Author Archives: Paul Mascetta

Leveraging The Peripheral Route

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To people like marketers and advertisers, there is a hidden wish for people to just stick to their “gut feel” (or peripheral route). The reason for this is quite simple. With the peripheral route, a person is more likely to respond to cues or signals.

These signals can be given out or expressed in such a manner that the other person will be led to believe in something or the other person can be convinced to do something after the persuasive message has been conveyed.

One of the most powerful peripheral cues that you can use is similarity. Similarity to your audience can be expressed in many, many ways. I’ll leave you to figure out how to create the similarities, but I’m going to give you some major clues:

  • Appearance
  • Values
  • Attitudes
  • Social group
  • Social categories

If you can utilize some or all of these forms of similarity, you can be sure that your persuasive message would have a much larger impact on people because you are showing them that you are not only persuasive but you share direct similarities with them.

By expressing similarities to your audience, you are giving them a direct message that you are not foreign/alien and therefore, you should be trusted because you share a commonality with each and every one of them.

Though this approach may sound old (and I’m not going to hide the fact that it is one of foundational principles in disciplines like marketing) it does work and it will continue to work because you are tapping into the primordial region of someone’s mind when you use a peripheral cue like similarity. People are hardwired to accept similarity as a sign that the other person can be trusted.

The second peripheral cue that you should pay attention is attractiveness. Now don’t get me wrong: I know that everyone is unique and there is no real standard of beauty that can be followed each and every time.

However, it is also true that people who come close to standards of attractiveness tend to be more persuasive than those who do not make an effort to make themselves look good.

So if you are always out in the field, you have to do something about the way you look. You have to exert effort to look really good so people would be drawn to your message and they would respond more readily to you because you are attractive. Attractiveness, though it is a physical trait, is reflected not only by your bone structure but also how you dress yourself, how you carry yourself in public, etc.

The third peripheral cue that you should never forget is credibility. To be a credible person, you have to show people that you are unbiased in your views and you are some that should be trusted by others.

One easy way of appearing to be a credible person is by showcasing your knowledge of a particular topic. So if you are trying to sell a water filtration system to a company, you will appear more credible if you can answer all of the client’s questions and you also have the initiative to volunteer information to your client.

Now, I know that for some of you, it is very difficult to appear as an expert because there will always be older and more seasoned competition around you. Don’t worry about them.

Just do your homework and do your best to present information the way an expert would – with no hesitation and with utmost conviction. Even if the other person is not persuaded by your arguments right now it is possible that you will be able to persuade that person at a later date.

Why am I saying this? Well, social psychologists have identified a peculiar tendency in people when it comes to so-called credible sources.

It appears that over time, a person’s conviction that he should only listen to one source alone decays and eventually, that person will choose to listen to other sources as long as the other sources are providing clear information and sound arguments.

Processing Routes In Persuasion

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Persuasion can be considered as one of the great ivory thrones of influence because with persuasion, you can convince a person to change his mind and adapt your view.

Persuasion generally comes from without than from within. Understanding how persuasion works is like finding the key to the human mind. To understand what goes on in the human mind when you are trying to persuade someone is like discovering the roadmap to mastering persuasion.

There are many theories regarding persuasion but at the very root of these theories is the fact that people generally have two ways of processing information from the outside world: the central route and the peripheral route.

With the central route, a person who is receiving the stimulus or information will act like a naïve scientist. He will carefully think about the input and he will make a decision based on his theories.

With the peripheral route, the person receiving the information or stimulus will not pursue the critical path. Instead, he will choose to take a thin slice of the stimulus so he can compare it with whatever readily available information he has in his memory. In this regard, a person becomes a cognitive miser yet again.

What‟s the difference between the naïve scientist and the cognitive miser when it comes to persuasion? There is a big difference!

The naïve scientist will pay close attention not only to the message itself but also to the way it was delivered, etc. The naïve scientist is also interested in the why and how of the message.

The cognitive miser on the other hand, will do the direct opposite. Instead of paying close attention to the actual message, cognitive misers will be more interested in receiving small cues that will tell them whether or not the message is worth considering or not.

Figuring Out Which Route a Person Will Take

We now know that there are two possible routes when it comes processing persuasive information – the peripheral route and the central route.

Earlier in our exploration of heuristics, we discovered that there are common factors that affect a person‟s decision to become a cognitive miser instead of being naïve scientist.

While these factors (like lack of time) can be used to determine whether a person will use heuristics or critical analysis, there are other factors that come into play. These factors are:

- Speech rate - Mood - Involvement - Individual difference - Humor

Speech rate has a major effect on how a person processes persuasive information. You know why?

