The Power of Pre-Suasion | Robert Cialdini | RSA Replay

I'm away from this is an entirely self-indulgent moment I'm afraid but you're gonna have two people introducing today's lecture I was supposed to be hosting this event Robert today but as you may have heard I got asked to do a piece of work by the government and I'd actually know what's involved and finally down history who asked me to come in so they can tell me what's involved so I think I ought to go to that meeting really because I'm a bit embarrassed about telling people I don't know what I'm doing and so I've had to I'm having to go there which means I won't be showing the event and but I wanted just to welcome Robert because I've been here here nearly ten years now and when I came one of the first things I wanted to do was to bring in some new types of speakers to our events and my recollection is that the first one of those events that really felt it was different and we were talking about different kinds of things was you Rob when you came ten years ago and ever since then I think our events program has gone from strength to strength but I'll always be grateful to you for starting it all off and I will now hand over to Ron Conway who has got the privilege of chairing today's events over to you right Thank You Matthew so I did in a more formal thing and try and work out how to say the hashtag is RSA pre suede good afternoon everyone I am growing conwy I'm directing development here at the RSA thank you for joining us today for today's special lunchtime event before we begin can I ask you to turn your Mobile's to silent we're filming today and live streaming over the web so welcome to those of you who are joining us online and again the RSA hashtag is RSA pre suede and I think you have to have that pre in uppercase for some reason and so please do join the discussion on Twitter without any further ado because now you've had two people introducing you it's my great pleasure to introduce our guest speaker dr. Robert killed child Eenie and dr. Shalini is Regents professor emeritus of psychology and marketing at Arizona State University he spent his entire career researching the science of influence and is the world's leading expert in the fields of persuasion and negotiation his renowned book influence has sold over three million copies in a New York Times bestseller and has been published in over 30 languages his long awaited new book which you can purchase a copy outside is on the science of persuasion and it's just out and it's been met with critical and popular acclaim he joins us today to give us a glimpse into the fruits of the last thirty years of his research I've won can't wait to hear a bit more about it so please join me in welcoming dr. Robert Sheldon II thank you Ron thank you very much and yes I do want to talk about something other than persuasion I want to talk about the process of pre suasion which opens the door to persuasion it does so by allowing us to get an audience sympathetic with our message before they encounter it now that sounds like some kind of magic how could we get someone to agree to a message when they don't know what's in it but it's not magic it's established science a communicator can get us to be agreeable to a message that we haven't yet heard by going to the moment before they deliver that message and putting us in a frame of mind that is aligned with the central element of that message now I want to talk about this in a couple of ways I want to talk about it today first of all in a in a way that convinces you of the power of this process and secondly that allows you to harness that power in your own attempts to achieve your professional goals so let's begin with an example that comes not from a professional setting but from a more personal setting because I want to show the universality of this principle and it has to do with a study that was done in France researchers had a pretty young woman approached middle-aged men who were walking down a street and I and asked for help with directions to a street about a hundred yards later they were approached by another attractive young woman who had a much larger request she said you see those four guys over there and she pointed to four tough looking young men they've taken my cell phone and they won't give it back could you go get it for me well the majority of these guys said are you crazy they didn't know this Mademoiselle they didn't know if that was really her phone and have in any confrontation they would be outnumbered four to one so the great majority of them 80% said no no thank you I'm not going to help and all right so we see that in this particular sample of middle-aged men walking alone only 20 percent said yeah 20 percent is still impressive but we would know why that was an attractive young woman physical attractiveness leads to yes when a communicator has that particular trait right but there was a second sample of men who were nearly twice as likely to go to the damsels distress 37% of them launched themselves into this confrontation what was the difference you remember what happened to these men a hundred-yard a hundred meters earlier yards we're still in have it's just in Warsaw I was talking in meters yards earlier they were asked for directions the first sample was asked for directions to Martin Street the second sample to Valentine Street why did that make a difference because previous research showed that being asked about directions the Valentine Tyne Street put men in mind of a romantic holiday Valentine's Day and when they were in an amorous state of mind romance became more important to them than danger now just to be sure that this wasn't an example of some form of middle-aged male foolishness these researchers tried the same thing with women as the subjects in this case young women who were walking in a shopping mall oh wait a minute before we do that let me ask you this question what percentage of those guys those 37 percent right who said yes what percentage of them do you think recognized that they