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The Science of Persuasion and Therapy:
Decrease Resistance and Improve Therapeutic Outcomes
Bill O’Hanlon
For a free copy of these slides, visitbillohanlon.com
Click on FREE STUFFThen click on SLIDES
INTRODUCTION
THREE LITTLE WORDS CAN MAKE A BIG DIFFERENCE
An informercial copywriter (Colleen Szot) changed the “call to action” from:
“Operators are standing by; please call now.”; to
“If operators are busy, please call again.”
Sales increased significantly; shattering a 20-year sales record
Why? Soon the answer will be obvious to you.
DO WE MAKE DECISIONS?
OR DOES OUR UNCONSCIOUS MAKE DECISIONS?
WE HAVE THE ILLUSION WE MAKE RATIONAL CONSCIOUS DECISIONS
During any given second, we consciously process only sixteen of the eleven million bits of information our senses pass on to our brains.
Nørretrander, Tor (1999).The User Illusion: Cutting Consciousness Down to Size. NY: Penguin.
THE 5 MAJOR PRINCIPLES OF PERSUASION/CHANGE
SOCIAL FOLLOWING
PRIMING
LOSS AVOIDANCE
How to use these principles in changework to reduce resistance and increase cooperation and results
CHANGE PRINCIPLE #1: SOCIAL INFLUENCE FACTORS
HUMANS ARE SOCIAL ANIMALS
SOCIAL COMPARISON, FOLLOWING AND NORMS
People tend to look to others, especially a majority of others, to decide how to behave in and perceive situations
Any messages that show that many (or most) others are doing or perceiving a certain way will influence one’s actions, choices and perceptions
HOW DO YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO?
SOCIAL COMPARISON, FOLLOWING AND NORMS
A MORE CONTEMPORARY CONTEMPORARY EXAMPLE
THE HOTEL RE-USE STUDIES
Social psychologists, led by Dr. Robert Cialdini, investigated how the percentage of re-using towels more than once per stay was influenced by messages about how others behaved
When a message was left saying it was good for the environment to re-use towels, a certain percentage of people re-used, over 50% typically
Goldstein, Noah; Cialdini, R.B.; and Griskevicius, Vladas. (2008). “A room with a viewpoint: using social norms to motivate conservation in hotels,” Journal of Consumer Research, 13 (2), 214–20.
THE HOTEL RE-USE STUDIES
33%Most in this room re-usedMost in this hotel re-used
26%
PETRIFIED FOREST STUDY
In an effort to reduce stealing of wood pieces from the Petrified Forest, officials put up a sign reading:
“Your heritage is being vandalized every day by theft losses of petrified wood of 14 tons a year, mostly a small piece at a time.”
The study was suggested when a graduate student reported that his fiancée, who was usually scrupulously honest, read this sign and nudged him and whispered, “We’d better get ours now.”
PETRIFIED FOREST STUDY
Researchers specially marked wood pieces so they could measure theft on various trails.
Then they created alternate signs:“Many past visitors have removed petrified wood from the park, changing the natural state of the Petrified Forest.” This sign showed people picking up wood. “Please don’t remove wood from the park, in order to preserve the natural state of the Petrified Forest.” This one showed a lone person picking up wood with a red X superimposed.
PETRIFIED FOREST STUDY RESULTS
Compared to a control condition in which 2.92% of the wood pieces were stolen:
Social following sign: theft to 7.92 % of pieces stolen.
Lone wolf sign: theft to 1.67%.
WE ALL THINK WE AREN’T GOING ALONG WITH THE CROWD
“When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.” -Eric Hoffer
“Why do you have to be a nonconformist like everybody else?” -James Thurber
You are unique; just like everybody else. -Bumper sticker
GAZING SKYWARD STUDY
Stanley Milgram had a person in NYC gaze skyward; most people ignored him. When he was joined by 3 others gazing skyward, 4 times as many people also stopped and looked up.
Milgram, S.; Bickman, L. and Berkowitz, L. (1969). “Note on the drawing power of crowds of different sizes,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 13:79-82.
TAKE CARE HOW YOU USE SOCIAL NORM MESSAGES
Women’s Voices, during the 2004 presidential campaign, sent out 1 million postcards with this message: “Four years ago, 22 million single women did not vote.”
Oops! Voter turnout for single women was especially low that year, even lower than in 2000.
