Mitt Romney on the stump, singles at the bar, car salesmen on the lot: All sorts of people are practicing the art of persuasion, with varying degrees of success.
We like to think that we make our own decisions, that we’re in control. But we’re all open to persuasion by others, says Robert Cialdini, professor emeritus of psychology at Arizona State University and author of “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion.”
Humans have been testing their own trial-and-error persuasion techniques forever, Cialdini says. Now, for better or worse, the professionals are moving in. Or, as he puts it, “the art of persuasion has turned into a science.”
Through experiments and real-world observations, researchers have unlocked some of the mysteries of persuasion: what works, what doesn’t work and why so many of us end up with candidates, dates and cars that we never really wanted.
People who learn these secrets can keep themselves from getting duped, Cialdini says. With practice, they can even reach the ultimate goal: getting others to do their bidding.
Strategic persuasion can pay huge dividends, adds Steve Martin (not the guy you’re thinking of, but Cialdini’s colleague and the British director of the consulting company Cialdini founded, Influenceatwork.com). For example, the British government recently asked him for advice to encourage delinquent taxpayers to pay up. Martin suggested a simple tactic: Instead of threatening people with fines, the government should send out a letter saying that the great majority of Brits pay their taxes on time.
That kind of peer pressure works. “So far, they’ve collected about $1 billion more than they would have otherwise,” Martin says.
Cialdini’s own research has identified six “weapons of persuasion” that can bring people to your side. Read and learn:
A rare find: Job seekers should do more than make the case that they’re right for a job; according to Cialdini, they should present themselves as a unique fit. As he explains, nobody wants to miss out on a scarce opportunity. The allure of scarcity explains why people line up at Best Buy at 4:30 a.m. on Black Friday and why inside info is valued more than common knowledge.
Count on payback: “Reciprocity is a part of every society,” Cialdini says. A classic experiment from the 1970s found that people bought twice as many raffle tickets from a stranger if he first gave them a can of Coke — proof that even tiny favors can work to your advantage. Likewise, your buddy is more likely to help you move that couch if you’ve ever given him a ride to the airport.
Be likable: A tough assignment for some, that’s for sure. But Cialdini’s research has found that a little easygoing pleasantness can be just as persuasive as talent or actual ability. Perhaps unfairly, looks count too: A study of Canadian elections, for example, found that attractive candidates received more votes than their less-blessed opponents,, even though voters claimed they didn’t care about appearances.
Society’s seal of approval: Your friend is more likely to try something — recycle, eat at the new tapas place, watch “Glee” — if you mention that lots of other people are doing it. That’s why his letter to Brit taxpayers was a billion-dollar success, Martin says. People may not want to follow the herd, Cialdini adds, but they do assume that other people make choices for a reason.
Play the consistency card: People will go to great lengths to avoid seeming flaky or wishy-washy. As Cialdini explains in his book, car salesmen exploit this trait by making fantastic “lowball” offers to potential customers. Once a customer decides to buy a car, he’s unlikely to want to flake out on the deal even if the price mysteriously balloons — Oops! There was a mistake! — before he gets the keys. Or, for a less slimy example, you’re more likely to get that raise or a promotion if you remind your boss that she has a long history of treating her employees well. (Surely she wouldn’t want to change her tune now.)
Speak from authority: Your suggestions will go a lot further if people think you’re pulling them from somewhere other than thin air. Martin has an example: In a recent study, a real estate company significantly increased home sales when the receptionist took a moment to inform potential customers of each agent’s credentials and experience. “The statements were true,” Martin says, “they didn’t cost anything — and they worked.”
health@latimes.com
April 28, 2012
Posted by peterhbrown |
Books, Cognition, General, Positive Psychology, research, Resources | Arizona State University, art of persuasion, Cialdini, influence, Mitt Romney, persuasion, psychology, Robert Cialdini, Social Psychology, Steve Martin |
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Like it or not, the golden arches of McDonalds are one of the most easily recognised icons of the modern world. The culture they represent is one of instant gratification and saved time, of ready-made food that can be bought cheaply and eaten immediately. Many studies have looked at the effects of these foods on our waistlines, but their symbols and brands are such a pervasive part of our lives that you’d expect them to influence the way we think too.
