The power of “because”

A lot of human behavior is automatic. We often comply with requests even when the reason is ridiculous. That’s the power of “because”.

Three questions — can you guess the level of compliance?

Question 1: “Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine?”
Question 2: “May I use the Xerox machine because I have to make some copies?”
Question 3: “Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I’m in a rush?”

The Xerox Study

This was an experiment conducted social psychologist Ellen Langer in the late 70s. The results were surprising.

60 percent of people waiting in line to make photocopies agreed when asked, “Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine?”

93 percent agreed when asked, “May I use the Xerox machine because I have to make some copies?”

94 percent agreed when asked, “Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I’m in a rush?”

Giving a weak reason is better than giving no reason

What does this mean? Surprisingly more than half of people were willing to let someone go ahead of them when asked. What’s really interesting about this study is the power of “because”. Look at the questions again.

When someone uses “because” almost everyone complies with the request. The reason doesn’t make a difference. Giving a weak reason is better than giving no reason at all.

Everyone in line was waiting to use the Xerox machine. That didn’t matter — they were still willing to let someone go ahead of them even when the reason given was to use the Xerox machine.

Robert Cialdini notes in his book Influence says that “A well-known principle of human behavior says that when we ask someone to do us a favor we will be more successful if we give a reason. People simply like to have reasons for what they do.”

Humans are largely automatic

This reinforces the idea that much of what we do is automatic. We’ll often comply with requests if we are given a reason — real or ridiculous. The options aren’t limitless. The larger the request the more likely we are to look beyond “because” and pay attention to the reason.

So the lesson: if you want something, always give a reason. If the request is small it probably won’t matter what the reason is.

That’s the power of “because”.