The local fire department calls and asks Stan to donate $5 to the community firefighters' fund. Believing this is a reasonable request, Stan agrees to donate. The following month, someone from the department calls and praises his "humanitarian gesture," and he is asked to donate a "small amount more." Stan agrees to donate $10. Based on the information in the Psych For Your Life box, Stan believes that the fire department may have used a persuasion strategy called the technique.

Voters commonly condemn politicians for being insincere, but politicians often must disguise their true feelings when they make public statements. if they expressed their honest views—about, say, their party's policies—then achieving politically necessary compromises would be much more difficult. clearly, the very insincerity that people decry shows that our government is functioning well. which of the following, if true, most seriously undermines this reasoning? (a) achieving political compromises is not all that is necessary for the proper functioning of a government. (b) some political compromises are not in the best long-term interest of the government. (c) voters often judge politicians by criteria other than the sincerity with which they express their views. (d) a political party's policies could turn out to be detrimental to the functioning of a government. (e) some of the public statements made by politicians about their party's policies could in fact be sincere.