stupidities we do to look dumb

Ever surveyors and salesmen cheated you?

See how I was cheated to save yourself.

While I waited for my bus reading TheHindu, two girls of around 22 years invited me in their company’s survey, but I refused their invitation.

“Okay, thank you,” said the girls, requesting, taking out their pen and notebook, “but can you please take out some time to answer a few quick questions?”

I dislike answering irrelevant questions and getting interrupted in reading, but I couldn’t refuse again.

Questioning about the soap, shampoo, toothpaste, internet I use; if I prefer branded clothes etc., they lastly asked, attentively looking in my eyes, “Sir, you gave us a considerable time, though you were engaged in reading. Can we know if we had directly demanded your ten minutes instead of first asking you to come to our company premises, would you have agreed?”

I returned their attentive look, realizing – “I would have not let you take my time if you had directly requested me to answer your questions” – but fearing its rudeness, I hesitated and paused.

“Sir,” said the girls, reading my expressions, “we are sorry – we neither belong to any company nor we are conducting any survey. We are psychology students experimenting the rule of concession with people. You would have not disengaged yourself from reading if we had requested you to give us ten minutes. Right?”

I said “Yes.”

“That’s why,” continued the girls, “we first kept forth a request requiring significant effort (coming to our company to participate in a survey) and then contrasted it with a small request, and you agreed.”

This rule of concession is greatly used on us, yet we fall victim to it. Purchase clothes, vegetables or hire a worker, you will hear the first price much higher than the original value.

In the aforementioned incident, however, the girls placed “a request requiring significant effort” and then “contrasted it with a small request” to get my approval on things I dislike – “answering irrelevant questions and getting interrupted in reading”. Two main reasons that compelled me to go against my wish:

1. I compared their first request to the second which was small

2. I felt guilty to refuse for the second time

And, these are the two main reasons that induce us to be exploited by the rule of concession. To decrease or eliminate the effectiveness of this rule, neither we should compare options – nor feel guilty. Therefore, at every step of your negotiation, be vigilant that these two emotions don’t influence you.

But be careful that you don’t cross the limits of humanity or politeness because then one becomes selfish and arrogant. How to be in these limits and yet have an edge is a delicate problem that arises next.

Do you know any solution of this problem? If yes, leave your intelligent comment or send a post to shadabhsn@gmail.com, I might publish it.

Postscript: The psychology students incident I wrote above was to give you a better understanding of the rule of concession. It was fictitious.