Because if a person cannot follow what you are saying, he will not become a naïve scientist and in the process, he will choose to ignore most of the content of your message in favor of cues that will allow him to analyze only „thin slices‟ of the whole message.

Usually, a person who is unable to follow a speedy persuasive message will only take note of the number of arguments present and make a decision based on this number.

Mood, surprisingly, also has a determining role in persuasion. Let us zero in on two important moods – the happy mood and the unhappy mood.

When you‟re happy, you feel light, carefree and you feel like you are on top of the world. You will feel like there is nothing in this world (or the Universe) that can bring you down because you are so happy at the moment.

Now take this mindset and imagine yourself in a situation where another person is trying to persuade you to do something.

Will you stop and analyze what the other person is saying to you? Or will you just barely follow what the other person is saying and just say yes? The answer of course, is usually the latter.

Happy people tend to choose the peripheral route in processing persuasive messages. Inversely, unhappy people are more critical. By „unhappy‟ we refer to individuals who feel sad, depressed, worried, scared, angry, anxious, etc. A person who is presently experiencing any negative emotion should be considered an unhappy person.

I am placing emphasis on this important distinction because unhappy people tend to become critical of persuasive messages because deep down, they are aware that something is not right with their lives.

Deep down, unhappy people are on the alert because something is not balanced and this incongruence between their reality and their needs and expectations will awaken the naïve scientist in unhappy people.

I am not saying that you need to make your audience unhappy before you can convince them to do something.

What I am saying here is that if you find yourself in the presence of a happy person, there is a bigger chance of being able to persuade that person because he will most likely take the peripheral route.

That means all you have to worry about at that point in time would be to relay your message well and provide sound arguments so the other person will agree more quickly (since he is a cognitive miser at the moment and he is using heuristics instead of critical processing).

Now when you are looking at the involvement factor you are actually looking at the impact of the persuasive message to the other person‟s self-concept. To illustrate this point, evaluate the two statements below:

Statement # 1: I have something that might improve your business in two to three years.

Statement # 2: Do you want to retire a millionaire? How about mansion in Beverly Hills? An island getaway all to yourself and that special someone? I have the key – and I can give it to you right now if you want it. After reading the two statements, which statement do you think has a more palpable impact to another person‟s self-concept?

Let's analyze the two statements. The first statement has a forward- thinking angle that emphasizes that a business will become stable with whatever is being offered in a few years.

The second statement opens with a question (this creates instant interest in the audience because it relates directly to one of basic needs, which is financial stability and of course, the survival needs) and also offers tantalizing potential realities to the audience.

After presenting all of the goodies, the statement ends with an open- ended sentence that creates a two-fold impression on the other person. The other person has two choices. His first choice is he can take the „key‟ and live the millionaire‟s lifestyle, as promised by the statement. The second choice is he can choose not to take the key and he will gain nothing.

Notice that all of the components of the second statement focus on genuine needs and desires of people.

With a touch of extravagance, a persuasive fantasy is created and the audience is presented with a tantalizing opportunity to rise above the rest in terms of financial security. And yet, we should remember, the statement isn‟t even real to begin with.

What‟s real to the audience is the fantasy and emotions that it invokes instantly – and so the audience will automatically focus on the second statement more than the first statement because there is much more at stake in the second statement than the first statement.

Now let us talk about the fourth factor, which are individual differences. This factor is fairly straightforward: people are different, right?

Some people prefer taking the central route (critical thinking) while some people are more likely to stick with the „default‟ route, which is the peripheral (auto-pilot) route.

So in essence, some people are naïve scientists most of the time while some feel that they are better off being cognitive misers because they can save their cognitive resources for more important times. Naïve scientists have a higher need for cognition while cognitive misers have a lower cognition requirement to get through their days.

It is also worthwhile to note that people who self-monitor more frequently are more likely to take the critical route in processing persuasive messages.

Self-monitoring is simply the degree at which a person is concerned with what other people are think about himself. If you are the kind who doesn‟t really care about what other people think, then you are most likely a cognitive miser most of the time.

And finally, we have the humor factor. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines “humor” as: something that is or is designed to be comical or amusing. Let‟s face it – we like dropping jokes every now and then.

Laughing makes people feel good and we know for a fact that humor can be a powerful tool when you are trying to communicate to critical individuals. So be careful when you are trying to influence people with your words because the wrong kind of humor can elicit the wrong type of response from people.