had been moved by that priests way civ action of being asked for directions to Valentine Street notice that the big increase didn't wasn't because of physical attractiveness something else was required to produce in other words a priests way civ step they had to be asked about something that was associated with romance in order to prioritize romance now what percentage you think recognize that how many people would say everybody did how many people would say oh well maybe half half right how many 1/4 of them would recognize how many okay 10% no one no one that's what makes this such an unconscious process we don't recognize its influence on us because it comes before the request we're not focused on the moment before we're focused here on the request and so this flies under the radar makes it important for us to think about the ethics of this process but let's go back to that that situation I was describing in a shopping mall in France right this time the researchers was the same researchers they had instead of an attractive young woman a very attractive young man who walked up to you two women who were who were passing various shops in the mall and stopped them gave them a compliment and asked for their phone number so he could call to arrange a date later another risky request to give a phone number to a perfect stranger who simply approaches in a shopping mall risky and under those circumstances depending on the shop as people were passing various shops these young women up a shoe store a clothing boutique a pastry shop the young man had very little success only about 13 and a half percent of the time did he actually get a phone number but when the young women were passing another kind shop right his success doubled almost any idea what that shop would be chocolates no not quite jewelry Maternity no not maternity why because flowers are associated with romance and when they were put in a romantic state of mind romance became more important than risk for them think about this we're able to change who people are in the moment after we focus their attention on a particular idea you can make me a romantic by presenting information drawing my attention to information about romance in that moment you will have changed Who I am I am now a romantic in a way that I wasn't before now one more thing about this study that I like it's that afterward the young women were asked of all the shops that you passed which were the products inside that you liked the most and their answer was the pastries but the pastries didn't produce phone numbers flowers produced phone numbers why because romance is associated with flowers not frosted donuts you see how the alignment of the what is made top of consciousness top of mind in the moment before the request is crucial to the success of that request the alignment has to be right okay now let's talk about how this would apply at how a communicator would apply this in other perhaps professional setting because ladies I'm pretty sure that the most important persuasive appeals that you make in your professional lives don't involve getting your cell phone back on the streets of Marseille and gentlemen I'm going to assume that the most important persuasive appeals for you don't involve getting phone numbers from romantic possibilities in a shopping mall right gentlemen so what what can we do as communicators here's what a communicator does to engage the process of pre suasion most effectively it kurz in two steps the first is to identify the precise goal of the communication what is it that is the strength the the the the purpose of this communication what is it designed to accomplish and then to create a mindset in the recipient of the message that hasn't even occurred yet the message hasn't occurred right right that is consistent with that goal right through the words situations or images that are presented in that earlier moment we've already talked about two of these words the word Valentine the situation flower shop let's consider another goal more professional the goal of creating top performance from others in ourselves and see how images can create that effect the goal of generating top performance that's something we want for ourselves we want that for our teams and in many business settings that I visited there are often posters on the walls that that queue the idea of top performance call centers tend to be one you see these kinds of posters how many of you have seen these posters been in offices that may be your own right a lot of people think that this is silly to do this I was one of those people always thought is only laughable that having a poster that says achievement or challenge or conquer dream big would make a difference there are other kinds of posters sometimes you just see the word conquer write overcome succeed sometimes you just see a photograph just the image like this one a runner winning of race I always thought that was laughable not anymore because I have seen the stud a study that was done by some Canadian researchers right they went to a call center these we we see these kinds of posters all the time and they arranged for the callers who were trying to get contributions that particular day they were calling to get contributions from for a local university from former alumni and they were given a a sheet of topics to to cover in their present once they got one of these potential donors on the phone a tip sheet and half of them were given that tip sheet to call and it was on plain paper and about they gained about 217 dollars during the three-hour shift they next engaged in another group was given that that same sheet of topics with the background of that runner winning the race three hours later they had averaged about 60 excuse me 60% better performance because the concept of success of achievement was made prominent in their consciousness before they began the task now that's a little unsettling but remarkable to me and I asked the question to myself but maybe this goat how long could this last how long could it be