Pre-suasion by Robert Caldini

Pre-suasion by Robert Caldini

The basic idea of pre-suasion is that by guiding preliminary attention strategically, its possible for a communicator to move recipients into agreement with a message before they experience it. 

The KEY is to focus them initially on concepts that are aligned associatively with the yet-to-be-encountered information.

1. THE FRONTLOADING OF ATTENTION

A. Privileged moment --

The factor most likely to determine a person's choice in a situation is often not the one that offers the most accurate or useful counsel; instead, it is the one that has been elevated in attention at the moment of decision.

~ positive test strategy - for most people, when deciding whether a possibility is correct, they look for hits (for confirmation) rather than misses (for disconfirmation)

~ channeling - linking people you want to convince to something deemed positive or good or attractive and then uses that "chute" to send the person down the path you want him to take

~ leaning in - people are know to lean nearer to something when they are interested .... but getting people to lean nearer (or something similar like straightening up) will get them interested 

B. The importance of Attention --

The human tendency to assign UNDUE levels of importance to an idea as soon as one's attention is turned to it.  

~ what's salient is important - anything that draws focused attention to itself can lead observers to overestimate its importance <---> Nothing in life is as important as you think it is while you are thinking about it

~ managing the background - seemingly dismissible information presented in the background captures a valuable kind of attention that allows for potent, almost entirely uncounted instances of influence.

~ inviting favourable evaluation - by asking someone to look into the positives of, say, a product will enhanced the likelihood that the product will be chosen by that someone (this method could back fire if the product in question has too many negatives)

~ shifting the task at hand - bringing attention away from an undesirable issue and to refocus the attention to somewhere that is easy to control 

C. What's focal is CAUSAL --

If people see themselves giving special attention to some factor, they become more likely to think of it as a cause.

In other words, what's salient is deemed important and what's focal is deemed causal.

~ taking a chance - lot numbers of drugs that caused death were seen as more likely to be the winning numbers of lotteries 

~ taking a life - the point of view is crucial => whoever's face was more visible was judged to be more causal

D. The Attractors --

Natural occurring commanders of attention : the sexual, the threatening, and the different.

~ while these are compelling stimuli, they are not simple  or unitary in their effects. Need to understand whether it is to appeal to "don't be left out" or "stand out in crowd" mentality --> eg. romance => uniqueness; fear => safety in crowd

~ investigatory reflex - in order to survive, any animal needs to be acutely aware of immediate changes to its environment, investigating and evaluating these differences for the dangers or opportunities they might present. so forceful is this reflex that it supersedes all other operations.

E. The Magnetizers -- 

There is considerable benefit to holding the attention of the audience to a particular stimulus as it raises the chance that the argument will go unchallenged => one effective way of competing is not giving the competitors air time.

~ self relevant - people are attracted by information or situation about themselves and therefore will pay lots of attention to them and blank out the surroundings => next-in-line effect - people tends not able to focus on things happen right before snd right after their turn to speak (lack of holding power due to distraction)

~ unfinished - not completing an activity can make everything about it more memorable (referred to as Zeigarnik effect) ==> not allowing yourself to finish a task at its logical end (ie, leaving behind unfinished part even when you know exactly what to do) will hold your attention to the task and allow you to continue your project easily as you will be able to easily restart working by first completing the unfinished task you purposely left behind 

~ mysterious - nothing can keep attention more than a mystery. the need to know the answer, the result, the reason will keep the audience's attention. how to do It? => (a) pose the mystery  (b) deepen the mystery (c) home in on proper explanation by considering alternate explanations (d) provide a clue to the proper explanation (e) resolve the mystery (f) draw the implication for the phenomenon under study

1. THE ROLE OF ASSOCIATION 

F. The primacy of associations --

I link, therefore I think.  The concept selected as target of attention should ideally triggers responses favouring the desired change(s).

~ thinking is linking - associations are the building blocks of thought

~ purpose of speech - direct listeners' attention to a selected sector of reality and once that is accomplished, the listeners' existing associations to the now spot-lighted sector will take over to determine the reaction.

~ speak no evil, leak no evil - "he who wants to persuade should put his trust not in the right argument, but in the right word" - Joseph Conrad

~  metaphor is a meta-door (to change) - "if you want to change the world, change the metaphor" - Joseph Campbell 

eg, crime is like a beast => cage => jail as a solution 

vs crime is like a virus => unhygienic environment => removing unhealthy environment as a solution

~ negative associations can be transferred as easily as positive ones so watch out for it.

~ common things are great links - birth dates, first name, sports, language

~ make it rhyme and safe time - make it easy for others to remember so that it seems more "persuasive". easier to pronounce, easier to recognise, easier to .... => appeal to the naturally lazy brains

G. Persuasive geographies --

All the right places, all the right traces. The right environment or stimulus will trigger the right responses.