If you want your audience to have critical response to your message (i.e. you want them to really think about the benefits that you are offering to them) you have to craft related humorous items so a more critical response is triggered.

If you simply want to put your audience at ease, then you are better off with non-related humor. That is, you need to drop jokes and humorous anecdotes that do not relate to the topic/s that you are presently tackling. Non-related humor does not trigger the usage of the central route.

How Attitudes Change

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What drives a person to change his attitude and potentially, his intention to follow through with a specific behavior? One theory called the cognitive dissonance theory argues that when a person does something that is not in line with his existing attitude toward the object in question, a negative experience results.

Now this negative experience is quite relevant because negative experiences bring a concatenation of negative emotions. As human beings we have a natural aversion to negative emotions because naturally, we want to feel whole, happy and positive all the time.

Positive feelings lead to positive actions, which in turn satisfy our psychological, social and physical needs. Negative feelings on the other hand usually lead to inaction or negative actions, which directly contradict our various individual needs.

Here’s a good example of how cognitive dissonance can work in a person’s life. Let’s say that Person W has been a vegetarian for a few years now. Now because of a special event, this person was forced to eat chicken meat in the presence of many other friends who were not vegetarians at all.

The vegetarian eats the food, but later on, he feels guilty and unhappy because he went against his own beliefs regarding the consumption of meat. Here’s another example: let’s say that Person X is an avowed supporter of Person C, a candidate for mayor. Person C is actually Person X’s good friend for over twenty years.

However, Person X decides to vote for Person Y because Person Y had a better plan for the city. Though Person X’s friend was not aware of who Person X actually voted for, Person X felt terrible because Person C was a very good friend in the past and has been very helpful on many occasions.

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It is normal for human beings to sometimes engage in behavior that is not completely in line or congruent to our attitudes. This happens for a variety of reasons. As we have discussed before, people have to take into consideration the things that they discover or learn as they become either privately self-aware or publicly self-aware.

There are always expectations, norms, mores and standards that we have to think about because in the end, humans are social beings that want to be part of a winning social group. Unless a conscious choice is made to exclude oneself from any social group, we can safely assume that people behave in accordance to the standards of the group that they belong to.

So if you want predict the behavior and attitudes of a person, being fully aware of his social group would help immensely in the process of analyzing what you have to do to communicate with the other person effectively. What do we do when our behavior does not satisfy our present attitudes?

Do we just ignore the negative experience associated with dissonant behaviors? Or do we do something about it? According to the theory of cognitive dissonance, people care deeply when their actions do not reflect their attitudes. Now we know for a fact that attitude strength is a strong determinant when it comes to the actual implementation or execution of a behavior.

We can infer from this other theory that negative experiences associated with dissonant behavior also has varying degrees. If you have a weak conviction about a certain attitude, then you won’t care as much when your behavior does not really reflect the attitude.

But when you do something that completely ignores an attitude that you hold with strong conviction, then you can be sure that you will feel quite awful afterward.

Naturally, if a person feels negatively about a behavior because of the discrepancy between the behavior and the actual attitude, then that person will mostly likely be motivated to remedy the discrepancy or difference. This can be done in two ways:

Through rationalization or explaining to themselves why it was necessary to act that way in that specific situation.

Changing the behavior partially or completely so that it will now be congruent with the existing attitude toward the target object.

Reading Kids vs. Adults

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There is no doubt about it – kids are easier to read than adults. Here are some of the main reasons:

1. Kids are still very dependent on instinctual responses to situations.

2. Kids are very speedy when it comes to body language.

3. Kids show basic gestures and expressions when they try to communicate something to other people.

4. Kids have more muscle tone and muscle flexibility and therefore, they can easily express themselves through facial expressions and gestures.

These four main points are important because these present why adults are harder to read. Simply reverse the situation for adults:

1. Adults tend to be more careful about their body language.

2. There is generally a gap or delay when an adult says something and follows his verbal language with body language.

3. Adults may or may not show significant gestures when talking or expressing themselves.

4. Adults are not as keen on moving about and using facial expressions when talking. If an adult can keep it straightforward and simple, he will. Of course, this still varies from one person to another but

speaking, adults like to keep everything simple because excess movement and gestures can tire out an adult easily.

Do adults leave behind gestures and expressions that they have used when they were kids? Not entirely.

Of course, as adults we would have to refrain from performing gestures and movements that may be frowned upon by others (i.e. laughing giddily and loudly when we see someone we know) but that doesn‟t mean that we completely leave behind our expressions when we were kids.