that you see this image and that influences will those researchers then did another study that answered my question they had the same thing happened for four days right and they found the same increase on the fourth day as they did on the first day okay so as long as we are gaining access to a particular concept a particular idea that is going to focus our attention in a way that makes subsequent activity subsequent information congruent with that idea all right now that's for one particular kind of top performance but there are other kinds of top performance that don't require some kind of energy fuel a persistent drive toward a goal but require a different kind of performance deliberation analysis considered a concern about the details or the complexity of a problem where you don't want to just rush through it you want to step back from it and consider it in all of its complexity so these Canadian researchers did a second study to see if they could energize top performance for that kind of task what they did was to give business students a set of difficult problems to solve ask them to solve a variety a set of these problems within a certain amount of time and for some they were shown essentially a nature scene in the background of the computer while they were doing this task this is the kind of thing that we typically put on our screens of our of our computers another group was given indeed this energy fuel kind of success image but remember they wanted deliberation they wanted concentrated analysis here any idea what kind of image would be associated with that that they could use here's the one that the Canadian researchers chose Road is the thinker now each were given the opportunity to solve these problems and let's look at the number that they got correct within this difficult within this period naturescene about six point six runner winning race the one that had been so successful previously nothing nothing significant but Rodin's thinker slowly 39.3% now it's a 48% so once again we see the precision that has to be involved here the alignment has to be right between what it is that you put in the moment before and what comes next all right now I know we're almost out of time so let me talk about one more goal creating a feeling of unity or together 'no sabine that we all have before we leave that one let me suggest that that earlier one on performance this isn't just something that we get to use on others we get to use this on ourselves do you have a task that requires a lot of persistence and energy drive put a picture of a runner winning the rules in the corner of the you have one that requires a lot of analysis delivery put a picture of Rodin's thinker you will do better in both instances provided that you change the image the cue that is steering you into that activity now let's talk about this one this is establishing a feeling of togetherness something we all want to do in our teams sometimes even with people that we deal with outside of our organizations we want that scent sense of of commonality and unity and study was done in Belgium that makes the case of how this one might be generated researchers had subjects come into an experiment one third of them were shown photographs of household objects and in the background of the objects was a single figure standing alone another third in the background were two figures standing apart from one another separate a final third those same two figures standing shoulder-to-shoulder together all right activating raising to consciousness the idea of togetherness collaboration cooperation then in all instances the researcher got up from the table and accidentally dropped a series of items onto the floor and the question is now who gets down on their knees spontaneously without being asked and helps the researcher pick these items up who has been stimulated into a notion of togetherness and cooperativeness right and as you can guess I'm sure by now those who saw someone standing alone 20% helped those stand saw people standing apart 20% those who saw those figures standing together three times as much we've done it again but we've changed the idea we've changed the concept that was top of mind and produced the consequent behavior that's congruent with that concept now this study rocked me back in my chair when I read it not because of these results because by the time I had read this study I had already seen those other kinds of results that we've been talking about because of something about the subjects in this experiment the subjects including those who were three times as likely to help because they saw an image of togetherness the subjects was 18 month-old children hardly able to speak to talk barely able to review or reflect or reason and they were powerfully mobilized by this process of pre suasion it tells us how fundamental how primitive this process is how it operates at us at very basic levels all right let me finish with one more example of how you might employ this idea of togetherness without having to show people images of individual standing shoulder-to-shoulder suppose you want someone you want support for from someone who will be will be helpful in the future if you can get that person's support for a new idea or an initiative or a program that you have in mind and one thing that we are trained to do is to go to that person and and ask for that person's opinion on an early draft or a blueprint of this idea can you what what do you think about this right that's a mistake not to go to that person the mistake is to ask for his or her opinion because what the research tells us is that when you ask for someone's opinion that person takes a half step back from us psychologically and goes inside introspects separates from us if instead you ask for that person's advice prease way civilly he or she takes a half step toward us in a collaborative state of mind they now encounter our evidence and the evidence is after the research is quite clear they now become more supportive of our idea because we have made them