Methods of Persuasion: How to Use Psychology to Influence Human Behavior (9 page)

If there’s ever inconsistency between our attitudes and body language, we tend to trust the latter. Consider a clever experiment from the 1960s (Valins, 1967). A researcher told a group of males that he would be measuring their heartbeats in response toward sexual images and that they would be hearing their heartbeat while viewing the photos. However, the men were told that this audio was merely due to poor equipment and that they should ignore the sound of their heartbeat (you should keep in mind that this study was conducted in 1967, when technology was just
slightly
less developed . . .).

During the experiment, the men were shown 10 pictures of females from
Playboy
, and they heard their “heartbeat” increase on 5 of those 10 pictures (when in actuality, the sound was fake and controlled by the researcher). The results were quite surprising: the men found the females more attractive when their heart rate had supposedly increased. This influence was so strong that the males
still
chose those same photographs when they were asked again 2 months later. Thus, even when biological responses are inaccurate (or even fake), we still tend to trust that feedback by developing attitudes that are congruent with those responses. As you’ll learn in the next chapter, self-perception theory plays an even more powerful role when it comes to behavior (i.e., not just body language).

PERSUASION STRATEGY: CONTROL BODY LANGUAGE

Due to our tendency to associate certain body language with certain attitudes (e.g., we associate head nodding with open-mindedness), this section proposes that getting your target to exude certain body language can cause your target to develop certain attitudes that would be favorable for your persuasion. In the following sections, you’ll learn some specific types of body language that would be favorable for you to extract, and you’ll learn some clever techniques to subtly extract that body language from your target.

Head Nodding.
With a few rare exceptions (e.g., some parts of India and Africa), head nodding is a widespread symbol for agreement. When people are engaged in a conversation, they’ll occasionally nod their head to show that they’re interested in what the other person is saying, and it serves as a nonverbal cue for the speaker to continue talking. Due to this heavy association with agreement, getting your target to nod his head before you make your request can trigger a more agreeable and open-minded attitude.

Supporting that claim, Wells and Petty (1980) gave students a pair of headphones and asked them to listen to a radio broadcast. They asked the students to test the quality of the headphones by either nodding their head up and down or by shaking their head from side to side while listening to the broadcast. The researchers found that, compared to students who shook their head from side to side, students who tested the sound quality by nodding their head developed a greater positive attitude toward the message in the broadcast. Due to the strong association between head nodding and agreement, getting people to nod their head before you make your request can trigger a more agreeable state of mind.

How can you get your target to nod her head? Luckily, head nodding is a type of gesture that’s fairly easy to nonverbally extract. Whenever you’re speaking to someone, you can usually pause or raise your eyebrows to nonverbally communicate when you want that person to acknowledge one of your points, which can then trigger a head nod.

During the moments leading up to your actual request, you should make several of those nonverbal cues for acknowledgement so that you can condition your target to nod her head. Not only would her attitude become more open-minded because of embodied cognition, but those frequent head nods will also trigger a form of inertia. If you condition your target to nod her head multiple times before you make your request, she’ll feel motivated to remain consistent with those responses by making an affirmative response to your request (the psychology behind that concept is explained in the next chapter).

Exposed Chest.
Uh-oh. You’re a store clerk, and a robber just busted through your door and pointed a gun at you. What would be your initial reaction? Most people in this situation would immediately react by throwing their arms into the air with their palms pointed outward. When people want to communicate that they’re open and they have nothing to hide, they often hold their palms outward with their arms spread to reveal their chest.

Likewise, when people feel closed-minded, they often cross their arms or hold an object in front of them to block their chest. People often block their chest when they’re feeling defensive or closed-minded because it serves as a symbolic defense to prevent new information from penetrating their thoughts and attitudes.

If you watch a video of Nixon’s speech when he defends himself against the Watergate scandal, after he says, “I’m not a crook. I’ve earned everything I’ve got,” he immediately steps back from the podium and crosses his arms in front of his chest, as if he wanted to make that statement and retreat without any further questions or inquiries. It reminds me of a child who insults one of his peers and then immediately plugs his ears to prevent his friend from making a “comeback.”

Because we associate crossing our arms with greater defensiveness, this position can trigger an unyielding attitude (Bull, 1987). In fact, people in one study were able to solve significantly more anagrams when they were induced to cross their arms because that body language triggered a more persistent attitude (Friedman & Elliot, 2008). Although persistency is typically considered a positive trait, a persistent attitude will dramatically reduce your chances of gaining compliance because you’ll be less likely to change someone’s attitude.

Instead of combating that persistency, it would be much more favorable for you to wait until your target’s body language is more conducive for persuasion. Because an exposed chest (e.g., no crossed arms, no objects being held) triggers a more agreeable attitude, that type of body language
can
enhance your persuasion. Rather than make your request while your target is holding an object (e.g., texting on her phone), you should wait until her hands are empty and her chest is exposed (e.g., her arms aren’t crossed).

Posture.
Finally, your target’s posture is another form of body language that can trigger a more favorable attitude. Although not necessarily connected to open-mindedness, there are a few types of attitudes associated with posture that can help enhance your persuasion.