Here‟s a great example of how gestures and physical expressions can „carry over‟ to adulthood. Have you ever seen a child tell a small lie?

What do you notice about the child, specifically his hands? 7 out of 10, the child that you have seen probably put his hand/s near his mouth, as if he was trying to cover up his mouth as he was telling the fib or lie.

Kids as young as four can use this gesture when they are either lying or they have been caught saying something that wasn‟t entirely true. This happens all the time and to kids, the hand-to-mouth movement is the most appropriate gesture for that situation.

But the question now is do adults actually use this gesture?

The answer, believe it or not, is yes. Adults still use a variation of the original gesture but there is usually a delay between the actual gesture and the lie.

The toned down version of this gesture is placing a finger near the mouth after a lie has been spoken. The perceived purpose of this gesture is the same with the perceived purpose of the basic gesture – to cover up the mouth which has spoken something deceitful.

Now you may have heard of people who actually fake body language to fool people into thinking that they are being sincere. Can this be done, at all? Fortunately, to a body language reader, any attempts at faking body language are futile.

The reason for this quite simple: the mind may instruct the body to lie, but the body is hard-wired to express what‟s in the mind.

So if a person is not being sincere, there might be one or two gesture that seem to be showing sincerity but there would be other gestures and expressions within the cluster that would be incongruent with what the other person is trying to project consciously.

For example, a person might consciously hold out his hands (palms exposed) to show passive acceptance or inability to understand but at the same time, his eyes might suddenly narrow or some parts of his body might become twitchy because he is trying to conceal what he truly thinks and feels.

As a master of body language, your first task is to separate fact from fiction. Verbal language, vocal language and non- verbal language (body language) can all be used equally to communicate truth and falsity.

A person who is bent on deceit can mimic the body language of a sincere person to hide his deceit. A master reader on the other hand, would be able to see through the guise of a faker and uncover what he truly feels and thinks.

Always remember that the hands are usually used to „fake‟ sincerity so pay close attention when a person makes use of his hands often to drive home a point, etc. The following cannot be consciously controlled:

1. Dilation and contraction of the pupils 2. Profuse sweating 3. Redness or paleness of the cheeks and face

If a person appears sincere but is suddenly sweating even if it‟s not hot, the person is probably trying to hide something.

And here‟s the thing about people who try to fake their body language – they can only go on for so long. Fakers usually don‟t have the energy to sustain the deceit for long periods of time.

For genuine sincere people on the other hand, it is easy to appear happy, grateful or sad at something because everything comes out naturally. They don‟t have to remember to do this or that – because they are being truthful to what they feel and think.

Fakers on the other hand, have to keep a close watch on what they say and what they show the other person so they can keep their guise up. Faking body language is like being thrown unto a theater stage where you have to act for the whole duration of the scene.

If Person A absolutely despised his boss but he has to talk to this person because he was called to a private meeting, he has to pretend that he wants to be there for the whole duration of the meeting. Doing this can be very exhausting, indeed!

Now, a master reader should also remember that he should also show positive body language when he is talking to people so he can get the right response from other people.

Positive body language helps build self-confidence and can also facilitate better communication between people.

Negative body language (i.e. aggressive body language) should be avoided at all cost because negative body language rarely produces desired results because people are usually more sensitive to negative body language.

Attitude Formation

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When a person behaves or reacts in a negative way to an event, we say that the person has a ‘bad attitude’ or ‘negative attitude’ to that event. The concept of attitude has been in common usage for so long but few people actually know what goes into the creation of a person’s attitude.

If you want to understand how attitudes are born and how these evolve over time, we have to go to into an in-depth exploration of social attitudes and how attitudes related to individuals and to society itself. But first off, what is attitude?

Social psychology defines attitude as a collection of beliefs that a person associates with a specific object.

By object, we mean anything and everything that a person can focus on, including other people, events, himself or even the behavior of other people. Each person has a distinct attitude when it comes to specific stimuli and events. Attitudes, like other personal structures of belief, are held dearly by individuals.

How Attitudes Are Formed

Social psychology has identified four key avenues of attitude formation in people. These avenues are:

Mere exposure

Associative learning

Self-perception

Functional reasons

The Key Avenues of Attitude Formation

Each key avenue is distinct because the formational coordinates are also distinct/different from each other. In mere exposure, it is believed that in order for a person to develop a more positive attitude toward a particular object (remember, an ‘object’ can be anything that a person can focus on), that person must be exposed continually to the said object.