a part of it caused them to step into that ideal with us rather than back from us as a dispassionate reviewer of that idea small thing one small change produces the effect okay let's let's wind up here this is the evidence that they showed that when when people say give me your opinion and they rate how they and the the the other individual are together they separate when you ask for their advice they rate themselves as closer to the other person it's not that oh when I was asked for my for my advice I considered myself more helpful no asked about opinion asked about advice produces the same level of perceived helpfulness the difference is the proceeded unity that asking for advice rather than so there's an old saying that when people when you when you look for when you ask for someone's advice you're usually asking for an accomplice right here's what the behavioral research says if you get that advice you get that accomplice okay let's finish all right here's a communicator can change what I'm paying attention to and in the process change who I am in that moment if you are that communicator I'll be at your disposal in that moment therefore we would both benefit from knowing more about this process and I hope that the information you've heard today begins to help provide that that knowledge in this regard thank you very much thank you Robert that was absolutely fascinating and there's a lot about togetherness there and that's that's a very interesting place for us to start I think in the Q&A because you said collaboration as a state of mind and you're asking for an accomplice and I think that's really interesting because that denotes a relationship or a longer-term thing that you're moving into and so it goes slightly beyond the kind of marketing visual cues and the how you how you create the conditions but something came up to me when you were saying you know the best use of these tools is when we're thinking about our performance for ourselves and for others because I a slight I had a slight worry when you were talking about Valentine's Day being used and and some of the subtle subconscious or preconscious things that you were doing there with those individuals that that could be seen as manipulation so if you are using these tools and you're arranging the State of Mind of an audience how do we ensure that the impacts of those actions on your audience are positive you know how do when you've when you've got an accomplice how do you then move forward with us accomplice what's the commitment you're making yeah this is really a central question that I have been thinking about with all with regard to this because indeed it occurs so unconsciously we have to think about the ethical implication of being able to move people all around without their knowledge of what's happened we saw what happened in in the case of the the guys and no not one of them recognized that this was happening so what what can we do to assure that this is ethical here's the best way I can not sure that it's it's an optimal way but when I said we have to identify the the most precise goal or feature the strength of our message that we want people to be focused on it should be something that would cause that person to make a wise choice in our direction not something that would lead to our greater profit but would if they are focused on this thing let's say we have a lot of research evidence in favor of our our proposal or our product or our service our idea a lot of experience in that arena we should put the idea of authority or expertise or competence that should be the image that so people will go to the thing that is most true and most representative of what we have to offer that makes it wise for them to move in that direction the other thing is to be sure that as an organization we don't allow the individuals inside our our organization to use these strategies in an unethical way because I think there are very consequential and negative outcomes associated with an organization that allows itself to have an unethical culture absolutely I was thinking did that guy go out with eighty-four percent of people he said yes and gave them him hurt their number it was all part of us a research study so none of them know I'm gonna day but I have to say I had the same I kind of pause when I saw those results is this is this informing people of ways to use pre suasion as an artifice as a device to get goals that are not in the best interests of the recipient but only in the best interest I have real concerns about that because I think what I'm hearing you say is that it's about mutuality rather than about sort of unilateral power in that way and because emotions are involved in those in those decision-making I'm interested so risk we got people to take risky stance yeah you've been you got four blokes he was going to have a fight with you know that's quite challenging risky and we are seeing you know since the arrival lives and behavioral sciences and the nudge unit over here starting to look at these ways that these can be deployed in public sectors arena as well as as this these are these are tools that have you know been used traditionally in the corporate sector or in a corporate environment is there a different way are there different things that or concerns that need to be thought about between the corporate sector and the public sector yeah so we did a series of studies to suggest that it that in the corporate sector we have to be particularly concerned about this but that is that's where we did the research but in the private sectors as well I mean excuse me the governmental public sector as well because trust of one citizenry is the basis for a democracy if we start running games tricks on the the citizenry of country that risks that puts at peril the very basis of a democratic and willing exchange between the government and and the the citizens themselves so that's something that we have to be very careful about and I think the nudge unit for the most part here in the UK has been mindful of that