Perusing Psychology

I’m in the process of buying a larger car for my expanding family. I’ve spent more than a year researching cars and prices online. Now that I’m to the point where purchasing a car is necessary, I have been looking at cars more seriously. Last night I finally decided to go visit a local car dealer to see what they had on their lot and see what their prices were like.

I got to this dealership and was approached by a woman who had just started working there. I gave her the benefit of the doubt and believed her – she really did seem new. As she walked me over to start looking at the type of car I am interested in, we were joined by a more experienced salesman who was tagging along to make sure the new saleswoman knew what she was doing. This salesman asked how much I was looking to spend. It is not usually a good idea to reveal how much you are looking to spend because of a reason I will discuss below. However, because I was just looking (although I did not tell him that) and was not going to buy a car that night (unless they happened to have a great one for a great price), I divulged my limit. I said I was willing to spend a specific amount of money. His reply, “You know that with taxes, tags, and fees [our exorbitantly high fee - he didn't say that but their fee was exorbitant] it’ll be $X more. Is that okay?” I replied, “Yes, it is.”

I stated I was going to pay cash and that I wasn’t going to trade in my car (it’s usually best to only agree you are going to trade in your car once the final price on the other car is settled in writing; that way the dealer does not mark up the price of the new car by how much the trade-in is worth). Frank [not his real name] the salesman said, “OK, I think these cars [there were three we looked at] are probably in the ballpark of your price range but I can’t be sure until I talk with the boss and he crunches some numbers.” I look at two of the cars – they were okay but I really just wanted to see the prices. Of course, there are no prices on the cars at this particular lot. Why not? Well, when I stated that I would rather talk prices first before driving any of the cars, Frank said, “Oh, well we don’t want to go through all the time and effort to talk about price before you actually drive the car. What if you find out you don’t like it?”

I mentally rolled my eyes and said, “OK, I’ll drive this car – I haven’t driven one of them before.” I decided to play his game a little bit and see where we went. If I liked the car and it was a good price, I might purchase it (but not without having my wife view and drive it). The car looked nice – it had leather seats, a DVD player, but it was a bit older and had more miles than I wanted. Said Frank, “Oh, this is a nice car – we just got it on the lot yesterday and it’ll sell fast.”

Let’s stop. Where’s the psychology in all of this? One sales technique being used on me (and I played along) is what is called the foot in the door technique. Ask little favors or even give little rewards (in this case it was as simple as pointing out the nice leather seats and DVD player and other features) and someone is more willing to listen to you and purchase your wares because they feel obligated and a bit committed. Start small and build from there. So the goal is to get the customer in the car and – assuming they like it – they will be more willing to stick with it. The other psychology sales technique he did was create a scarce commodity – make the car seem like it was going to go quickly and you feel like you have to act quickly. I’ll get back to this is a bit.

One thing I forgot to mention – as we started looking at this particular car Frank pushed the power sliding door button and nothing happened. “I’m not very familiar with this particular car,” he said, trying to cover up the fact that the power door was in fact not working (it could be opened manually). This experience was in the context of Frank talking about how they do such a thorough inspection of all their cars and fix what needs to be fixed. Then Frank says that he has to drive the car off the lot and then we’ll switch and I can drive it. I’m thinking, “That’s new, I haven’t had a dealer require that before but I don’t shop for cars very often.” So Frank starts up the car and says, “I like to let the car warm up for a little bit before driving it, my father was a mechanic and I like to take care of my cars.” The whole time the dashboard lights are dimming and then getting brighter, then dimming and back and forth for about 10 seconds. Then the car “warms up” and we’re off.

He turns the first corner in the lot and I feel a slight clunk from the transmission – that’s a great sign (that was sarcasm). I’ll fast forward a bit – I drive the car. It’s okay but I’m not too impressed. I’m impressed more with the overall look and fit and finish than its drivability. It drove okay but I didn’t think the transmission would last long. We get back to the dealership and I’m interested in what kind of ‘deal’ he’ll offer me on the vehicle. I’m an eternal optimist so I’m thinking, “Well, if he can sell it to me for $X, I might purchase it.” $X being much, much lower than my limit is. We go into his little office (the other saleswoman is there with us the whole time. She was very nice but mostly just observing at this point.) and start the paperwork “for the quote.” Again, this is a continuation of the foot in the door technique. He was trying to get me to the point where I had put enough effort in that I would say, “OK, why not?” Frank scurried off to go talk prices with his boss.

