The Science of Persuasion and Therapy:

Decrease Resistance and Improve Therapeutic Outcomes

Bill O’Hanlon

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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

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BILL O’HANLON

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