How we change what others think, feel, believe and do

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Get rich quick?

You may have noticed that there are a whole bunch of sites out there which are trying to persuade you of something, from getting rich quick to becoming an irresistible Lothario. Of course you can't acquire fame and fortune this cheaply, but it seems many fall into the trap of buying disappointment.

Seeing as they are trying to persuade you, albeit of a rather tenuous value proposition, I thought I'd take a closer look at one of these sites. As I'm interested in changing minds, I chose one which offers great skill in persuasion for remarkably little cost and effort.

http://www.20daypersuasion.com/index.php

The wonderful title is 'How to be an expert persuader in 20 days or less'. The key words here are 'expert persuader' (which is emphasized) and '20 days or less'. The promise of expertise implies you will be superior to the very large majority of other people and consequently be able to persuade pretty much anyone of anything you want. The '20 days or less' implies this will be easy. In other words you'll be getting something for pretty much nothing (and consequently the price is not that important).

Note the use of red font titles. Red is a hue to which the eye is particularly sensitive and so grabs attention. Oddly, many of these pages use Verdana font, which make me wonder if they are all filling in the gaps of a standard template.

The subtitle is 'If You Can Easily and Quickly Persuade Anyone to Eagerly Do Anything You Want, How Will You Use This Power?' Note the use of a question here as they want you to envisage yourself as all-powerful. This implies the advert is targeted at people who at the moment do not feel powerful. The 'eagerly' is interested and amplifies the implied power you will have.

Then there's a video, starting oddly with a squirrel but then quickly showing fast cars, big houses, helicopters and other symbols of power and fortune. Drooling yet? You are supposed to be.

The text then uses Courier, which used to be used by typewriters, implying that this is a personal letter to you. And indeed, it is framed in the text like a memo.

Some of the devices that follow include:

A fake questionnaire is presented with lots of desirable and amplified things it is implied you will be able to achieve.
A 'free gift' (which costs you an email address) that seeks to create an exchange dynamic.
Requests for action in a 'dotted-line' box like a 'cut here' box in a paper magazine.
Bullet point lists with check-mark 'ticks' that imply you will get all of these items.
Text highlighted with a yellow background (as if it was done with a highlighter pen).
Lots of 'testimonials' that stress how wonderful the product is that invite you to get what they have got and feel as they are feeling.
A personal 'rags-to-riches' story of incompetence-to-competence from the seller that seeks to convince you of his credibility in the subject matter.
A few tips to show that the seller is an expert (nothing you won't find on changingminds.org, though).
A photo of the seller with his 'beautiful wife'.
Interspersed videos taken directly from YouTube.
Endless persuasive language.
Bonus 'gifts' (especially for those who buy now).
A 'VIP' direct email to the seller who will of course answer every question for the rest of your life.
A 96.5% discount. Worth $1346 but yours for only $47!
Upselling to 'Elite edition' for $57.
100% money-back guarantee where you still keep the products (most people won't bother, and those that do may have a long wait).

The page is very long with much repetition, presumably working on the principle of investment: that people who stay the course, having spent so much time reading will feel they need to justify this time by buying the product.

It seems too good to be true, which always makes me highly sceptical and head off to more realistic lands. As they say in Yorkshire, 'you don't get owt for nowt'. The only people likely to get rich quick from such sites are the people who set them up (and of course that is the main idea).

I do a lot of trawling for information on persuasion and don't want to waste time in such sites, so I'm grateful for the originator of the template that has been used, as when I see the red titles and other patterns I can quickly hit the 'back' button.

Tuesday 24-March-09

How to get (but not win) an Oscar

Winning an Oscar is a big deal for the actors, directors and technical people who are awarded by this most iconic of prizes for excellence in movie-making. It can do wonders for your ego and even more for your career to have little gold statuette of uncle Oscar on your mantelpiece. Win one of those little fellas and the offers will come pouring in through the door. You'd think that as motivation enough to do all you can to make efforts to sway hose who give the awards. But for the investors who pour millions into individual movies, it's even a bigger deal.

Take Slumdog Millionaire, the British-Indian blockbuster of 2008. It cost $16m to make and took a healthy $172m. Nice enough. Then it won 8 Oscars, and took an extra $215m. That's money in the bank for the backers, and quite a lot of it too. Which perhaps would make it understandable that studios don't just sit back and keep their fingers crossed they will win. No - they go out on the trail as if it were a big political campaign, literally spending millions of dollars, first to get nominated (which itself is valuable) and then to win as many statuettes as they can.

