Brands are obsessed with appearing cool; therefore, they capture and mine youth

We want to stay true to our word.
Imagine you’re lying on the beach, enjoying a 
well-deserved day off. It’s a hot day, and you 
long for a refreshing dip in the water. But what 
are you going to do with your wallet and keys? 
Hide them? Or ask a neighboring sun-
worshipper to keep an eye on them?
A study by psychologist Thomas Moriarty shows 
that asking someone is probably a better idea 
than you think.
His results showed that in general, when people 
on a beach witnessed a staged theft of a radio 
from a neighboring towel, only 20 percent 
reacted. But if the owner of the towel had first 
asked people to “please watch my things,” 95 
percent of their neighbors became near-
vigilantes, even chasing down the thief and 
forcefully grabbing back the radio.
Why?
Quite simply, we humans have a strong desire 
for consistency: we wish our actions to be 
consistent with what we’ve said. As the study 
showed, this drive is so strong that it even 
seems to trump concerns for our own personal 
safety.
This desire for consistency stems mainly from 
the fact that it makes life easier: we don’t need 
to decide how to respond to each situation we 
encounter if we can simply be consistent with 
our earlier decision. This kind of automation 
helps us navigate our complex world.
But what dictates consistency? The answer is 
simple: commitment. Research shows that once 
we commit to something with words or actions, 
we wish to be consistent with that commitment.
And public commitment is the most powerful 
driver of all.
For example, after the Korean War, Chinese 
interrogators got American prisoners of war to 
collaborate using this tactic. First, they asked 
them to make very small concessions such as 
writing and signing innocuous statements like 
“America is not perfect.”
But then, when these statements were read 
publicly across the prison camp, the prisoner 
was often labeled a “collaborator” by his 
compatriots. Astonishingly, the prisoner then 
started to see himself as a collaborator as well, 
consequently becoming more helpful to the 
Chinese interrogators. He effectively adjusted 
his self-image to be consistent with what he had 
written 
down 
before. 
And 
having 
the 
“commitment” in writing was also an important 
element in this process; there is something 
inescapably powerful about written words signed 
by oneself.
The widely known foot-in-the-door sales 
technique takes advantage of how even small 
commitments affect our self-image. The first goal 
of salespeople is to get prospects to make a 
small purchase that is not even intended to 
make a profit. Rather, it constitutes a small 
commitment that changes the prospect’s own 
perception into one of a customer, making them 

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much more amenable to the larger deal down 
the line. So the next time a salesperson asks 
you to buy something, no matter how 
inexpensive, be careful.