How to Change Minds: 20 Persuasion Tricks

How to Change Minds: 20 Persuasion Tricks

Perfection is hard to achieve in any walk of life and persuasion is no different. It relies on many things going just right at the crucial moment; the perfect synchronisation of source, message and audience. But even if perfection is unlikely, we all need to know what to aim for.

To bring you the current series on the psychology of persuasion I've been reading lots of research, much more than is covered in recent posts. As I read, I noticed the same themes cropping up over and over again.

Here are the most important points for crafting the perfect persuasive message, all of which have scientific evidenceto back them up.

1. Multiple, strong arguments: the more arguments, the more persuasive, but overall persuasive messages should be balanced, as two-sided arguments fare better than their one-sided equivalents (as long as counter-arguments are shot down).

2. Relevance: persuasive messages should be personally relevant to the audience. If not, they will switch off and fail to process it.

3. Universal goals: In creating your message, understand the three universal goals for which everyone is aiming: affiliation, accuracy and positive self-concept.

4. Likeability: ingratiating yourself with the audience is nobad thing—most successful performers, actors, lawyers and politicians do it. Likeability can be boosted by praising the audience and by perceived similarity. Even the most fleeting similarities can be persuasive.

5. Authority: people tend to defer to experts because it saves us trying to work out the pros and cons ourselves (read the classic experiment on obedience to authority).

6. Attractiveness: the physical attractiveness of the source is only important if it is relevant (e.g. when selling beauty products).

7. Match message and medium: One useful rule of thumb is: if the message is difficult to understand, write it; if it's easy, put it in a video.

8. Avoid forewarning: don't open up saying "I will try and persuade you that..." If you do, people start generating counter-arguments and are less likely to be persuaded.

9. Go slow: If the audience is already sympathetic, then present the arguments slowly and carefully (as long as they are relevant and strong). If the audience is against you then fast talkers can be more persuasive.

10. Repetition: whether or not a statement is true, repeating it a few times gives the all-important illusion of truth. The illusion of truth leads to the reality of persuasion.

11. Social proof: you've heard it before and you'll hear it again—despite all their protestations of individuality, people love conformity. So tell them which way the flock is going because people want to be in the majority.

12. Attention: if the audience isn't paying attention, they can't think about your arguments, so attitudes can't change. That's why anything that sharpens attention, like caffeine, makes people easier to persuade. And speaking of attention...

13. Minimise distraction: if you've got a strong message then audiences are more swayed if they pay attention. If the arguments are weak then it's better if they're distracted.

14. Positively framed: messages with a positive frame can be more persuasive.

15. Disguise: messages are more persuasive if they don't appear to be intended to persuade or influence as they can sidestep psychological reactance (hence the power of overheard arguments to change minds).

16. Psychologically tailored: messages should match the psychological preferences of the audience. E.g. some people prefer thinking-framed arguments and others prefer feel-framed arguments (see: battle between thought and emotion in persuasion). Also, some people prefer to think harder than others.

17. Go with the flow: persuasion is strongest when the message and audience are heading in the same direction. Thoughts which come into the audience's mind more readily are likely to be more persuasive.

18. Confidence: not only your confidence, but theirs. The audience should feel confident about attitude change. Audience confidence in their own thoughts is boosted by a credible source and when they feel happy (clue: happy audiences are laughing).

19. Be powerful: a powerful orator influences the audience, but making the audience themselves feel powerful increases their confidence in attitude change. An audience has to feel powerful enough to change.

20. Avoid targeting strong beliefs: strong attitudes and beliefs are very difficult to change. Do not directly approach long-standing ideas to which people are committed, they will resist and reject. Strong beliefs must be approached indirectly.

How to Change Minds

You should be aware that many of these factors interact with each other. For example when the message is strong but the source is dodgy, the sleeper effect can arise.

Argument strength is also critical. The basic principle is that when arguments are strong, you need to do everything to make people concentrate on them. When they're weak, it's all about distracting the audience from the content and using peripheral routes to persuade, such as how confidently or quickly you talk.

Weaving all these together is no mean feat, but look at most professionally produced persuasive messages and you'll see many of these principles on show. Incorporate as many as you can for maximum effect.