Read the original research paper (PDF)
And so they do – Chen-Bo Zhong and Sanford DeVoe have found that fast food can actually induce haste and impatience, in ways that have nothing to do with eating. They showed that subliminal exposure to fast food symbols, such as McDonalds’ golden arches, can actually increase people’s reading speed. Just thinking about these foods can boost our preferences for time-saving goods and even nudge us towards financial decisions that value immediate gains over future returns. Fast food, it seems, is very appropriately named.
Zhong and DeVoe asked 57 students to stare at the centre of a computer screen while ignoring a stream of objects flashing past in the corners. For some of the students, these flashes included the logos of McDonald’s, KFC, Subway, Taco Bell, Burger King and Wendy’s, all appearing for just 12 milliseconds. We can’t consciously recognise images that appear this quickly and, indeed, none of the students said that they saw anything other than blocks of colour.
The students were then asked to read out a 320-word description of Toronto and those who had subconsciously seen the fast food logos were faster. Even though they had no time limit, they whizzed through the text in just 70 seconds. The other students, who were shown blocks of colours in place of the logos, took a more leisurely 84 seconds.
Zhong and DeVoe also found that thoughts of fast food could sway students towards more efficient, time-saving products. They asked 91 students to complete a marketing survey by saying how much they wanted each of five product pairs. One option in each pair was more time-efficient (as rated by an independent panel of 54 people), such as 2-in-1 shampoo rather than regular shampoo or a four-slice toaster versus a one-slice one.
If the students had previously thought about the last time they ate at a fast food joint, they were more likely to prefer the time-saving products that students who had thought about their last visit to the grocery store. Zhong and DeVoe say that this supports their idea that thinking about fast-food makes people impatient. [This seems to be] the weakest part of their study, for products like 2-in-1 shampoo are as much about saving money (perhaps more so) as they are about saving time. Fast food is not only served quickly but priced cheaply, and it may be this aspect that altered the students’ preference.
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However, the duo addressed this issue in their third experiment. They randomly asked 58 students to judge one of four different logos on their aesthetic qualities, including those of McDonald’s, KFC and two cheap diners. Later, they were told that they could either have $3 immediately or a larger sum in a week. They had to say how much it would take to make them delay their windfall.
As predicted, those who considered the fast food logos were more impatient, and demanded significantly more money to forego their smaller immediate payment in favour of a larger future one. It seems that they put a greater price on instant gratification over larger future returns
Of course, these results can’t tell us if fast food actually contributes to a culture of impatience and hurry, or if it’s just a symptom of it. Nor do they say anything about whether this effect is good or bad. That would all depend on context. As Zhong and DeVoe note, a brisk walking speed is a good thing if you’re trying to get to a meeting but it would be a sign of impatience if you’re aiming for a leisurely stroll in the park.
Their study does, however, suggest that fast food and the need to save time are inextricably linked in our minds so that even familiar brands can make us behave more hastily. They could even affect our economic decisions, harming our finances in the long run. As Zhong and DeVoe say, even our leisure activites are “experienced through the coloured glasses of impatience” and “it is possible that a fast food culture that extols saving time not only changes the way people eat, but also fundamentally alters the way they experience events”
Read the original research paper (PDF)
Credit: discovermagazine
April 17, 2010
Posted by peterhbrown |
Books, Cognition, Eating Disorder, Health Psychology, research, Social Psychology, stress, Technology | Burger King, Cognition, Fast food, impatience, impatience.cognition, impulsive, KFC, McDonald, Reading, research, Social Psychology, symbols, Taco Bell, Wendy |
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Read the original research paper HERE (PDF)
Credit: Jeremy Dean from Psyblog
How do people come to believe that others are so much less trustworthy than themselves?
Much as we might prefer otherwise, there’s solid evidence that, on average, people are quite cynical. When thinking about strangers, studies have shown that people think others are more selfishly motivated than they really are and that others are less helpful than they really are.
Similarly in financial games psychologists have run in the lab, people are remarkably cynical about the trustworthiness of others. In one experiment people honored the trust placed in them between 80 and 90 percent of the time, but only estimated that others would honor their trust about 50 percent of the time.
Our cynicism towards strangers may develop as early as 7 years old (Mills & Keil, 2005). Surprisingly people are even overly cynical about their loved ones, assuming they will behave more selfishly than they really do (Kruger & Gilovich, 1999).
What could create such a huge gap between how people behave themselves and how they think others behave?
Trust me
People often say that it’s experience that breeds this cynicism rather than a failing in human nature. This is true, but only in a special way.
