Conformity
In today’s spotlight I want to direct your attention to funnels—not the sort of funnel that you might use when adding transmission fluid to your car, but the sort that funnels you to a predetermined position—a position that exists for the sole purpose of selling you a product, position and/or alternative.
Marketing Funnels
Marketers use funnels on the Internet everyday. A good funnel begins by providing you with information you are seeking and does so without a cost attached, but next it offers a second stage to the information that leads you further in the funnel. Then there are typically a few offers that cost very little and promise much. Once you have committed to this, the up-sell begins. And so goes the marketing funnel.
Idea Funnels
The idea funnel is not unlike the marketing funnel, but it is designed to first identify and qualify you by way of your present position. So say you tend to be liberal but the objective is to move you more toward the conservative position. By providing you free information and getting your feedback, usually via a survey of some sort, the funnel is set. Now you are presented with information that you want to hear, that you approve of, but with a slight of hand. This time the information contains primes, primes known to cause one to slide little by little, toward a more conservative view. These primes I have discussed many times and they can be as simple as a picture of children playing or surveys weighted with questions targeting a child’s safety.
When we think of our children, or disease, or safety, these thoughts cause us to become more cautious in our opinions and actions. That leads us toward a more conservative position. Thus the funnel is disguised, for while we think we are reading and participating in a liberal like minded platform, it is indeed a platform that exists for the sole purpose of changing our positions.
Interactive
Funnels are a powerful tool especially on the Internet because they are interactive, and unlike a conversation with a neighbor, co-worker, boss or friend, we feel somewhat anonymous and therefore safer in expressing our thoughts. As such, the nudging goes unnoticed and unchallenged, and pretty soon, as you learn in my latest book, “Gotcha: The Subordination of Free Will,” they pretty much own you.
Now there are two other operative factors going on with funnels that we should be aware of. The first is what social psychologists refer to as a compliance principle and that is our need for consistency. What that means is this—once we have expressed an opinion we will defend it and it will infect the rest of our thinking that may have a corollary relationship. As such, the web of our life beliefs has just been tweaked and we neither know how or why it happened. However, that will not stop us from making up a reason for the change in our position! We will justify it and thereby further anchor the new position in our minds.
Pleasing
The second important aspect to be aware of is this—we all want to hear what we want to hear! I have said this many times but it can’t be over emphasized! To be free of this limiting bias, you must shop around. You must open your minds to alternative possibilities and be aware that everyone is trying to sell you something!
So the next time you think you have found a new sympathetic ear, especially by way of the Internet, my challenge to you is shop around! Watch out for those primes and funnels. It is much more difficult today than anytime in our past to be truly informed because the manipulative skills out there are so sophisticated and prevalent!
Thanks for the read,
Eldon Taylor
Provocative Enlightenment
NY Time Bestselling Author of Choices and Illusions
www.eldontaylor.com