mm-hmm it's definitely been looking at that kind of process improvements rather than actually trying to be persuasive necessarily in other ways I'm going to come to the floor so please start putting your hands up so I will come to the lady in the front here and the gentleman in the middle and then the gentleman with the paper coming up but I'm going to ask one more question before we do that and we're at a particularly interesting time in specifically in political debate both here but but right now you know there was an election debate yesterday and how do you think political candidates can use these tools without as you say trying to unnerve the populace engage more effectively with audiences I'll tell you something that the Obama campaign did very successfully back in 2008 when no one knew this guy is a one-term senator from Illinois not a very prominent figure in politics and all of a sudden this this african-american guy who no one knew just a lot of uncertainty and people about whether they should support him and one of the things that we know from behavioral science is that to reduce uncertainty people look around at how many other people have decided to do something that they're being encouraged to do and what the Obama campaign did that was brilliant was to instead of having the candidate stand behind a set of flags of the United there was a set of a sea of faces that was arranged so that every demographic category was represented in that face you saw Asians you saw old people so young people you saw used you saw people dressed in suits and ties you saw people in t-shirt the idea was look at all of the people who have decided that this is the right guy and I can find myself in there there will be someone in there who looks like me the second thing they did that I haven't I haven't seen anybody do since and nor before in the United States every political campaign has to announce how much money they received in any given month or quarter from donors and what the campaigns always did was to respond to that particular directive tell us how much money you've given they all did that what the Obama campaign did before they stated the amount they stated the number of contributors look at all of the people who have contributed to us it reduced uncertainty that this was someone we should be considering seriously at least someone whose attention deserved it who deserves our attention because of the the multitude who have already decided to do this that was a brilliant priests way civ strategy on their part I thought absolutely okay think of in microphone Angela Harvey and the fellow I was going to ask that very same question so I'm going to switch to what should have happened in the referendum here therefore that got a slightly different result to the one that people expected yeah and I'm not very I'm not as familiar with the UK politics but if I were to take a pre sway civ approach to this those who wanted stay I should have elevated to conscious this of this vote should have been about all the things that are sociated with stay stability predictability exchange cooperate internationally operation these kinds of things should not just have been in their messages they should have been made top of consciousness before the message about each of those things was delivered there should have been symbols there should have been words there should have been situations depicted that created that mindset because that mindset channel's people into the concept that is aligned with that mindset and gives it special leverage special traction when the message itself is delivered Jen do you have a migraine hi thank you this is a veteran from chain school I just wanted to understand this is what you're talking about taking the notion of priming further in terms of aligning it with a communicators goals or motives or is it something quite different sorry no I mean it's very much alike priming I so not everyone knows priming but it is very similar to what I'm suggesting what you activate in a person's consciousness in at any one time then colors their perceptions and directs their perceptions in a way that is congruent now that also applies to other kinds of literature's within behavioural science the literature on framing the literature on anchoring and so on so what I talk about is rather than primes I talk about openers how do we open the moment before our message so that people are now receptive to it I don't know if you noticed in my very first frame there was a door that opened that was I what I wanted that image to be part of the consciousness of the audience because I was talking about something that required a new way of thinking something that required us to open ourselves to to an idea that hadn't really been widely communicated before yeah and so I I plead guilty to employing the the same strategy I think it's interesting I had another question that builds exactly on that in your book you you talk about the media's use of these kind of tools and you talked about how issues that gain attention game kind of presumed importance which is that same sort of priming arena there was one interesting thing that you talked about where you talk about the embedded reporter program in the Iraq war and that was sponsored I believe by the US military to some degree and it was incredibly persuasive it had certainly had a profound impact and it didn't dominated the news and it also to a certain it limited the range of debate around the conduct of war rather than the wisdom of war so you are framing the debate when you have to use these tools ubiquitously so I'm interested in how when using these tools or how we can think about to ensure that public debate is not not narrowed by too much orchestration but actually can that can still be flourishing and what in a wider range of ideas and diverse thought well I think we can count on our opinion opponents to to be sure that that their points are part of the consciousness but I think again in in terms of how we can do this in a way that is justifiable is to