Now one of my favorite parts of this experience. He comes back with an offer that is “almost at [my] target.” It was 11% higher than my target price. If I were less polite I would have laughed. I thought, “Is he serious?! That’s ‘almost’ my target price?” This guy is very generous (to himself) with my money. I looked at the various other fees that get added on. Their dealership fee was about 8% of the car’s price. Here’s another psychological technique he used (I don’t have a specific name for it, although I’m sure one exists) – on the paper the car had a “listed” price that was at least 25% higher than his ‘reduced’ deal for me. Stores do this a lot – put things on ’sale’ and people will buy them, even if the sale price is higher than the normal price. People see “reduced prices” or “sale” and think they are getting a good deal. Sometimes they are, sometimes they are not. Had I purchased the car (I certainly wasn’t remotely considering it at that point), I would have received a bad ‘deal’.

This salesman had a problem. He thought he was in control of the situation. He forgot that the customer is always in control unless he or she relinquishes that control. I had a firm grip on my control, he just did not realize it. I did surrender enough to keep the car buying process moving because I wanted to see where it would go. I wanted to see his ‘best deal’ for me on this car. While we were going through initial paperwork he mentioned that he had a couple coming from “[not-so-nearbyville] or was it [slightly-closer-nearbyville] tomorrow to look at and probably purchase the vehicle.” He might have been telling the truth about the matter – I like to give him the benefit of the doubt – but the whole statement was too contrived to seem real, even if it was. Once again he was trying to make the car a scarce commodity that I had to act on “tonight or it will be gone tomorrow!”

One more point about why he thought he was in control of me – I am not a rude person and I can come across as rather soft and indecisive at times. I look like an easy target. I’m sure I am in some situations – like with my daughters – but I was fully in control in this situation; I didn’t want to be rude and just stand up and leave. I said the price was still too high and I called him out on his statement that the price was “almost at my target”. Maybe in government spending but not for me. He left to talk with his boss and came back stating that in order for his boss to give me a better deal I had to sign my name to show that I was “committed” to this car – that’s just some more sales psychology. Once you start to sign things, even meaningless pieces of paper like the one I signed, you tend to feel more committed and it is harder to back down. The only thing I was committed to was not buying the car. I also was enjoying the psychology of the situation, I was a bit impressed with his sales techniques. He actually didn’t come across as pushy as other salesmen I’ve met but his techniques needed some polish. He never even found out if I really liked the car. I said it was nice and he jumped on that, he assumed he could sell the car to me. I know that is optimistic salesmanship on his part but selling is much easier if it is a car (or other thing) that the person actually wants.

His sales shortcomings were not entirely his fault, I was quite non-committal (which came across as “almost convinced to buy”) about the process because I really just wanted to see how low the price would go. I was in a social psychology experiment mode. He came back with the price ‘down’ to my target price (the dealer fee was still high, even if I was really interested in the car). I said I’d have to talk with my wife before I committed to anything. They were even trying to get me to make a “fully-refundable” deposit (again, more committal) on the car to “lock in the price so we don’t sell the car tomorrow.” Another great part of this process was how the salesman was always on ‘my side.’ As if he’s not making a commission on this sale! I could see him sweat as I ‘talked’ the price down. OK, that was a bit of literary license – I didn’t see him sweat – but I knew he was looking at a fading commission (unless his boss was going to give him a big commission for actually selling this car). Frank kept stating that he was on my side, “This couple who wants to buy the car doesn’t even have any kids so I’d rather sell it to you since you’ll get better use out of it. You actually need it with three kids. I’d rather sell it to you even though this other couple is willing to pay a couple thousand dollars more than you are for the car.” Wait, what?! He has an opportunity to sell that car for $2000 more and he wants to sell it to me instead? Maybe he really did want to but even my optimistic self was cynical about his statement in light of the rest of the night.

Also, somehow the “wife of this couple [had] already looked at the car” even though they live a couple hours away and the car had “just arrived 24 hours ago.” Maybe he honestly didn’t know when they got the car on the lot but that was a bit too much of “scarce commodity” for me. He was so eager to sell me the car that his stories stopped matching up. Frank stretched the truth one too many times. I saw that he wasn’t going to go down in price any more so I ended my informal experiment. I made my exit and walked away saying that I’d talk to my wife. I did, but mainly to say that we didn’t want that particular car. As I was walking away, Frank knew he had lost me. He asked a couple times, “Was I too pushy?” He realized that he hadn’t been in control of the situation; he hadn’t read me correctly. And yes, at least to me, he was too pushy (but that is just my personal preference. I know he was not particularly pushy as far as car salesmen go).

I went home and searched for the car online. It came up (same dealership) with an online price $200 less than the lowest deal he “cut me”. Most dealerships have separate online salespeople so the general on-lot salespeople are not usually aware of the online price (it’s usually lower than what is offered in person) but I still think it is funny how his best deal for me was higher than the online price. That stems from me telling him my limit in the first place (again, I did that on purpose). I further discovered that the car had been on the lot for about 5 weeks instead of only 24 hours.