A recent BBC article spells it all out. If you are one of the hallowed folks who gets to cast a vote, then you can expect to be feted, cajoled and seduced as if you were a God. And for a little while, you have a god-like power to make a few people very happy (and very rich) whilst disappointing a whole bunch more.

There are rules, of course, and The Academy does not want to appear to appear tawdry. It combats badmouthing in particular, though still some over-step the mark. Negative campaigning, whether political or Oscar-based, is seldom the best way to persuade and is often the last refuge of those who do not understand the psychology of influence.

Yet 'buying an Oscar' still seems feasible. Just listen to Mike Runagall, senior Vice-President at Pathé international when he says "First and foremost the film has to deliver to some degree." Deliver to some degree? Is that all?? He then puts the knife in by continuing "I don't believe you can completely buy an Oscar, but you can certainly narrow down the stakes." Completely buy?? The answer seems pretty much that money talks (and the studios wouldn't spend all that much if it didn't) and that once you have jumped over the first hurdles, getting an Oscar is all about persuasion, influence and outspending the other contenders.

Friday 26-February-10

Teenage troubles over?

I blogged nearly five years ago about my errant son who quit school and home to live with 'friends' on the other side of the country. It's hard enough when your children fall off the rails but it was more so for us as my wife and I are both 'changing minds' professionals (she's a teacher). But hormones and the genetic push for young adults to flee the safety of the family coop to set up on their own can be overwhelming.

So off he went and we didn't hear from him for long periods. He came back, got a job in a superstore and then left again, for more painful growing-up lessons. But now he's not only back but, after a three-year sojourn, is studying for exams and with a potentially good career ahead. He wants to be a lawyer and certainly has the brains for it. What is yet to be proven is his staying power.

We have our fingers tightly crossed for him. We all know we cannot support him for life and he has to find long-term sustainable independence. It's a hard lesson, going from childhood to adulthood. The child sees the adult as having authority to do whatever one likes. What the child often does not see is the cost of that freedom, in the necessity of work and the responsibility to oneself, to others and to society.

One of the big recent signals that my son is growing up is that he came into London and we went out for a meal together and then went to a philosophy lecture, and he was civil throughout the whole affair. He is becoming more grateful and is listening more and pronouncing less.

He is not out of the woods yet and could yet fall off the road. He's had self-destructive tendencies in the past and may still snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory. He is getting good results but seems not to be studying as much as one might hope. He still has teenage moments (and days) but these are declining.

We have our fingers crossed but his future is his choice.

Wednesday 17-February-10

A strangely, princely, eccentric evening

I've just had the strangest, most interesting, distinctly eccentric and enjoyable evening. I am writing this on the train home, in a slightly inebriated state, so please excuse any befuddled language, for indeed I feel rather odd. I'm also in a quite truthful state so pin your ears back and here it comes.

I've just had dinner with Prince Philip. As in the husband of Queen Elizabeth of England. I greeted him and sat opposite him and we exchanged pleasantries. Nice chap, as they say, though goodness knows what he thought of it all. Actually, his body language said he was having a good time, which is rather nice.

Let's get things straight. He wasn't my immediate guest and I don't normally hobnob with royalty. In fact he's pretty much the first person in the British royal family I've met. Was I star-struck? Yeah, a bit. I'm not proud. And yet also I suffer the curse of having studied psychology whereby you step back and watch what is going on, including in your own head. I've found this a blessing, by the way. In understanding people you tend to appreciate them more and accept and marvel at how they manage to function in the face of all the complexity that is thrown at them.

What must it be to be a royal person? To be unavoidably and always in the glare of the media? Prince Philip has long been in the spotlight and yet also in the shadow of Her Majesty. Even whilst being 'His Royal Highness', he has always been number two or maybe less as his children and their partners have walked into the limelight. I've always admired the way he has not taken himself too seriously whilst getting into hot water for saying what he thinks without thinking too much about what he is saying. He once described himself as a master in the art of 'orthopedontery' -- the practice of opening your mouth and putting your foot in it.

The event was at the Eccentric's Club in London, about which I've blogged a bit before. I love the club and its members, who are often truth incarnate, without the false dressing of excessively polite society. I sat between Lyndon and Roy, who were both wonderful company.