ask people to think about those features of our message that make it wisest for them to move in our directions that that are our strengths so we focus them on our strengths and they are informed about the best arguments in our our opponents can focus them on other arguments but I think that's the job of a communicator to be sure that people are not focused away from the central issues that ought to be in mind when they make a decision very often and we're seeing this in the United States now with with the campaign's people's focus is not on the issues it's it's on the entertainment value and the outrageous character of the very many aspects of the debate that's a mistake we need to be sure that people think about those debates in terms not of these superficial and and and extraneous factors but on the ones that are going to make the most difference for us as a as a society mm-hmm okay and so the gentleman over there with the card held up and then if you can pass your mic back to the lady behind you no that's now gone in a different way so the lady there in that third row and then we'll come to you say thank you I wondering whether the implication of the last example you gave us about togetherness was in fact an indication that we should all live under socialism okay hardly I think what we could say is that in a capitalistic exchange what we want is people who are willing to compromise who are willing to be of assistance to one another to cooperate and collaborate rather than to take an adversarial point of view and and we were more likely to produce joint benefit under those circumstances so I don't think that it's one or the other but I'll give you an example a personal one we have a business and we talk about we have clients who are interested in learning about the science of influence we were having a meeting with one set of clients and typically what happens is we bring our team into the meeting room and we sit at one end of the table and then the clients come in and they bring their team and they sit at the other end of the table right on the other side that's the geography of separation that's the geography of difference so what I asked my team to do is to take every other chair around the table and now when our clients came in they said among us and we had a very profitable negotiation not saying that's the only reason but this is the sort of thing that we can do within an exchange in which we we want we both want good things but we can do so by structuring the situation so that at top of mind is the idea of cooperation later there hello I'm I'm penny Bickerstaff I'm a fellow here too and I guess that's really helpful that you that you went into the meeting place because I was wanting to ask a kind of micro question I spent a lot of time with clients where it's not really so much that you want to get them in a particular frame of mind about the topic it's that you want to if possible reduce their understandable feelings of mistrust or not liking strangers or not really being open to having the conversation it's more of a kind of getting rid of a negative rather than creating a positive and and we have done a seating thing but I'm just wondering whether you think we can do better than talk about sport and the weather and them to do that I think we can so we've got partners they can be colleagues they can the business partners they can be clients and so on which have existing relationship we have a a a collaborative history with these individuals we point to it before the before the negotiation begins point to the fact that we have a history a collaborative we have a we have a relationship here's another personal example and it's backed up by the research so few years ago I have a need for some information that I didn't have in my files to complete a report that was due the next day I knew one of my colleagues at the university of the psychology department I knew he had that information in some research that he had done but I didn't have access to it so I sent him an email and he was sort of a crusty guy everybody knew that he was a difficult guy to get along with so I wanted to to send him a meal email say done I'm going to contact you I'm going to call you and ask for some information that you have on this topic because I don't have it and I have a deadline tomorrow and so I called him and he said Bob I know why you're calling and I can't help you look I'm a busy man I've got my own tasks I can't be responsible for your poor time management right so can't help you so I had just seen this research and I didn't say to him what I would have said which was Don this would I'd really appreciate it if you could help me this would mean a lot to me I said Don you know we've been in the same department now for 12 years I really appreciate if you could help me I had the information that afternoon I just pointed to the existence of a relationship that exists that was long-standing and the truth is people say yes to those in their long-standing relationships we just have to move it to top of consciousness that's what all of this is about shifting what is prominent in a person's mind in the moment before we deliver the merits of our case and we arrange it in a strategic way focusing on the benefits of relations gentlemen here and then if we have time we're going to come to you David Alexander I'm a fellow here as well it the subject is very familiar to me of a man of 56 we have a whole thing called subliminal advertising you may recall it we also have recently the general data protection regulations coming into force in May 2018 and they require organizations to exhibit transparency about the commercial model and the behaviors that they're undertaking with their customers and they also require informed consent for certain types of activities to be undertaken what you're talking about with persuasion is very very powerful influencing model but I wonder if simply saying one must consider the ethics is enough how do we make clear that pre suasion is being used as a technique to