Edited by: Lawyer Asad

9 Things Successful People Do Differently

9 Things Successful People Do Differently

By Heidi Grant Halvorson
Source: Harvard Business Review

Why have you been so successful in reaching some of your goals, but not others? If you aren't sure, you are far from alone in your confusion.

It turns out that even brilliant, highly accomplished people are pretty lousy when it comes to understanding why they succeed or fail.

The intuitive answer -- that you are born predisposed to certain talents and lacking in others -- is really just one small piece of the puzzle. In fact, decades of research on achievement suggests that successful people reach their goals not simply because of who they are, but more often because of what they do.

9 Steps to Achieving Your Goals

1. Get specific. When you set yourself a goal, try to be as specific as possible. "Lose 5 pounds" is a better goal than "lose some weight," because it gives you a clear idea of what success looks like. Knowing exactly what you want to achieve keeps you motivated until you get there.

Also, think about the specific actions that need to be taken to reach your goal. Just promising you'll "eat less" or "sleep more" is too vague -- be clear and precise. "I'll be in bed by 10pm on weeknights" leaves no room for doubt about what you need to do, and whether or not you've actually done it. [Also read: How to Order From the Universe]

2. Seize the moment to act on your goals. Given how busy most of us are, and how many goals we are jugglingat once, it's not surprising that we routinely miss opportunities to act on a goal because we simply fail to notice them. Did you really have no time to work out today? No chance at any point to return that phone call? Achieving your goal means grabbing hold of these opportunities before they slip through your fingers.

To seize the moment, decide when and where you will take each action you want to take, in advance. Again, be as specific as possible (e.g., "If it's Monday, Wednesday, or Friday, I'll work out for 30 minutes before work.") Studies show that this kind of planning will help your brain to detect and seize the opportunity when it arises, increasing your chances of success by roughly 300%.

3. Know exactly how far you have left to go. Achieving any goal also requires honest and regular monitoring of your progress -- if not by others, then by you yourself. If you don't know how well you are doing, you can't adjust your behaviour or your strategies accordingly. Check your progress frequently -- weekly, or even daily, depending on the goal.

4. Be a realistic optimist. When you are setting a goal, by all means engage in lots of positive thinking about how likely you are to achieve it. Believing in your ability to succeed is enormously helpful for creating and sustaining your motivation.

But whatever you do, don't underestimate how difficult it will be to reach your goal. Most goals worth achieving require time, planning, effort, and persistence. Studies show that thinking things will come to you easily and effortlessly leaves you ill-prepared for the journey ahead, and significantly increases the odds of failure.

5. Focus on getting better, rather than being good. Believing you have the ability to reach your goals is important, but so is believing you can get the ability. Many of us believe that our intelligence, our personality, and our physical aptitudes are fixed -- that no matter what we do, we won't improve. As a result, we focus on goals that are all about proving ourselves, rather than developing and acquiring new skills.

Fortunately, decades of research suggest that the belief in fixed ability is completely wrong -- abilities of all kinds are profoundly malleable. Embracing the fact that you can change will allow you to make better choices, and reach your fullest potential. People whose goals are about getting better, rather than being good, take difficulty in stride, and appreciate the journey as much as the destination.

6. Have grit. Grit is a willingness to commit to long-term goals, and to persist in the face of difficulty. Studies show that gritty people obtain more education in their lifetime, and earn higher college GPAs. Grit predicts which cadets will stick out their first gruelling year at West Point. In fact, grit even predicts which round contestants will make it to at the Scripps National Spelling Bee.

The good news is, if you aren't particularly gritty now, there is something you can do about it. People who lack grit more often than not believe that they just don't have the innate abilities successful people have. If that describes your own thinking... well, there's no way to put this nicely: you are wrong. As I mentioned earlier, effort, planning, persistence, and good strategies are what it really takes to succeed. Embracing this knowledge will not only help you see yourself and your goals more accurately, but also do wonders for your grit.

7. Build your willpower muscle. Your self-control "muscle" is just like the other muscles in your body -- when it doesn't get much exercise, it becomes weaker over time. But when you give it regular workouts by putting it to good use, it will grow stronger and stronger, and better able to help you successfully reach your goals.

