What behavior patterns do we have that are just like the automation of a mother turkey discussed below?
Start with the obvious. You see a bright light – and you squint your eyes.
But what about ones we don’t even realize we are doing?
I can easily point to 5:
1. Receiving a gift will necessitate a reciprocal action.
2. You will react to a harsh visual.
3. Combining two things for long enough will make you associate the two.
4. The simpler the answer, the easier you will believe it.
5. The more I repeat something, the more believable it is.
How ridiculous a female turkey seems under these circumstances: She will embrace a natural enemy just because it goes “cheep-cheep,” and she will mistreat or murder one of her own chicks just because it does not. She looks like an automaton whose maternal instincts are under the automatic control of that single sound. The ethologists tell us that this sort of thing is far from unique to the turkey. They have begun to identify regular, blindly mechanical patterns of action in a wide variety of species.
-Robert Cialdini, Influence