create the right environment assuming everybody's motivations are good how do we actually monitor this so that it is not used for inappropriate purposes okay two points to that question one is directly related and that is instead of providing consumer protection or information programs designed to get people recipients to focus on what is in the message we need to tell them to focus on what is in the moment before they've received their message there is influence there's leverage there that they never considered right so there's research to show for example that in the United States where there are elections most of the polling places most of the places where we vote are churches or schools people are more likely to vote for Republican candidates in churches and more likely to vote for Democratic candidates in schools never would they recognize that unless we made that kind of information look at the setting in which you're in consider the context in which that message that ballot is going to be considered not just the the thing itself right so that I think we have to think about instruction to people about the influence process differently not just instruction to the communicators but instruction to the recipients about what aspects of that exchange they have to be cognizant of before they begin it in you know that there's research that if you go into a department store and there are a lot of credit card symbols around people spend more money even if they pay in cash because credit cards are associated with spending they're not it's not like cash where they're also associated with cost with credit cards are associated with acquiring only later do you pay for it with - so look around see if there are those kinds of symbols in the environment that would steer us in a direction those are the kinds of things that I think we have to build in to the instruction that we provide so gentleman over there if we have time you might just squeeze you in Thank You Jeremy Kaplan I'm also a fellow my question is about predisposition and particularly does this have any impact on recruitment whether that's recruitment for a call center or recruitment for a negotiating team so what could be the learnings because if I look at your data clearly there's an influence but none of the schools move to 100% so therefore there's a spectrum of people who are more or less likely to be influenced or primed or whatever the word is so how could this influence how you recruit people for a team a call center team a negotiating team etc no no I think you're exactly right that clearly we didn't get to a hundred percent there are other factors that incline people in a one direction or another including who they what their predisposition are essentially who they are as a person before that moment I don't doubt that for a second and indeed we have long used those kinds of screens in the recruitment process we do tests to bring in the people who are similarly minded or who whose approach is congruent with the goals of the organization and so on and my guess is that to the extent that we we give those people momentary focus on that dispositional trait or quality that will elevate their their likelihood to be motivated and successful in moving in that direction as well we have one more last question I am especially bracing Williams I'm also a fellow um we've talked for an hour about pre suasion and I just wondered what about post suasion and if you if you've got it wrong first time what are the chances of being able to save it yeah so so I I'm thinking about post wage in a little differently that is after you have moved people in a particular direction how do you solidify that change how do we get people to continue we want that change to be durable after all after we've we've created and I'm going to defer to a project that was done by my colleagues Steve Martin here with the National Health Service there's a big problem with what we call no-shows and also called Duta did not attends people who make an appointment and then they just don't appear for the service they're not very costly and we know what happens at the end of each of those appointments typically we get a card from the receptionist at the desk with the date and time of the next appointment on it what Steve recognized is that if we commit people to that date and time in a more powerful way they will be more likely to stay true to it they will be more likely to continue into the future so what he asked be done is that the patient be handed a blank card and a pen and it asked to write in themselves the date and time of the next appointment and no show is dropped by 18 percent because of something that happened first an active public voluntary commitment gave that their promise legs into the future I feel privileged that someone actually did that to me and gave me that card in an NHS waiting room so that actually is true physio departments and George's so these are all fascinating techniques and there are more to tell in the book and I think that you will be signing copies potentially worse outside so and please take you to do that with Robert but we have run out of time sadly so join me in thanking Robert child eeny you

Channel: RSA

Views: 129,084

Rating: 4.8509588 out of 5

Keywords: psychology, persuasion, persuasive, influence, influencer, communication, effective communication, pre-suasion, mind, manipulation, influence at work, employment, how to persuade someone, how to be convincing, how to be influential, how to influence at work, Robert Cialdini, event, live event, lecture, talk, Robert Cialdini talk, the rsa, rsa, royal society of arts, RSA Events, RSA replay

Id: _hem3-8XbEI

Length: 61min 57sec (3717 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 10 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/jonbuchan]

This is an introduction to the concept of "Pre-Suasion".

Pre-Suasion is Dr. Robert Cialdini's latest book which looks at the concept of "privileged moments".

It's pretty amazing and also a little worrying! Check it out...