MIRROR NEURONS
The ice cream cone and the monkey
Gallese, V., Fadiga, L., Fogassi, L., & Rizzolatti, G. (1996). “Action recognition in the premotor cortex,” Brain, 119:593-609.
Fogassi, L., & Ferrari, P.F. (2007). “Mirror neurons and the evolution of embodied language,” Current Directions in Psychological Science, 17, 136–141.
TAKE-AWAY
You probably already mirror people naturally, but you might be able to improve your skill at gaining rapport if you attend to people more closely. Listen to and watch them as they speak and interact with you.
SIMPLE EXAMPLES OF SOCIAL FOLLOWING
“Studies have shown that most people get and feel better after they come to therapy.”
“Most people eventually get sober.”
“A lot of my clients who do this exercise (or participate in this group) get a lot out of it.”
NOT: “Everyone of you will relapse.”
YOUR TURN
How can you use this social following/social norms principle in your work?
How have you been inadvertently using social comparisons and norms ineffectively?
What is one small shift you can make in the way you work that reflects what you have learned or clarified in this section?
CHANGE PRINCIPLE #2: PRIMING & CONTEXTUAL
INFLUENCES/BIASES
NON-CONSCIOUS INFLUENCES AND PRIMING
Contexts influence people’s perceptions and decision-making much more than we think
Create contexts for positive influence and change
CONTEXTUAL PRIMING
CONTEXTUAL PRIMING
CONTEXT MATTERS
Walmart redesigned their shopping carts to be 20% bigger
Sales of big items, such as microwave ovens, went up 50% after the redesign
PRIMING
CONTEXTUAL PRIMING
PERCEPTUAL PRIMING
NUMERICAL PRIMING
TIMING PRIMING
LINGUISTIC PRIMING
ATTRIBUTION THEORY
Reserachers took a group of college freshmen experiencing difficulties (as reflected by their poor grades) and divided them into a control group and an experimental groupThey told the experimental group that many students had difficulties their first year and later did better. They showed them videos of seniors who related the same messageOnly 5% of the experimental group dropped out vs. 25% of the control groupExperimental group members’ grades rose an average of .34 points while the control group members’ grades declined by .05 points
Wilson, T. and Linville, P. (1982). “Improving academic performance of colllege freshmen: Attribution theory revisited,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 42: 367-376.
Clinical Uses
Normalize by others have felt these things or struggled in similar ways; tell stories
This is a phase, and you can move through it
Others have been through this and come out the other side
Group therapy
The Anti-Anorexia/Bulimia League
PUT PROBLEMS INTO THE PAST
Use past tense when reflecting problem talk, impossibilities, hostility to treatment
HaveDidWhen you (past tense verb)Were
NUMERICAL PRIMING
The experimenter had students write down the last two digits of their social security numberThen they were asked whether they would pay that amount for several items that were to be auctionedThe social security numbers influenced what students bid; For example, for one item, students with the highest numbers bid highest (e.g. $56 average for the highest) and those with the lowest numbers bid the lowest ($16 average)
Ariely, D.; Loewenstein, G.; and Prelec, Drazen. (2003). “Coherent arbitrariness: Stable demand curves without stable preferences,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 118(1):73-105.
CONTEXTUAL PRIMING AND SYMPTOMS OF AGING
A group of elderly men were taken to a hotel that had been decorated to look like it was 20 years earlier in the U.S. (the study was done in 1979 and the hotel, decorations and items placed around were all from 1959).The men were told to live as if it were 1959 and that, if the experiment succeeded, the researchers thought the men would feel as good as they had in 1959.After just one week, the men in the experimental group (compared with controls of the same age) had more joint flexibility, increased dexterity and less arthritis in their hands. Their mental acuity had risen measurably, and they had improved gait and posture. Outsiders who were shown the men’s photographs judged them to be significantly younger than the controls. In other words, the aging process had in some measure been reversed.
Langer, E. (2009). Counterclockwise: Mindful health and the power of possibilities. NY: Ballatine Books.
CONCEPTUAL PRIMING AND SYMPTOMS OF AGING 2
Subjects were asked to solve anagrams. Expermiental subjects were given more aging-symptom connected anagrams (examples: felorguft--->forgetful; mlpi--->limp). The control group was given neutral, non-age-related words.Subjects who had been primed with the age-related words walked significantly more slowly to the elevator on the way out.In a follow-up study, subjects were asked to sort photos into “old” and “young” stacks. They also walked more slowly to the elevator after the task.But if subjects were told to sort the photos by gender, no such effect occured.