Perhaps the strongest attitude associated with posture is pride. Whenever we feel accomplished or proud, we tend to exude an upright posture, but whenever we feel nervous or insecure, we tend to exude a slumped posture. Research shows that extracting these positions can, in fact, trigger those corresponding attitudes. In one study, Stepper and Strack (1993) measured people’s level of satisfaction with their performance on an achievement test, but due to the seating arrangements, people were seated in either an upright or slumped position. The researchers found that, upon discovering their scores, people who were seated upright were significantly more satisfied with their score compared to people who were seated in a slumped position.

In addition to being associated with pride, however, posture is also closely associated with power. If you’re familiar with the card game blackjack, then you probably know that people who have 16 are usually unsure if they should play it safe by staying at 16 or by taking a risk and asking for another card in hopes that the new card doesn’t put them over 21. The strong association between posture and power can explain why people who are induced to display an expansive body posture are significantly more likely to take another card in that situation (Huang et al., 2011). The expansive posture triggers a congruent attitude associated with power, which nonconsciously influences people to take that risk.

If you’re ever feeling nervous or insecure in a particular situation, you can help alleviate those feelings by changing your posture. If you sit upright and exude an expansive posture, you can trigger a congruent attitude of confidence and overcome your nervousness.

To summarize the chapter, we often infer our attitudes from our body language. If you want to instill a certain attitude in your target, you simply need to get your target to exude body language associated with the attitude that you’re trying to instill. By getting your target to display that body language, you can trigger an attitude that’s “congruent” with that body language.

Although the information in this chapter is powerful, let’s be honest, it’s not
that
practical. But I still wanted to include this chapter so that you had a good grasp of self-perception theory because the next chapter will explain the more powerful and practical applications of that concept. Specifically, it’ll explain why behavior—not just body language—can trigger congruent attitudes. You’ll also learn why we feel tremendous pressure to maintain attitudes that are consistent with our behavior and how you can take advantage of that innate desire for consistency.

CHAPTER 5

Create Behavioral Consistency

“I don’t sing because I’m happy. I’m happy because I sing.”

—William James, renowned psychologist

Congratulations! You’ve just been recruited to participate in an exciting research study.

What are your tasks? First, you’ll be given a half hour to place 12 little wooden cylinders onto a tray. You’ll probably finish that within a few seconds, but don’t worry. Once you finish, you should empty the tray and keep repeating that same process for 30 minutes.

But if that task isn’t exciting enough, your second task is even better! After you fill, empty, and refill that tray for a half hour, you’ll then be given a board with 48 square pegs. What’s your task this time? You need to turn those square pegs a quarter turn each, one at a time, and you should keep repeating that process for another half hour. Aren’t you thrilled to be participating in such an exhilarating experiment?

Although a few people might find those tasks enjoyable, it’s safe to assume that 99.99 percent of people would find those tasks painfully dull. But here’s a question. What if the researchers asked you to convince new participants that the experiment was fun? What if they even paid you for your help? Suppose that you were given either $1 or $20 to convince new participants that the experiment was “fun and exciting.” Do you think that your actual attitude toward the experiment would change depending on the reward? If so, in which direction would your attitude change?

In the actual study, people’s genuine attitude toward that experiment became significantly more favorable when they were paid $1 (compared to $20) to convince another participant that the experiment was fun (Festinger & Carlsmith, 1959). But how could that be? Common sense suggests that a larger reward should produce a larger attitude change. Why did $1 produce a more favorable attitude toward the experiment compared to $20? This chapter will explain the interesting principle behind that surprising result and how you can use it to persuade other people.

THE POWER OF (IN)CONSISTENCY

Let’s take a moment to travel back in time. In 1954, a rising cult group predicted that a massive flood would occur on December 21 and that it would destroy the entire planet. Fortunately, the leader of the cult claimed that a being from the planet Clarion informed her that a flying saucer would rescue members of her cult on the night before the flood. Phew.

When December 21 came and went without any flood, what do you think happened to members of that cult? Most people today would assume that, once cult members realized that their prediction was wrong, they would probably admit that their belief about the end of the world was also wrong. But is that what they did? Nope. In fact, they did the opposite. When faced with the earth-shattering reality that the flood didn’t occur as predicted, the leader of the cult merely changed the date of the flood’s arrival, and members actually became
more
committed to the cult. Astonishingly, their beliefs about the flood became even
stronger
.

Unbeknownst to members of the cult who were waiting for the flying saucer to arrive, Leon Festinger, a prominent researcher in social psychology, infiltrated the group with his colleagues. They pretended to be followers of the cult so that they could observe their behavior (pretty dedicated researchers, huh?). Upon witnessing cult members develop stronger beliefs about the end of the world after the flood failed to arrive, Festinger developed an important conclusion: people have a powerful psychological need to maintain consistent attitudes and behavior.

That conclusion can help explain why body language can trigger congruent attitudes. If we display certain body language (e.g., head nodding), and if that body language is inconsistent with our inner attitude (e.g., we’re in disagreement), we feel a state of discomfort known as
cognitive dissonance
, and we become motivated to resolve that discomfort. How do we resolve it? We often resolve that dissonance by changing our attitude so that it matches our behavior (e.g., we change our attitude from disagreement to agreement to match our body language of nodding our head).

This chapter expands that knowledge by explaining how that principle occurs not just with body language, but also with behavior. If you start to observe your own daily actions, you’ll soon notice that we’re influenced by cognitive dissonance nearly every day. Whenever we perform an action that’s inconsistent with one of our attitudes, we feel discomfort and we become motivated to resolve that discomfort in some way: