I’m currently reading Robert Cialdini’s Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. An oft referenced book in NLP circles, Cialdini has researched the field of influenced and presents his conclusions in the book, detailing the six principles of influence.
One of the subjects discussed before delving in to the principles in detail, is how easily we humans (yes I am one of you whatever you think. From a different dimension of course, but certainly human in origin) are influenced. An example is presented from the work of Ellen Langer (her book, Mindfulness is on my list of “to read”s). A well-known principle of human behaviour is that when we ask someone to do us a favour, we will be more successful if we provide a reason.
Langer demonstrated this by carrying out a study with a photocopier queue. Langer approached the queue and asked a small favour.
“Excuse me, I have five pages, may I use the Xerox machine because I’m in a rush?”
Ninety four percent of those asked let her go in front of them. Compare this to the result when she only asked:
“Excuse me, I have five pages, may I use the Xerox machine?”
Sixty percent let her go in front. Quite a difference. At first glance it would appear that giving a valid reason was the cause for the increased success rate. However, Langer carried out a further experiment, this time she asked:
“Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I have to make some copies?”
Ninety three percent agreed to let her go ahead, despite a completely irrelevent reason that simply restated her original implication.
Of course this doesn’t mean that you can get someone to do something that they don’t want to do, or that would cause them harm. “Can you please jump off that cliff” is unlikely to work, unless you are talking to a lemming (in which case you have bigger issues to deal with). What it does mean is that you can get what you want from people who are perhaps ambivalent to the outcome, should they accede to your request.
So the next time you are in a shop, try “Can I have a discount because I would like a discount”, or “Can I have a discount because that is too much”. See what happens - you just might find that you save yourself a few pennies, and have a laugh in the process. A smart tip here is to go quiet after your request - the unaware have a habit of filling uncomfortable silences, and the easiest thing will just be to say yes. Even if they don’t, they’ll look uncomfortable anyway. I think that you should try it because it is fun!
