Use the word ‘because’

‘Because’ is a very powerful word. A well-known principle of human behaviour says that when we ask someone to do us a favour, we’ll be more successful if we provide a reason. People simply like to have reasons for what they do. An expert, Langer, demonstrated this unsurprising fact by asking a small favour of people waiting in line to use a photocopying machine at a library:

Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the machine because I'm in a hurry?

The effectiveness of this request-plus-reason was nearly total: 94% of those asked let her skip ahead of them in the line. Compare this success rate to the results when she made the request only:

Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the machine?

Under those circumstances, only 60% 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 hurry".

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 re-stated the obvious:

Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the machine because I have to make some copies?

The result was that once again nearly all (93%) agreed, even though no real reason, no new information, was added to justify their compliance. Clever, or what? Try it on the web. It really works.

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