So if you can increase the exposure of another person to an object (i.e. a product, service or business offer), the more positive that person’s attitude will be toward that particular object. This is illustrated in a study made some years ago; test subjects were exposed to characters that resembled Chinese characters.

The test subjects were told later on that the characters were actually adjectives. The subjects were then asked if they can guess which characters represented positive traits.

The study showed that the longer a person was exposed to a character, the more he associated the said character to a positive trait. A linear (or consistent upward) trend was noted in the study – which proves that repetition and continual exposure does have an impact in the way people viewed the world. This key avenue shows that people can assimilate new objects if they are exposed to the said objects long enough. So remember: the longer a person sees something, more likely he will like the said object after a time.

Another interesting study worth noting here is a joint study by Mita, Dermer and Knight. These three researchers showed test subjects two photographic prints. One print was a regular photograph of themselves while the other photograph showed mirror images of themselves.

So one image would be a regular photo while the other one represented what people saw when they looked into a mirror. After exposing the test subjects to the different prints, they were asked to choose which print they liked best.

A majority of the test respondents states that they like the mirror prints best. There was no other explanation for this trend other than the mirror prints represented what the test subjects saw more frequently in their daily life.

Though the images were almost indistinguishable from each other, the test subjects were still able to correctly identify which prints contained the mirror images.

Social Categorization Defined

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Social categorization, as the name implies, involves the classification of things based on similarity and difference. At its very core, this is social categorization. But I am not saying that social categorization stops here.

Otherwise, everyone would simply be making decisions based on similarity and difference (and that is just plain strange). Social categorization thrives of equivalence and differences because this allows people to make sense of information as it arrives by the boatload every single day.

Social categorization, like attribution, is an important activity that directly affects a person’s self-concept. Because as a person matures and develops through the years, he amasses his own categorical schemas that in turn shape his drives and desires.

For example, over time, a person would be able to classify a whole bunch of activities as desirable. Inversely, this person would also have a schema of activities that he would never do again because of perceived disadvantages. Without social categorization, there would be no way to create order in a very chaotic physical reality.

This activity gives a person control over the information that he receives so he can classify or even discard information as he sees fit. Social categorization also allows people to directly compare one object to another object or to a whole group of objects. Relationships of varying degrees can also be established with the help of social categorization.

For example, if Person A had a preference for Windows-based computers, he would associate a cellular phone with a Windows-based platform with the current Windows operating system.

This in turn would encourage a person to buy the cellular phone because it has an intimate association with that person’s favorite operating system. Here’s another example: if a person was in love with a brand of fast food, what are the chances of this person buying a condiment (i.e. barbecue sauce) that has the same fast-food brand?

Of course, chances are this person would be converted immediately to the new barbecue sauce brand because it has a deep connection with the person’s favorite fast-food. However, we should remember that the rubric of social categorization itself does not capture the entirety of human perception.

Again, we will hit a brick wall if we choose to fit human perception in a very solid framework. Human perception is very fluid; theories like social categorization are not. The boundaries of theoretical frameworks need to be rigid in order to be believed in by social scientists; human perception is vacuous and is always in a state of flux.

Like mercury in room temperature, it’s hard to pin down human perception with just one finger. It will slip and slide effortlessly, eluding your weary hand. Here’s a good example: what is the first thing that comes to mind when you think of the word “pet”? It is likely that you answered either dog or cat.

Some of you may have answered parakeet or turtle. And still some (though these are rare) would have answered baby octopus and sugar gliders. If I ask you why you chose a particular animal when you read the word “pet”, your response would probably be something along the lines of: the animal is more pet-like than the other animals that I know.

There is nothing wrong with picking other animals; this just reflects the fact that some people have different schemas for common categories. But for the majority, the schemas that they are using to utilize social categorization are actually filled with prototypes or stereotypes.

What are prototypes? Let’s erase the negative connotation of the word prototype or stereotype, because this is actually a very important concept in the realm of human influence. Let me explain: categories are actually groups of concepts that are associated with each other in varying degrees.

These categories emerge from popular culture and popular knowledge and we actually learn these categories little by little, as we engage in informal discussions with different people. And of course we cannot ignore the impact of popular media like the Internet and television.

These outlets of mass culture also play a role in creating and propagating categories and stereotypes. Now, let’s go back to the earlier question that I posed to you. Since social categories are simply interconnected bits of information (i.e. objects, events, politics, etc.), eventually, there will be a hierarchy in these sets of information.

