For applause on entrance, if a gentleman 25 lire For applause on entrance, if a lady 15 lire Ordinary applause during performance, each 10 lire Insistent applause during performance, each 15 lire Still more insistent applause 17 lire For interruptions with Bene! or Bravo! 5 lire For a Bis at any cost 50 lire Wild enthusiasmA special sum to be arranged FIGURE 4-5 Advertised Rates of the Italian Claque From ordinary applause to wild enthusiasm, claqueurs offered their services in an audaciously public fashionin this case, in a

120 / Influence newspaper read by many of the audience members they fully expected to influence. Claque, whirr. What Sauton and Porcher realized about the mechanical way that we abide by the principle of social proof is understood as well by a variety of todays exploiters. They see no need to hide the manufactured nature of the social evidence they providewitness the amateurish quality of the average TV laugh track. They seem almost smug in the recognition of our predicament: Either we must allow them to fool us or we must abandon the precious automatic pilots that make us so vulnerable to their tricks. But in their certainty that they have us trapped, such exploiters have made a crucial mistake. The laxity with which they construct phony social evidence gives us a way to fight back.

Because automatic pilots can be engaged and disengaged at will, we can cruise along trusting in the course steered by the principle of social proof until we recognize that a piece of inaccurate data is being used. Then we can take the controls, make the necessary correction for the misinformation, and reset the automatic pilot. The transparency of the rigged social proof we get these days provides us with exactly the cue we need for knowing when to perform this simple maneuver. With no more cost than a bit of vigilance for plainly counterfeit social evidence, then, we can protect ourselves nicely.

Lets take an example. A bit earlier, we noted the proliferation of average-person-on-the-street ads, in which a number of ordinary people speak glowingly of a product, often without knowing that their words are being recorded. As would be expected according to the principle of social proof, these testimonials from average people like you and me make for quite effective advertising campaigns. They have always included one relatively subtle kind of distortion: We hear only from those who like the product; as a result, we get an understandably biased picture of the amount of social support for it. More recently, though, a cruder and more unethical sort of falsification has been introduced. Commercial producers often dont bother to get genuine testimonials. They merely hire actors to play the roles of average people testifying in an unrehearsed fashion to an interviewer. It is amazing how baldfaced these unrehearsed interview commercials can be. The situations are obviously staged, the