Bargh, J., Chen, M and Burrows, L. (1996). “Automaticity of social behavior: Direct effects of trait construct and stereotype activation on action,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71(2):230-244.
Djikic, M., Langer, E. and Stapleton, S. (2008). “Reducing stereotyping through mindfulness: Decreasing effects of stereotype-activated behavior,” Journal of Adult Development, 15:106-111.
Langer, E. (2009). Counterclockwise: Mindful health and the power of possibilities. NY: Ballatine Books.
POSITIVE EXPECTANCY
Presupposition (speaking as if some positive change will happen)
WhenYet, so farHowWho will notice first?
YOUR TURN
How could you apply this knowledge of the influence of labels, positive expectancy and value attributions in your work?
What should you avoid doing and what should you do based on this knowledge?
COMMITMENT AND CONSISTENCY
Once people verbally or otherwise commit to some position, they are much more likely to act consistently with that committed position
COMMITMENT AND CONSISTENCY
•Once restaurant owner decreased no shows for dinner reservations from 30% to 10% by changing what the receptionist said from “Please call if you have to cancel,” to “Will you please call if you have to cancel?” and then waiting for a yes response.
•When people verbally commit to something, they are more likely to follow through.
From Goldstein, Noah; Martin, Steve; and Cialdini , R. (2008). Yes: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive. NY: Free Press.
COMMITMENT AND CONSISTENCY
One researcher set a blanket with a radio on the beach, listened to the radio for a few minutes, then went for a stroll on the beachA second researcher pretended to be a thief who took the radio and began to run away with itVery few (4 out of 20) onlookers stopped the “thief” until the next condition, in which the first researcher asked the onlooker to “watch my stuff.” Then, 19 of the 20 onlookers ran after the “thief,” snatched the radio out of his hand, and, in some cases, restrained him until the owner returned
Moriarty, T. (1975). “Crime, consistency, and the responsive bystander,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 31:370-376.
RESPONSE PRIMING
Milton Erickson’s “YES SET”
NO SET
REVERSE SET
TAKE AWAY
Get people to publicly, verbally and with small actions, commit to some course of action or value that would be good for them and in the direction in which you are trying to lead them
They are much more likely to follow through if they do
YOUR TURN
How could you apply commitment and consistency principles in your work?
What should you avoid doing and what should you do based on this knowledge?
CHANGE PRINCIPLE #3: LOSS AVERSION/AVOIDANCE
LOSS AVERSION/AVOIDANCE
People are very driven to avoid lossLost opportunitiesLoss of freedom
LOSS AVERSION/AVOIDANCEBazerman, Max. (2002). Judgment in Managerial Decision Making. NY: John Wiley and Sons.
Shubik, Martin. (1971). “The Dollar Auction Game: A Paradox in noncooperative behavior and escalation,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, (15): 109-111.
$204
TAKEAWAY
When introducing interventions and suggesting change, link lack of compliance with possible loss
E.g., “If you walk away from this marriage now and don’t give everything you’ve got, you may find yourself regretting it later.”
TAKEAWAY
Drug and alcohol counselor (Bill Bowles) offers class for military personnel on recognizing and changing their addictions
He hands out a list at the end of the first class with the ten things they could lose if they continue their drug/alcohol problem behavior
Children, spouse, health, friends, money, career advancement, respect of others
He reports these tough military people are often in tears by the time they finish going over the list
TAKE AWAYS
Presuppose positive developments and outcomes
Use positive expectancy talk
Beware of negative predictions (make those more conditional - e.g. “If you were to relapse, . . . how will you catch yourself or get back on track?”) and pessimistic/negative diagnositic labels
Attribute people’s positive changes to their efforts, rather than their qualities
WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED?
What will be one thing you take away from this talk and can use right away?
What do you want to explore more?
THANK YOU
Foracopyoftheseslides,visitwww.BillOHanlon.comPleasewaitafewdays;theslideswillbeavailableforamonth
BILL O’HANLON
223 N. Guadalupe #278
Santa Fe, NM 87501
www.billohanlon.com
www.GetYourBookWritten.com