Some members of these sets will be more visible and will be more recognizable, too. The most recognizable members of social sets are called the stereotypes. Stereotypes are representative members because the information about these members are highly available to people.

People tend to use the most accessible pieces of information when they need to analyze a situation. And thus, it is unavoidable for people to use stereotypes because these are indeed highly accessible pieces of information. Of course, excessive use of stereotypes can lead to gross errors.

For example, if you believe that only men can be great trial lawyers, you may become slack jawed to see female trial lawyers on the forefront of highly controversial criminal trials.

The Most Powerful Self Motive

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Why do we hold on to the concept of the self all the time? Why do we continually struggle with private and public standards of achievement, appearance, etc.? There are three associated motivations with the self:

- Self-verification - Self-assessment - Self-enhancement

Among these three associated motivations, no motivation is more powerful than self-enhancement. The motivation for self-enhancement pushes a person to seek new information as to how he can improve himself in different ways.

This self-motive is present in everything that we do unless a person consciously avoids thinking about himself when he tries to accomplish things. Self-awareness and self-motive are intimately associated; one cannot exist without the other.

When a person is motivated by self-enhancement, he looks for positive information that will help him achieve goals or satisfy standards. There is a big contrast if we compare self-enhancement with self-verification.

Self-verification is primarily concerned with finding differences or discrepancies between groups of self-schemas. In a way, this leads a person to focus on negative aspects of himself rather than on positive aspects. It is alright to seek out genuine weaknesses and areas that you can improve but I have to warn everybody that you should never dwell on negative aspects of the self.

Dwelling on something is quite different from acknowledging it and acting upon a negative aspect to improve that aspect. If you focus on self-enhancement most of the time, you will be able to modify your behavior in such a way that you will be able to continually reach your goals by simply being yourself. The modification of negative traits will come naturally as you implement plans that you have devised after you have utilized the self-enhancement motive.

Self-Enhancement Strategies

People make use of two main strategies to maintain their positive outlook in life. The first strategy focuses on self-affirmation. Self-affirmation usually occurs when a person suffers from low self-esteem, either because he feels that he has not been able to attain his goals or he his ego has been threatened in some other way by people or situations.

A person affirms his positive traits and qualities in the face of low self- esteem to raise his self-esteem and to improve his outlook in life. This strategy is useful not only for raising your self-esteem but also for improving the chances of following through with plans and goals.

According to a foundational study, it was discovered that people who affirmed that they possessed a particular trait or were ready for a particular undertaking were 95% more likely to respond to a similar undertaking just so they can re-affirm that they indeed possess this trait or capability.

Let me explain how this strategy is actually implemented: when something good happens to a person, he will immediately attribute his success to internal factors, like his traits. Inversely, when a person experiences something bad, like failure, he will attribute the failure or negative event to extraneous factors (i.e. other people, society, circumstances, etc.)

Here are some examples of how this strategy is used by people to maintain their level of self-esteem:

“I aced the exam because I have always been clever in Mathematics.” “I failed the exam because the teacher did not discuss the subject matter adequately.”

“I got a hole-in-one today because I’ve been working so hard on my swing these past few months.” “My golf was horrible today because of the wind speed and we tried out a new golf course.”

“I sold a lot of products today because of my good marketing skills.” “I wasn’t able to sell a lot of products because people didn’t have money and they don’t know how to respond to a great marketer like me!”

Women Vs. Men: The Perceptiveness Test

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Are women really more perceptive than men?

If I were to base my answer on an actual study, then my answer would be yes.

And this also confirms the age-old adage that women would always be more sensitive and perceptive than the guys. According to a Harvard study, women are generally better in being perceptive than men.

However, gay men and men who were into the arts (painting, writing, etc.) also showed perceptiveness/intuitiveness that was close to what women could offer.

Women were eighty seven percent more likely to understand the deeper nuances of a face to face conversation.

As for the males, it appears that we guys can only read body language correctly forty two percent of the time only. That’s a massive difference in perceptiveness if you ask me.

Now, within the group of women respondents those who already had children were more likely to be intuitive compared to women who were single and did not have children.

The increased intuitiveness is probably the result of having to care for infants and toddlers who did not have the ability to express themselves verbally and therefore, must be understood only though vocal communication (i.e. whining, laughing, gurgling, babbling, etc.) and non-verbal communication (gestures, facial expressions, movements, etc.)

Don’t think that researchers aren’t looking at the organic/biological basis of perceptiveness. According to research, women’s brains have more than ten dedicated areas used to study the behavior of other people. Men on the other hand, only utilize an average of six areas.