Roy was a member of the last incarnation of the club (which has started and stopped since the 1750s -- think about the paradox of an eccentric's club). He was a stunning sales person in his time as well as a sailor in the second world war, and who still has all his marbles and then some. He told me stories of changing minds that would blow your socks off. He would walk into situations with charming bravado and, in doing so, made great friends with people like Count Basie, Ray Reardon and others that us normal (!) mortals might call celebrities. Lyndon is a very smart engineer and a 'proper' eccentric who builds Heath Robinson contraptions just for the challenge and delight of the task. He is probably one of the few people who has been ogled by the Queen and who then waved, regally, back from his wickerwork car. I loved listening to the stories of both.

Prince Philip, for me, is an inspiration. I may not agree with everything he says, but so what. Nor do lots of people. But that's the point. He isn't bound by public opinion. He's his own man. He says what he thinks, which I find rather refreshing. People say that's eccentric. I say it's truth. Truth is as you see it and say it and, very importantly, is about being true to your self. How often do we lie (yes, lie) and otherwise tell ourselves stories to justify a disharmony between our thoughts and our action?

And Roy also displayed through his stories and Lyndon showed through his being that honesty and respect and eccentricity are highly congruous. Which is why I had such a great time (and silently thank them for their lovely company).

ps. I also want to say a massive thanks to Imants who organized it all. Top fellow.

Your Comments

...and equally massive thanks to Brian Clivaz, who's done so much and then was too ill to attend the Dinner... such a pity!

Lovely piece, Dave! Thank you!

-- Imants

Well done David!

-- Jean-Francois

Friday 12-February-10

Bullying, revenge thinking and detachment

Have you ever been the subject of unkind words or actions? Have you had people threaten, insult or overlook you? Perhaps you will have felt the very real physical tension as you ache for revenge. Maybe specific incidents play and-replay themselves inside your head. You might even have successfully got your own back, though even this may well have only partially relieved the internal pressure.

Researcher Bernardo Moreno-Jiménez and colleagues surveyed 511 employees at several companies and found a correlation between job stress and bullying, often because a person's role conflicted in some ways with others. Power is unevenly distributed in most organizations and with lack of alignment between roles, many use coercive and other less savoury methods to succeed at the expense of others.

An interesting point that Moreno-Jiménez found was that those who can detach themselves from work and see what is really going on suffer less stress and are less often at the receiving end of workplace bullying.

This is one of the benefits of studying psychology. You naturally tend to take a more detached viewpoint and when you can see how people are just responding to the forces on them, even when this response is anti-social, then you take things less personally and have greater sympathy (or at least pity) for the aggressor. Rather than objects of fear they become subjects of study and so lose much of their power over you.

Reference:
Morenojimenez, B., Rodriguezmunoz, A., Pastor, J., Sanzvergel, A. and E Garrosa, E. (2009). The moderating effects of psychological detachment and thoughts of revenge in workplace bullying. Personality and Individual Differences, 46 (3), 359-364

Your comments

Hello Dave.... Moreno is right. Being interactive with some of the less fortunate among us is such a clear example of the forces applied to them and their reactions to it.

I'm happy to see your personal list of a weekend of accomplishments and wish I could find the time to make a list! (me casa: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ransom_Canyon).

But, I'm really writing not because I need help with my homebuilding, rather I'm in desperate need to "nudge" a congressional district with a CookPVI score of +26. Philip Zimbardo says that the same means to oppress can be used to elevate and I'd appreciate any help in that direction. I'm looking forward to diving in deeper to the London club mission to remove the mask and consider other solutions for us in the US albeit maybe impossible, it is essential for progress. IMHO.

best regards, Mark L, Texas

Dave replies:
Hi Mark. Nice house! The PVI score seems to indicate strong political tendencies and indeed it's better to use the flow rather than try to push rope. An inventive method called TRIZ uses a similar principle of using resources that are already available.

Friday 05-February-10

Vivid self-persuasion

How do you persuade yourself? We often do, and perhaps always do. Others may provide the rationale, but we have to be persuaded, and a certain amount of conversation and self-talk is usually needed.

The problem gets trickier when it comes to art. How do you sell a painting? How do you persuade yourself that an abstract piece is good? The immediate reaction is often quite visceral. You like it or not. But can that be changed?

