Methods of Persuasion: How to Use Psychology to Influence Human Behavior (6 page)

How can you apply this strategy in your own life? Suppose that you’re submitting an essay to your professor, and your professor asks you how you think it turned out. What would you say? To secure the highest grade possible, you could take advantage of anchoring by making a joke that you think your paper is “worthy of an A.” On the surface, it seems like an innocent remark. But as the devious persuasion mastermind you are, you realize that mentioning an “A” establishes an anchor point that your professor will use when grading your paper. With his perception anchored toward the high end of the grading scale, his grade will likely be higher than if he didn’t receive that anchor point. If legal experts with thirty years of experience are influenced by anchoring, there’s no reason why professors would be any different.

Conveying high expectations can be an extremely powerful persuasion tool for many reasons. This strategy is so powerful that I devoted the next chapter to it.

A MIND READER’S PERSPECTIVE: HOW I USE ANCHORING IN A $100 DEMONSTRATION

In the opening demonstration of my mind reading show, I play a game where one of three volunteers can win one hundred dollars (and unbeknownst to the audience, I use anchoring to put the odds in my favor).

Hanging from my table are four envelopes (each are labeled “1”, “2”, “3”, and “4”, respectively), and I explain that one of those envelopes contains a one hundred dollar bill. I bring three volunteers on stage and ask each of them to choose an envelope, and I explain that if they choose the envelope with the money, then they can keep it. When I ask the first volunteer to choose an envelope, I say:

I’ve performed this demonstration many times on stage. And for the last five times that I’ve performed it, the money has been in envelope number three. Now why am I telling you that? Am I trying to influence you to pick envelope number three, or am I trying to use reverse psychology to try to nudge you toward a different envelope?

Except for a few very rare cases, the volunteer in this scenario usually chooses the second envelope. Why? Ask a friend to think of a number between one and four. Chances are high that the person will choose two or three (with the number three being chosen more often). People very rarely choose one or four because they stick out too much (and not to mention that you subtly imply that they should choose a number “between” one and four).

But why do volunteers choose envelope two, and not envelope three? If you notice, my scripting discourages people from choosing the third envelope because I bring the volunteer’s attention to it. By outwardly mentioning that the money has frequently been in the third envelope, people no longer feel comfortable selecting it; if they choose the third envelope, they’ll appear gullible in the eyes of the audience (a perception that they try to avoid). Because people still feel compelled to choose an option from the middle, they pick the only remaining option in the middle: envelope number two.

After the first volunteer chooses the second envelope, I proceed to the next volunteer. Because the first volunteer didn’t select the third envelope (despite my claim that the money has frequently been in that envelope), this second volunteer now feels greater pressure to select the third envelope. If he doesn’t select it, then the third volunteer may not select it either. If I ended up with the money from envelope number three, then all of the volunteers would seem stupid, a perception that the second volunteer avoids by selecting envelope number three.

At this point, I’ve eliminated envelopes two and three from the equation, and now I just need to influence the third volunteer’s choice of envelope. In fact, I’ve already subtly influenced him to choose envelope number four. Can you think of why? Here’s a hint: it has to do with anchoring.

In the excerpt from my script, I mentioned that the money has been in the third envelope for the last “five” demonstrations (and I consistently remind the audience of that). Therefore, the last volunteer is more likely to choose envelope number four because I set a nonconscious anchor that was higher than the two remaining choices. When the final volunteer must choose between one and four, she is likely to start at the anchor of “five” and adjust downward until she reaches the first plausible choice (i.e., envelope four).

Feel free to try this demonstration with your friends but do
not
try this demonstration with real money. Psychological tactics are never foolproof, and so I always have multiple backup plans in my demonstrations in case the psychology doesn’t pan out the way it should (which can often happen).

CHAPTER 3

Convey High Expectations

You’re walking through a subway station, and you walk past a violinist. You casually listen to him as you walk by, but you continue toward your destination without skipping a beat. Nothing really fazes you.

Now fast forward two weeks. Your friend just gave you a generous birthday gift: two expensive tickets to a world famous violinist. Although you’ve never heard of him, you’re very excited to witness one of the greatest musicians in the world.

The night of the concert finally arrives, and you’re seated in the theater, anxiously waiting for the performance to start. The violinist steps on to the stage, and the concert begins. As soon as he starts playing, you’re blown away. You’ve never been exposed to a quality violin performance, and so you’re truly captivated by the musician’s talent. By the end of the night, you’re brought to tears, and you give him a standing ovation for one of the best performances that you’ve ever witnessed.

Quiz time . . . What was the difference between the first violinist in the subway station and the violinist at the concert? The musician in the subway station was only half-decent, and the musician at the concert was among the best in the world, right? What if the world famous violinist was the same person who was playing in the subway station? Surely, you still would have noticed the beauty and talent of his performance, right?

On January 12 of 2007, a violinist played for 45 minutes in the L’Enfant Plaza subway station in Washington DC. During those 45 minutes, a few people stopped to donate a couple dollars, but nothing happened that was out of the ordinary. Nearly everyone walked by at their usual pace without stopping to listen or pay attention. Why is that surprising? The violinist, Joshua Bell, is one of the greatest violinists in the world. Two days prior to his performance in the subway station, Bell performed at a sold-out theater in Boston where tickets cost roughly $100 per seat. It was reported that he even purchased his violin at a staggering price of $3.5 million. Needless to say, Bell is considered one of the greatest musicians in the world.

