Harvard social psychologist ellen langer discovered just giving a reason makes you 30% more likely
to get what you want, regardless of how compelling that reason is.
Her findings revealed how the subconscious mind often automatically makes decisions for
us.
In this video series I'm going to teach you six techniques that allows you to tap into
the subconscious mind and get people to do whatever you desire.
I'm the selfmade nerd and this is a review of Influence The Psychology of Persuasion
by Robert Cialdini.
During Ellen Langer’s experiment, she would send out an undercover woman to ask to cut
in line at xerox machines.
When the undercover woman would just ask “may I use copy machine?”
60% of the time she was allowed to skip the line.
That in it of itself is amazing, just ask and you shall likely receive.
She would then go to the next group and ask, “ May I use the copy machine, because i'm
in a rush?”
Her success rate jumped to a whopping 90%.
Sounds like a valid reason is all you need to skip lines.
However,it actually much simpler than that.
When she would give nonsense reasons like “may I use the copy machine, because I need
to make copies”...She still had a 90% success rate.
Proving giving a reason, just saying because, automatically boosts your chances.
Why is that?
It’s Important to understand we humans are animals and all animals fall into fixed action
patterns.
Meaning we follow regular, blindly mechanical patterns of action, simple stimulus-response
patterns.
Like animal courting rituals and paternal instincts.
We like to think nooo, not me.
Everything “I” do is completely logical, I’m no dumb animal.
Truth is, you are.
We all are, which is why these techniques work on a vast majority of people.
Reciprocation.
Walking home from school one day, I ran into a group of men break dancing in the middle
of a huge crowd.
After they displayed amazing feats of coordination and athleticism, in which one of them lined
up a group of seven volunteers and flipped over them, they passed around a jar full of
money and asked for some small donations in return.
Many people, myself included, felt compelled afterwards to pay them for the great show
they put on.
Now imagine they randomly stopped a large crowd and asked for the money upfront.
How many people do you think would have paid for some random street performence they never
asked for?
But, by giving value first we felt indebted to them.
Owing someone something is the most dreaded feeling imaginable.
We absolutely hate it.
In light of this principle when attempting to persuade others, you are more likely to
succeed if you provide value, or perceived value first.
Sometimes a small gift or gesture, even kind words can be enough.
Interesting enough, no matter how small the gesture or gift is, people will respond to
you better, even if what you ask in return is much larger in comparison.
In the book it mentions the hare krishna, a religious group, as an example.
They go around giving flowers to strangers at airports.
Once you accept the gift, they ask for a donation.
The flower probably costs them little to nothing, and yet they make millions every year in donations.
It is important to note that this trick works alot better the longer the gap between the
giving of the value and the attempt at persuading is.
This is called a time delay.
The point is for the person to feel as though as you did them a favor, not bribed them.
That’s it for this video guys, this is part one of my seven video series on Influence
The Psychology Of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini.
Be sure to give the video a thumbs up if you liked it and subscribe so you don’t miss
out.
I'm the selfmade nerd here to talk nerdy to ya