~ create your own inner geography - count your blessings at start of day, cultivate optimism, negate time spent dwelling into negatives => pre-suade yourself into happiness

~ watch out for what's already in you - being reminded of gender/ethnicity/height etc can improve or inhibit performance by setting up a pre-test inner geography

~ right environment for the right result - do not underestimate how the environment you are in (eg facing of table, amount of light) can affect results of your work (孟母三迁)

H. The mechanics of pre-suasion --

Set up and get the audience readied. So that they will be in the "pre-suaded" state and will be ready to be persuaded.

~ how far? - closer association will lead to higher pre-suasiveness.

~ how manufacturable? - an effective linkage can be constructed (Pavlov's dogs - there was no natural linkage between sound of bell and food).

~ if/when-then plans - make plans and draw up scenarios to get yourself readied for potential derailment that distract us from our purpose => going to a supermarket with the objective to buy healthy, nutritious and inexpensive food will neutralise the draw of heavily advertised, attractively packaged easy-to-reach items

~ correction: minding the gap - often times, simply recognising the undesired influences will be enough to block their effects. => "Let me ask you a question, for your information". => by asking about the weather, it will eliminate the "weather-induced" bias the respondent might have.=> more people remember products when their placements in TV shows are more prominent (especially prominent both visually and audibly) but these people do not favour these products when they shop => the "plot" was too obvious that the audience refuses to fall for it

~ gapping the mind - compared to natural psychological responses (NPR), decisions made based on extensive analysis require time, capacity and lots of will power. => when we are tired, rushed, stressed, lazy, overloaded with information, etc, we tend to take short-cut (NPR) to make decision 

1. THE OPTIMIZATION OF PRE-SUASION

I. Six main roads to change --

Attention should be channeled to one of the following universal principles of influence : reciprocity, liking, authority, social proof, scarcity, and consistency.

~ reciprocity - meaningful, unexpected, customised gifts increase reciprocity rates

~ liking - highlighting similarities and providing compliments increase liking => respondents feel the "care" through these

~ social proof - validity and feasibility are at play when it comes to social proof => people must think that what they are about to do is "correct" as seen by others (validity) and doable as others have done the same (feasibility)

~ authority - the merit is the message -> the medium (through the message is disseminated) is the message -> the messenger (the sender) is the message. The quality of the messenger lies in his expertise and trustworthiness. => expertise -> brain scanning showed that areas of brains associated with evaluation did not light up when subjects were listening to advice from experts (not thinking). trustworthiness-> acknowledge a drawback before highlighting strengths often see increase in trustworthiness.

~ scarcity - any constraint on access increased the worth of what was being offered

~ consistency - normally we want to be (and to be seen) consistent with our existing commitments. so, if communicator can get us to take a pre-suasive step, even a small one, in the direction towards a particular idea, they might be able to increase our willingness to take a larger, congruent step towards that idea.

~ 3 stage approach - first stage involves cultivating positive associations (reciprocity and liking); second stage is to reduce uncertainty (social proof and authority); and final stage pushes for action (scarcity and consistency)

J. Being together --

The 7th universal principle of influence is Unity : the WE relationship. The audience identifies with the speaker.

Our ability to create change in others is often and importantly grounded in shared personal relationships, which create a pre-suasive context for assent. 

~ unity - the relationships that lead people to favour another most effectively are not those that allow them to say, "oh that person is like us"; they are the ones that allow people to say, "oh that person is OF us".

~ kinship - treated like a family member, the respondents will be more likely to be persuaded.

 

~ place - from home to immediate neighbours (locals) to region. sharing the same space leads to "togetherness" (and to influence) 

K. Acting together --

Beyond identifying with the speaker through, for example, common beliefs, the Unity factor gets intensified when the WE relationship is derived from audience and speaker acting together synchronously or collaboratively.

~ groups can promote unity, liking and subsequent supportive behaviour by first arranging for synchronous responding (eg, tapping of table while listening to same music) => music and dancing 

L. Ethical use --

Unethical use of the pre-suasion technique eventually will render the exercise ineffective.

M. Post-suasion -- 

How to make changes stick?

~ installing strong commitment - additional step to get respondents to register the temporary bias feeling (due to pre-suasion) will act to create a lasting bias feeling (french music causing positive view on a painting => rating the painting there and then will result in respondents liking the painting longer)

~ cueing up the cues - putting up reminders (eg posters) to remind yourself of the change you want to make; setting up what-if scenarios so that you know exactly how to react in the way consistent to your intended change. Reminders elevate a particular  issue to the top of list so that it will grab respondents' attention 

Conclusion

In large measure, who we are with respect to any choice is where we are, attentively, in the moment before the choice. We can be channeled to that privileged moment by (choice-relevant) cues we haphazardly bump into in our daily settings, or, of greater concern, by the cues a knowing communicator has tactically placed there; or, to much better and lasting effect, by the cues we have stored in these recurring sites to send us consistently in desired directions. In each case, the made moment is pre-suasive.

HCM notes:

1. Always invert when analysing 
2. Allow inconsistency to your responses to situation (case by case approach)