To build willpower, take on a challenge that requires you to do something you'd honestly rather not do. Give up high-fat snacks, do 100 sit-ups a day, stand up straight when you catch yourself slouching, try to learn a new skill. When you find yourself wanting to give in, give up, or just not bother -- don't.

Start with just one activity, and make a plan for how you will deal with troubles when they occur ("If I have a craving for a snack, I will eat one piece of fresh or three pieces of dried fruit.") It will be hard in the beginning, but it will get easier, and that's the whole point. As your strength grows, you can take on more challenges and step-up your self-control workout. [Also read: How to Boost Your Willpower]

8. Don't tempt fate. No matter how strong your willpower muscle becomes, it's important to always respect the fact that it is limited, and if you overtax it you will temporarily run out of steam. Don't try to take on two challenging tasks at once, if you can help it (like quitting smoking and dieting at the same time). And don't put yourself in harm's way -- many people are overly-confident in their ability to resist temptation, and as a result they put themselves in situations where temptations abound. Successful people know not to make reaching a goal harder than it already is.

9. Focus on what you will do, not what you won't do. Do you want to successfully lose weight, quit smoking, or put a lid on your bad temper? Then plan how you will replace bad habits with good ones, rather than focusing only on the bad habits themselves. Research on thought suppression (e.g., "Don't think about white bears!") has shown that trying to avoid a thought makes it even more active in your mind. The same holds true when it comes to behavior -- by trying not to engage in a bad habit, our habits get strengthened rather than broken. 

If you want change your ways, ask yourself, What will I do instead? For example, if you are trying to gain control of your temper and stop flying off the handle, you might make a plan like "If I am starting to feel angry, then I will take three deep breaths to calm down." By using deep breathing as a replacement for giving in to your anger, your bad habit will get worn away over time until it disappears completely.

It is my hope that, after reading about the nine things successful people do differently, you have gained some insight into all the things you have been doing right all along. Even more important, I hope are able to identify the mistakes that have derailed you, and use that knowledge to your advantage from now on. 

Remember, you don't need to become a different person to become a more successful one. It's never what you are, but what you do.

Heidi Grant Halvorson, Ph.D. is the author of the new book Succeed: How We Can Reach Our Goals.

The 4 Parts of Visualization

Did you know that there are 4 parts of visualization that you can learn and practice to assure that you use this incredible power to its best advantage all the days of your life?

How Often?

The first aspect of visualization is frequency. This is number of times that you visualize yourself performing in an excellent way, in a particular event or circumstance, to achieve a particular goal. The more frequently you repeat a clear mental picture of your very best performance or result, the more rapidly it will appear as part of your reality.

How Long?

The second element of visualization is the duration of the mental image, the length of time that you can hold the picture in your mind each time you replay it. When you deeply relax, you can often hold a mental picture of yourself performing at your best for several seconds, and even several minutes. The longer you can hold your mental picture, the more deeply it will be impressed into your subconscious mind and the more rapidly it will express itself in your subsequent performance.

How Clearly?

The third element of visualization is vividness. There is a direct relationship between how clearly you can see your desired goal or result in your mind and how quickly it comes into your reality. This element of visualization is what explains the powers of the Law of Attraction and the Law of Correspondence. The vividness of your desire directly determines how quickly it materializes in the world around you. 
Here is an interesting point: When you set a new goal for yourself, your image or picture of this goal will usually be vague and fuzzy. But the more often you write it, review it, and repeat it mentally, the clearer it becomes for you. Eventually, it will become crystal clear. At that point, the goal will suddenly appear in your world exactly as you imagined it.

How Intensely?

The fourth element of visualization is intensity, the amount of emotion that you attach to your visual image. In reality, this is the most important and powerful part of the visualization process. Sometimes, if your emotion is intense enough and your visual image is clear enough, you will immediately achieve it.

Of course, the elements of frequency, duration, vividness, and intensity can help you or hurt you. Like nature, the power of visualization is neutral. Like a two-edged sword, it can cut in either direction. It can either make you a success or make you a failure. Visualization brings you whatever you vividly and intensely imagine, whether good or bad.

Action Exercise

Continually feed your mind with clear, exciting, emotional pictures. Remember, your imagination is your preview of life's coming attractions. Learn how to accomplish all of your goals here.

To your success in goal setting,

Brian Tracy