Why were people unfazed by his performance in the subway station? Why did most people simply walk by without stopping to listen to his incredible music? Is it really possible for someone to be blown away by Bell’s performance at a theater yet remain completely unfazed by him in a subway station? After reading this chapter, you’ll understand why that outcome is very possible. The explanation behind that surprising phenomenon relates to our expectations and how they mold our perception of the world.

THE POWER OF EXPECTATIONS

Similar to mindsets, our expectations largely dictate our perception of the world. Whenever we develop expectations for a certain event, our brain often molds our perception of that event to match our expectations. We see what we expect to see. We hear what we expect to hear. We feel what we expect to feel.

Placebo effects are a clear example of that concept. When researchers test a new drug on patients, they give some people the actual drug, and they give other people a fake version of the drug (i.e., a placebo) that produces no effect. This procedure is needed because our expectations can often dictate the outcome of treatments. We usually show signs of improvement after receiving a placebo merely because we
expect
to show signs of improvement.

Although placebo effects are typically associated with testing new antibiotics, your expectations influence you every day. Do you prefer Coke or Pepsi? Recent research has revealed some interesting findings in that choice. Because Coke is the dominant brand, most people have developed the expectation that Coke tastes better, and research confirms that people
do
prefer Coke over Pepsi in non-blind taste tests (i.e., when people know which drink they’re consuming). But an interesting phenomenon occurs when the taste tests are blind. When people aren’t told which drink they’re consuming—an event that eliminates expectations from the equation—more people prefer the taste of Pepsi (McClure et al., 2004).

Perhaps even more interesting is that this “Pepsi Paradox” is completely eliminated for people with damage to their ventromedial prefrontal cortex, an area of the brain associated with emotion. People with this brain damage prefer the taste of Pepsi, even when they know which drink they’re consuming, because they’re not susceptible to the emotional expectations stemming from the popularity of Coke (Koenigs & Tranel, 2008).

When our brains are healthy, high expectations can lead to more neural activity in the brain region associated with pleasantness. A group of researchers studied neural activity in people when they drank wine that was marked at various price points, and even though they used the same wine in each condition, the wine that was marked at higher price points had sparked more neural activity in the orbitofrontal cortex, the brain region associated with pleasantness (Plassman et al., 2008). People found the taste of wine more pleasing when they
merely believed
it was purchased at a higher price. Therefore, expectations are very powerful because they can mold our perception, even from a biological perspective.

Not only can expectations mold our perception, but they can also influence our behavior. In another experiment, some people purchased an energy drink at a full price of $1.89, whereas other people purchased the same energy drink at a discount price of $.89. The researchers wanted to examine whether people’s knowledge of the drink’s price would influence their performance on a mental task, and the results were pretty enlightening. People who purchased the drink at full price performed significantly better than people who purchased the drink at a discount, even though the drink was exactly the same in each condition (Shiv, Carmon, & Ariely, 2005). People who purchased the drink at full price developed higher expectations for the drink’s effectiveness, thereby causing them to perform better on the mental task, whereas people who purchased the drink at a discount developed lower expectations, causing them to perform worse on the mental task. Even something as innocent as the price of an energy drink can convey certain expectations, which can then influence our perception and behavior.

WHY ARE EXPECTATIONS SO POWERFUL?

Why are expectations so powerful? One potential explanation lies in anchoring. Much like we adjust from an anchor point toward a
range
of plausible estimations (e.g., a 50–70 percent likelihood of purchasing my next book), we also seem to adjust toward a range of plausible expectations. For example, when you purchased this book, it would be impossible to know exactly how good it would be, so you likely developed a range of expectations.

Now, suppose that before you read this book, your friend told you that it was the best book that he’s ever read, thereby setting an anchor point on the high end of an expectation spectrum. When you actually read the book, you might adjust downward from that anchor point until you reach the outermost point of your original range, which would naturally be near the high end. On the other hand, if you received an anchor point that was lower than your range, you may adjust upward from that anchor until you reach the outermost bottom of that range. In either case, your expectations—high or low—acted like an anchor point that molded your perception.

Similarly, because extreme anchors can produce contrast effects, expectations can also backfire if they’re too extreme. If your friend mentioned that this book was so good that it could spur a new religion or bring about the destruction of the entire world, then those expectations would likely produce a contrast effect and worsen your actual opinion of the book.

Nonetheless, research shows that conveying high (yet believable) expectations will usually lead someone to perceive an event to match those expectations. In addition to an anchoring mechanism, there are a few other principles that can explain why expectations are so powerful in certain situations.

Confirmation Bias.
First, our expectations can mold our perception because of
confirmation bias
, which is the natural tendency for people to seek information to confirm their beliefs or expectations (Nickerson, 1998).

Suppose that you believe in global warming, yet you’re trying to make an unbiased decision regarding whether or not it actually exists. If you wanted to research the subject more thoroughly, you might turn to Google and search “the effects of global warming.” Woops. You’ve already fallen prey to confirmation bias because those search terms subtly acknowledge the existence of global warming. Most of the search results that appear will explain the effects that global warming can produce, thereby leading you to a biased conclusion that global warming
does
exist.