Researcher Ayumi Yamada asked students to explain out loud their reasons for liking or not two paintings -- one abstract, one representational. The reason for these is that abstract is harder to describe whilst representational art is of real things that can more easily be verbalised.

Later, the subjects who had been asked to praise the paintings were asked which was their favourite. Most preferred the representational art, presumably because it was easier to describe. This was confirmed when those who were asked to criticize both paintings were asked about their favourite: they chose the abstract art, again likely because it was easier to put criticism of the representational art into words.

This has big implications for changing minds -- first, getting people to talk about something increases the likelihood that they will change their beliefs to match. This is the consistency principle and is well-known. What this research adds is the imperative to make it easy for the person to accurately and vividly talk about the subject about which you want to persuade them.

Reference:
Yamada, A. (2009). Appreciating art verbally: Verbalization can make a work of art be both undeservedly loved and unjustly maligned. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 45 (5), 1140-1143

Friday 29-January-10

Illusory suddenness

I went to another great lecture recently at the wonderful RSA. This time there were two neuroscientists and two philosophers duking it out over free will and choice. The keynote was by Professor Patrick Haggard who told the story of the famous Libert experiment. Benjamin Libert conducted a simple but remarkable experiment in 1983 that still fascinates psychologists and neuroscientists. All he did was to ask people to press a big red button at any moment of their choosing. He also had their brains wired up so he could measure the electric potential across the scalp that indicated deeper neural machinations.

Libert's remarkable findings was that the brain shows activity about 200ms before we consciously think we have decided to press the button, with the tantalizing implication that our subconscious mind decides before our conscious kicks in. The frightening subsequent conclusion is that it's our subconscious that is driving the bus, and that maybe consciousness is some kind of illusion. Since 1983, scans with more sophisticated fMRI equipment have confirmed the finding, that conscious choice happens after the brain starts moving.

It made me wonder about how decisions appear. The language of decision-making implies that choice is a sudden, digital step-function, where we think thoughts and reach logical conclusions. But the brain is not a computer and, as Libert's graphs show, what is actually happening is a varying analogue of electrical potential that, when slowed down, can be experienced as an increasing pressure that leads to a realization and 'decision'. Our experience is limited by our ability to perceive the passage of time, and when we seem to make a sudden choice, it may just be that we cannot perceive a rapid rise in neural potential. It may thus be that the apparent suddenness of choice is illusory.

I got to ask a question and queried this point. I know I'd hit the button when they started nodding and an interesting debate ensued, including the whole question of illusion and the irreversibility of physical action.

It's nice when you think about something and the idea gets recognized as having some merit. I went home, feeling pleasantly chuffed and still pondering how my subconscious came quickly or slowly to the conclusion about illusory suddenness.

Friday 22-January-10

When to be angry

Is it ever good to be anger when you are trying to persuade others? Should you always keep your cool in changing minds? Whilst it is never a good idea to completely lose your rag, a display of anger can, if managed well, lead to a successful outcome.

An interesting study of anger in persuasion that throws light on this was done by Shlomo Hareli and colleagues. Subjects were shown videos of acted scenes where a person makes a complaint, getting angry and not, and in simple and ambiguous situations. What the found was that viewers thought getting angry was justified only in the ambiguous situation, for example where a technician had not anticipated an unusual problem.

My wife's a teacher and uses anger occasionally. She doesn't get really angry but puts on the act to gain attention to things like the need to work and being kind to others. She also knows that this is a silver bullet and cannot be used often. Children easily become acclimatised to loud teachers and it's often true in other areas of life.

Of course there's no place for real, hot anger, except perhaps where you are being physically attacked. Some people use it as a shield and a weapon: it makes them feel powerful when they usually do not, and in this way can act like an addictive drug. Such people do not persuade, though they may coerce. The down-side of course is that they also accumulate enemies who may seek subtle revenge.

So the lessons are clear: be sparing with anger, stay in control and focus it in ambiguous situations where you need to demonstrate importance.

Reference:
Hareli, S., Harush, R., Suleiman, R., Cossette, M., Bergeron, S., Lavoie, V., Dugay, G., & Hess, U. (2009). When scowling may be a good thing: The influence of anger expressions on credibility. European Journal of Social Psychology, 39 (4), 631-638

For more, see the ChangingMinds Blog! Archive or the Blogs by subject. To comment on any blog, click on the blog either in the archive or in the column to the right.

Best wishes,

Dave

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