Social Engineering Blogs

Sometimes it can be difficult to get people to do things that you know would actually be good for them. We’ve all run into this situation before, and probably tried to come up with ways of gaining their cooperation to no avail. This can be quite frustrating, but fortunately there is a way you can solve at least some of these problems. It has to with desensitizing the message you’re trying to get across to them.

This persuasion technique involves minuscule, gradual changes that produce a much larger change overtime. Lets pretend that you have a rather stubborn child that sits far too close to the television screen whenever he’s watching a program. You know that it’s not good for him to do that, and have told him that a number of times, but despite all of your efforts he continues to do this. That’s where this desensitization persuasion technique comes in. Everyday before your child gets settled to watch TV, you could move his chair a few inches away from the television. Such a small change would become difficult for him to notice, and before long you’ll have the chair positioned an appropriate distance away from the TV and he wont even know the difference.

Of course, just like most persuasion techniques out there, it’s not going to work every time. He might notice that the chair is farther than it was to begin with before you’ve it moved back far enough. However, even if he does notice it, he’ll most likely just move it closer and proceed to turn the TV on. You can then start over using the same technique in smaller incumbents (maybe just one inch at a time) to minimize the chances of him figuring out what you’re up to even more. If he does call you out on it…at least you tried.

You may also find this persuasion technique useful if you’re trying to get someone to start eating healthy. In this case, you would continue to make the healthy(or at least semi-healthy) meals that you would normally prepare, while throwing in a few extra healthy ingredients in small portions. They may or may not see it, but even if it is noticed, they may go ahead and eat it anyway since it’s such a small amount. Once again, you would gradually increase the amount of this new ingredient until they’re eating enough of it to reap the benefits it has to offer. This method even incorporates some aspects of the repetition technique that I discussed yesterday. When you’re increasing the doses incrementally, you’re also exposing them to the new ingredient on a consistent basis, and like we talked about yesterday, the more you’re exposed to something (especially if you’re exposed to it subconsciously) the greater the chances are that you’ll end up liking it.

These are just a couple of many instances this persuasion technique could be applied. Remember, the smaller you make your incremental changes, the more likely it will be that what you’re doing will go unnoticed. This technique wont work all of the time, but when it does, you’ll be glad you knew how to use it.

Most of us know that the ability to create rapport with different types of people can be a very valuable skill. I think there’s more than enough information on that topic, but there are certain skills that are kind of “subcategories” of building rapport. The one I want to share with you today is the art of revealing similarities.

You’ve probably heard the phrase “opposites attract” many times before. However in reality, this couldn’t be further from the truth. People like other people that they feel are in some way similar to them. When we discover similarities that other people share with us, we feel more connected and in tune with them, which is why revealing similarities is such a strong component in building rapport.

Similarities also have the power to gain compliance. The following study conducted by Jerry Burger that I found in Nick Kolenda’s book “Methods of Persuasion: How to Use Psychology to Influence Human Behavior” , demonstrates the increased likelihood you’ll have in getting someone to agree to something once you’ve established some type of similarity with them.

To examine the impact of revealing any similarity, Jerry Burger and his colleagues (2004) told people that they were conducting an experiment on astrology. During the astrology-related tasks, participants discovered that they shared the same birthday with a fellow participant (who was actually a confederate working with the researchers). The researchers wanted to see if that incidental similarity would make that person more likely to comply with a request from the confederate. 

When people believed that the experiment was finished, they left the room 
with the confederate and walked down the hall together. While walking, the female confederate asked the participant if he would help her with her English assignment. What was the assignment? She needed to find a student who would review her 8-page essay and write a 1-page critique of her arguments (very far from an enticing request). However, the researchers 
found that people who discovered that they shared the same birthday with the confederate were significantly more likely to help with that demanding request. 

It was also observed in a later experiment conducted by Burger, that the degree of rarity your shared similarity has, directly correlates to the amount of compliance you will receive. For instance, if you were to meet someone that shared the same eye color as you (lets say the color is brown), it would definitely be a similarity that the two of you share, but since brown is such a common eye color, the degree of compliance you would probably get would most likely be fairly low. However, if the two of you both had Heterochromia iridum (which just means your eyes are different colors) you would probably see a dramatic increase in the amount of compliance you would receive from them. To take it even further, their likelihood of cooperation would increase even more if you both had a brown right eye, and a green left eye. The more rare the shared similarity is, the more compliance you can expect to receive.

Now Im not saying that if you have a rare similarity with someone else, you can get them to do anything you want, but it does improve your chances. After you’ve established a similarity with someone, you should continue building rapport with them before you try to gain their cooperation. This will improve your chances of getting them to agree to something, and make your use of this technique less obvious. If you don’t have some extremely rare similarity with the other person, try and dig up as many similarities as you can. The more you share in common with them, the better your chances are of gaining their compliance.