Here’s another striking difference between male brains and female brains: female brains were built for multi-tasking. A woman who is having a conversation can keep track of multiple topics at the same time.

A woman can also utilize several tones of voice to emphasize thoughts and emotions, unlike men who are generally more limited when it comes to modifying their vocal language during a conversation.

Now let’s take a short sojourn into an age-old debate regarding body language.

Is body language taught or is it something that is natural or intrinsic to people? And the answer to this question is open-ended: researchers now agree that some gestures are taught through culture while some appear to be transferred genetically.

For example, you won’t have to teach a child how to smile or laugh because a baby will already know how to smile or laugh in the first few months of life. You also do not have to teach a child how to scream or wail in frustration, anger or pain because those actions are also natural to children (and adults as well!).

Here are some more actions/gestures/expressions that are common throughout the world (that means culture barely plays a part when it comes to these body language signs):

Smiling (happiness)

Scowling (may signify depression, anger, anxiety, sadness)

Nodding the head (generally signifies an affirmative response)

Shaking the head from one side to another (generally signifies a negative response)

Shrugging the shoulders (generally signifies that the person does not fully comprehend what has been said or what is being discussed at that time

Researchers believe that the fourth item in our list is particularly innate to everyone. Here’s why: when an infant is being breastfed, he/she usually signifies that he does not want any more milk by moving his head to the side quickly.

This action unlatches the nipple from the child’s mouth. Toddlers also tend to shake their head from side to side so the adult who is spoon-feeding the child would no longer be able to give the child food.

You can imagine how this action can easily be used by a child later on in life to signify that he does not agree with something.

Both agreement and disagreement are easily learned even when a person has been born blind so we cannot fully argue at all that these gestures are simply mimicked or copied by infants/toddlers from their parents.

Persuasion Essentials

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The persuasion process is nothing more than an exchange of information.  But you have to pay attention to the type of information that you're about to divulge during that exchange.  One of the most important aspects is that it's not overwhelming or too in-depth.  We've all heard the expression “TMI” or too much information. Simply put, too many choices confuse people.  Too much information will then overwhelm someone.  Giving too much information also elevates the risk that you might say something that could deter them or change their pattern of thinking to not be compliant with what you're asking for.  I've seen this occur thousands of times where salespeople actually talk themselves and the target out of the sale by simply going on and on and on.

So now the question is how much information do you actually divulge when speaking to someone?  Well the answer to this question is that you simply need to figure out whether this person processes information centrally or peripherally.  If they are analyzing scrutinizing and really paying close attention to the information that you're giving them, than they are processing it centrally.  If they are turning to other cues, such as images or positive values to make their decision, then they are processing it peripherally, which means that their decision to comply actually has nothing to do with your information or your message at all.  If they are coming from a central standpoint, and really enjoy evaluating information, you must be prepared to give them as much information as possible.  And if they come from a peripheral standpoint where they're really not evaluating information at all, then avoid going into great detail at all costs, as this will ultimately lead them to say no.  Once you figured out how much information you need to give them, you must figure out how to structure that information for your message.

Your information is going to be based on how much information this person has on the topic before you even start speaking.  In the end, chances are they will either have extensive knowledge about what you have to offer or were not knowledgeable.  They will either be an expert or not an expert.  You will have to present information to these two types of people much differently.

People who have extensive knowledge in a certain area do not need to learn about the benefits of what you have to offer, because what they are going to do is simply link whatever you are telling them to whatever they have already stored in their memory about a topic.  So for them, you focus on features, which you better make sure you know a heck of a lot about.  If you appear to lack knowledge about what you're offering, you will lose them completely.  When dealing with a person that has no idea or any prior knowledge, the key is to give less information so they can process quickly and in your favor.  With this type of a person, you would spend most of your time on benefits, as peripheral cues play a big role in influencing this type of individual.

There are certain things that you can do with your message to make it more powerful.  The first is repeating it over and over again, through repetition.  The key is to make it sound different each time, so that it doesn't sound as though you only have one thing to offer and you just keep returning back to it.  The core of the message should always be the same thought.  You should focus on the delivering the message in different ways so that it becomes embedded in the person's mind, but doesn't sound like you're rambling on.

When structuring your message, you also want to focus on why the information that you have, whether it's about yourself, your product, or service, is different from that of your competition.  What this will do is enable that person to remember you in some way.  If people don't remember you, there is no way they could ever comply with you.  Also, make your message easy for them to remember so that they can repeat it back to someone else if they want.  People will logically try to justify any decision that they've made after they've done it. If your message can be easily repeated to themselves or someone else they will feel much more confident about their decision to comply with you.