I hope I don’t sound like I was being manipulative. I honestly was interested in the car if it was a good enough price (okay, so maybe a toss-a-coin-in-a-well-and-have-a-bag-of-gold-fall-at-your-feet kind of price). It never even came close to what I would be willing to pay for it. Besides, had it come down to it I would have demanded reductions because of the non-power power door as well as other issues. So much for their “thorough inspection” that according to Frank was worth paying upwards of a couple thousand dollars more for a car from them than I could elsewhere.

I laughed much of the way home. This was not laughter aimed at Frank as much as the fact that the whole process was just ridiculous. There’s a reason I do not like dealing with many car salespeople. I know most are good people but on the job they are salesmen; it is their job to sell you a car, even if it sometimes means burnishing the truth a little or a lot. That’s one reason I am not a salesman, I don’t think people should pay more than something is worth.

I share this experience to help people be more aware of common sales techniques. Buying a car is a big decision and is daunting for most people. Remember that you are in control. Watch out for the foot in the door (that doesn’t mean you don’t let them do it, just recognize what they are doing and be willing to walk away). Also, be more alert when the salesperson is doing something as a favor to you. Maybe he or she is but remain skeptical. Actions like that (unless you personally know the salesperson) should raise some red flags. Also watch out for the pressure situations of ’scarcity’; yes, the car really might be sold tomorrow but if you aren’t completely comfortable just walk away. Find a salesperson (at another dealership if possible) who doesn’t pressure you. I’ve met some very nice and good car salespeople who sell cars without resorting to pressure. Also, if the stories of the salesperson start contradicting each other, walk away. Also, don’t give out your price target because they will almost always meet and surpass that target. If you say you can spend $16,000, many dealers will suddenly have $13,000 and $14,000 cars for sale for $16,000. You can give soft estimates of what you are willing to spend but if anything, say you are willing to spend less than you actually are. Again, as the consumer you are always in control (except in emergencies and hopefully then people are not there to take advantage of you) if you do not give up that control. Lastly, sales are not always good deals. Always do your research ahead of time for major purchases like a car.

I’m going to go back online and search more. I’d rather buy a car on eBay than deal with another car salesperson in person. The whole experience was interesting though. There were other sales techniques Frank used but I didn’t go into them. I’m sure I even missed a few. I won’t go into the psychology of sales (meaning explaining how to be a good salesperson), it’s not my expertise, but there are ways of being a great salesperson without pressuring or resorting to dishonesty.

There are at least two big trends in social psychology, or at least ones that may great affect social psychology. Currently, at least according to Berntson and Cacioppo (2000), one of the fastest growing trends in psychology as a whole is psychobiology. This trend is also seen in social psychology. Another movement is that of the internet (McKenna & Bargh, 2000). As the legitimacy of the internet grew, there was more research interest in it and more interest in using it for research purposes. I will first discuss psychobiology and then the internet. I will finish with my prediction of where social psychology is going.

I think psychobiology is a growing area in part because of the many technological advances that are being applied to psychology (namely, brain imaging and computer modeling). Psychology is becoming a technology-driven science. I think that social psychology will all move this way because of the new ways to study the concepts of social psychology. In part, it provides new ways to research “old” topics, not that anything in social psychology is that old.

Researchers can now look at biological foundations of social behavior and perception. For example, maybe there is a certain area of the brain that is activated when people name racial stereotypes. Also, there could be a different area activated when people are asked what stereotypes they believe, if any. Maybe people who say they do not believe the stereotypes still have the same area of the brain activated as those who do believe them, but in addition they could have additional brain activity associated with suppressing those stereotypes. Knowing this would help us understand that stereotypes really are prevalent, but some people are just really good at suppressing them and don’t even know that they are doing it. I know this was a slightly vague hypothesis, but my point is that psychobiology has a lot to add the social psychology.

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The Crowd Looking at the Clock by Ms. Abitibi

Social psychology is the study of individuals within groups, or as they are affected by others. So, while groups are important and often studied, it is really the individual who ultimately receives the focus. It is different from other subdisciplines in that interpersonal relationships are taken into account. In other words, people’s behaviors, thoughts, and emotions are affected by their relationships to and with others. This differs from cognitive psychology, for example, because cognitive theorists typically are just looking at mental processes and trying to understand the basic nature of thought, without [much] regard to the influence that others have on cognition. I say “much” because social and cognitive psychology have had a long relationship so there is some overlap between the two.

Social psychology is different from behaviorism in that social psychologists look at underlying cognitive processes and behaviorists do not. Although, they are similar in that both look at external influences on behavior (after all, behaviorism is that all behavior is learned from others). So, really the biggest difference between social psychology and all other subdisciplines of experimental psychology is the focus on self and other influences on affect, behavior, and cognition.

These three main components of social psychology—affect, behavior, and cognition—are all areas of psychology where social psychology has provided key and keen insights. One aspect of the uniqueness of social psychological research is how often researchers get surprising results from their studies. First, I’ll address the insights we’ve gained from social psychology about affect (i.e., emotion), behavior, and cognition. Read more…