Think about it like this: the first time you trust a stranger and are betrayed, it makes sense to avoid trusting other strangers in the future. The problem is that when we don’t ever trust strangers, we never find out how trustworthy people in general really are. As a result our estimation of them is governed by fear.
If this argument is correct, it is lack of experience that leads to people’s cynicism, specifically not enough positive experiences of trusting strangers. This idea is tested in a new study published in Psychological Science. Fetchenhauer and Dunning (2010) set up a kind of ideal world in the lab where people were given accurate information about the trustworthiness of strangers to see if that would reduce their cynicism.
They recruited 120 participants to take part in a game of economic trust. Each person was given €7.50 and asked if they’d like to hand it to another person. If the other person made the same decision the pot would increase to €30. They were then asked to estimate whether the other person would opt to give them their half of the total winnings.
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The participants watched 56 short videos of the people they were playing against. The researchers set up two experimental conditions, one to mimic what happens in the real world and one to test an ideal world scenario:
1. Real life condition: in this group participants were only told about the other person’s decision when they decided to trust them. The idea is that this condition simulates real life. You only find out if others are trustworthy when you decide to trust them. If you don’t trust someone you never find out whether or not they are trustworthy.
2. Ideal world condition: here participants were given feedback about the trustworthiness of other people whether or not they decided to trust them. This simulates an ideal-world condition where we all know from experience just how trustworthy people are (i.e. much more trustworthy than we think!)
Breaking down cynicism
Once again this study showed that people are remarkably cynical about strangers. Participants in this study thought that only 52 percent of the people they saw in the videos could be trusted to share their winnings. But the actual level of trustworthiness was a solid 80 percent. There’s the cynicism.
That cynicism was quickly broken down, though, by giving participants accurate feedback about others’ trustworthiness. People in the ideal world condition noticed that others could be trusted (they upped their estimate to 71 percent) and were also more trusting themselves, handing over the money 70.1 percent of the time.
People in the ideal world condition could even be seen shedding their cynicism as the study went on, becoming more trusting as they noticed that others were trustworthy. This suggests people aren’t inherently cynical, it’s just that we don’t get enough practice at trusting.
Self-fulfilling prophecy
Unfortunately we don’t live in the ideal world condition and have to put up with only receiving feedback when we decide to trust others. This leaves us in the position of trusting to psychology studies like this one to tell us that other people are more trustworthy than we imagine (or at least people who take part in psychology studies are!).
Trusting others is also a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy, just as we find in interpersonal attraction. If you try trusting others you’ll find they frequently repay that trust, leading you to be more trusting. On the other hand if you never trust anyone, except those nearest and dearest, then you’ll end up more cynical about strangers.
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Read the original research paper HERE (PDF)
April 1, 2010
Posted by peterhbrown |
Books, brain, Cognition, Health Psychology, research, Resilience | Cognition, cynicism, Identity, others, perception, self, Social Psychology, trust |
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If you want to know whether you’re going to enjoy a movie, the opinion of professional film critics might not be the best place to find out. Jonathan Plucker and colleagues compared the ratings given to films by professional critics, “amateur critics”, and undergrad students, and discovered a continuum of overlapping opinion with the experts being the harshest judges, followed by the amateur critics, while the students were the most generous.
A further finding to emerge was that undergrads who’d watched more films tended to provide harsher ratings, but these were still more generous on average than the amateur and professional critics.
Plucker’s team said this is one of the first studies to compare expert and lay opinion on films in a systematic way. Their results involved the assessment of 680 films dating from 2001 and 2005, with professional ratings garnered from metacritic.com and amateur critics’ ratings taken from www.imdb.com and www.boxofficemojo.com. One hundred and sixty-nine undergrads provided their ratings for comparison.
The researchers said their findings support the idea of “creative gatekeepers” who help society decide what products in a given realm are truly creative. A continuum of film opinion suggests different people might best be served by different gatekeepers. They explained: “a gatekeeper for one person may be a well-known critic, for another, novice critics on the most popular film sites; and for yet another, their next-door neighbour or best friend.”
Plucker, J., Kaufman, J., Temple, J., & Qian, M. (2009). Do experts and novices evaluate movies the same way? Psychology and Marketing, 26 (5), 470-478 DOI: 10.1002/mar.20283
July 26, 2009
Posted by peterhbrown |
Social Psychology | comparison, critique, evaluation, imdb, marketing, movie, Social Psychology |
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Peter H Brown Clinical Psychologist 