If they make a decision to comply with you, and then later on find themselves scratching their heads not even really understanding what your message was, they are likely to experience buyer’s remorse, which is something that you don't want.  The next factor that's going to determine how well you play the game is how much your target knows about the benefits of what you have to offer before you even speak to them.  If they have extensive knowledge about the benefits and there is no need for you to stress them in that case, just simply speak to how they attained that knowledge and focus on the features of what you have to offer.  Taking this action will reinforce all of the benefits that they have already learned about.  When you're speaking to someone that has no clue about what you have to offer, then, of course, you must educate this person and explain the benefits of everything you bring to the table.  The next factor that's going to determine your success to influence someone to do something is whether or not you appear to be an authority figure.  They must trust that your knowledge, education, experience or expertise in something makes you the go to person.

The next factor that will determine your success is your ability to help them create a vision of using your product or service will for them.  This works extremely well when dealing with people that have limited knowledge or are not experts, because if people can see themselves using your product or service, they are more likely to want it and to remember it more.  But if you're dealing with an expert, who knows everything there is to know about what you have to offer, don't spend time trying to paint a picture.  In this case, the person has probably already done this in his or her mind when he or she initially began learning about it.

How The Mind Thinks About Goals

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As humans, we are able to access knowledge about ourselves by referring to the various self-schemas that we have developed over the years. But the question now is: how do these self-schemas develop in the first place?

Modern studies in human behavior and thinking have been able to define specific contours and boundaries when it comes to the formation of the concept of the self. Of course, there can be endless debates as to how the self is actually developed over time.

The concept of the self is so important to so many disciplines that you will find different models and theories about it across a wide plethora of fields such as anthropology, philosophy and even literary criticism. But for the purpose of this book, we will be looking carefully at the concept of the self as it is applied directly to any social setting.

Now, let’s move on to a concept called self-comparison. Self-comparison is every important to the concept of the self because without it, there would be no way for a person to establish coordinates that will allow him to develop the self over time.

How does self-comparison work? Here’s a straightforward explanation: self-comparison works by setting standards that person would model himself against. These standards may come from an ideal mental image of the self or from certain standards emanating from one’s own social group. The type of comparison taking place in our minds is dependent on the kind of self-awareness that we have.

If you are always privately self-aware, you are more concerned with personal standards of appearance, behavior, accomplishments, etc. If you have a higher level of public self-awareness, you will be more concerned with what other people think of you and how other see you, so you are more concerned with extraneous  standards of behavior, appearance, etc.

Self-comparison can happen on both conscious and subconscious levels. So even if you are not consciously thinking that you are trying to satisfy certain standards in your life, you are actually actively working to fulfill these standards in your own life.

Only a person with very dim self-awareness will be able to avoid this type of thinking because any person who wants to at the best position to influence others and to accomplish his goals in life would want full access to mental tools that will allow a person to modify his way of thinking.

The Four-Step Feedback Method

According to one theory, people consciously (or unconsciously) use a four-step feedback method to test whether or not they are attaining personal goals or satisfying particular standards. You can use this feedback method too, so you can systematically improve certain aspects of your life that require your attention. The four-step feedback method works this way:

Step # 1: Identify a particular goal or standard that you think would help improve yourself in any way.

Step # 2: Ask yourself – do you already fulfill this standard or have you attained this goal?

If the answer is “no”, proceed to Step # 4. If the answer is “yes”, proceed with Step # 3.

Step # 3: What would help you attain this goal or satisfy this private/personal or public standard? Test your theory and perform the actions needed to satisfy the standard you had in mind. After testing your theory through action and appropriate decision-making, ask yourself once again: do you satisfy the standard?

If the answer is “no”, repeat Step # 3. If the answer is “yes”, proceed to Step # 4.

Step # 4: You have completed the feedback method.

It is crucial that you always ask yourself this vital question when you are performing the four-step feedback method: am I attaining my goal with what I am doing? Since you are choosing to consciously perform this feedback method, I have to remind you gentle folks that you have to go back to Step # 3 if you still haven’t satisfied the standard or goal that you had in mind.

Since this process of self-critique can be quite taxing, I recommend that you focus on one standard or one goal only whenever you want to perform this feedback method. Because according to social theory, 9 times out of 10, you will be mentally tuckered out after just one round with the four-step feedback method. So learn to pace yourself and don’t focus on other issues when you are actively engaged in this method.