Persuasion

Dealing With Dissonance

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The mind’s ability to detect dissonance or incongruence may be our best tool when dealing with people of all sorts. When we communicate with other people, we always want to watch out for our own interests and the easiest way to do that is to avoid trickery or lies.

Of course, no one would tell you outright that he is lying or he is trying to deceive you in any way. No one would do that for you – and no one has to do that for you because you have your critical faculty and the reptilian complex at your disposal.

The human mind can detect dissonance at various conscious (and unconscious) levels. For example, let’s say that you have just learned that there is going to be a massive lay-off in your company because of management restructuring.

Around the same time that you have learned of this development, you were invited to a company party where all the employees are going to be drinking and enjoying themselves for a few hours. From the moment that you received the invitation to the company event you felt that something was really amiss.

Conflicting thoughts and emotions swirl in your mind and you may even feel suspicious about the invitation (even if the company party has been planned months before the news that there was going to be a massive lay-off in the company).

When you attend the company party, you see happy faces and people that you know. You smile and enjoy yourself like everybody else, but at the back of your mind, you are not fully convinced of the authenticity or genuineness of party.

What was the management up to? Why were the bosses throwing a party even if there was going to be a massive lay-off? At one point in the party, the dissonance starts to dissolve just a little bit.

You want to feel hopeful and some of the joy of the party starts rubbing off on you and you think once or twice that maybe the news wasn’t true and maybe something good was heading your way in the company. You feel hopeful, but there is dissonance.

Despite the dissonance, you feel hopeful… But why? The key element in this type of situation is manipulation. There is manipulation involved and when there is manipulation, there is always a desired feedback and outcome.

When the company throws a party it is trying to send a persuasive message to the people involved in the party. This message is hopefully understood and accepted by people, despite apprehensions and anxieties.

This is how non-verbal messages can be used to turn the tables even in the face of hard facts. And in the grand scheme of things, the ones who can use non-verbal persuasion to their advantage each and every time are the ones who emerge victorious, always.

When people rationalize, they are legitimizing their own point of view of something and they are resisting change

Now let’s move on to something equally important – something you have to learn carefully if you want to be really persuasive whenever you want to speak to someone face to face: people tend to process logical and illogical in such a way that everything would eventually align with their own biases and beliefs.

What does this mean? Well, people are prone to creating excuses to benefit themselves. Excuses aren’t ‘just’ excuses. Excuses are actually the end-products of people’s rationalizations about specific situations and outcomes. Why do people make excuses?

Usually, people resort to excuses because they don’t want to adapt another behavior or they don’t want to change an existing behavior. It is always easier to rationalize something as opposed to changing an existing behavior.

When a person rationalizes, he creates a space for the old behavior. When a person makes an excuse for something, he is really saying that he wants to maintain the old behavior because it simply works for him.

A person in effect legitimizes something and shows his resistance to change. Why is this so important to our study of human communication? Well, if we would go back to the communication cycle itself, we would see that a persuasive message essentially wants to achieve just one thing – change.

That’s it – we want someone to change for us because we want a particular outcome to emerge from the conversation or exchange. Persuasion and influence would be impossible if the other person was completely resistant to change.

Right now, I’m telling you that people are essentially resistant to change itself and a person would actually exert a lot of effort just to counter change itself.

Even the threat of change is usually countered with full force because humans have learned over time that in order to survive, a status quo has to be preserved. Preservation entails order and stability. Change is viewed as the antithesis of stability and order.

When something is changing and when this change is constant and continuous, the present order is disturbed and stability is removed from the equation. Thousands of years ago, instability usually meant migration from one place to another.

Change also meant that there might not be enough resources in a particular area to sustain family units that are living there. And so over time, humans have associated change with the tragedy or disaster. This kind of thinking has become part of the instinctual mindset of mankind.

So whenever a person is confronted with the possibility of change, he reacts negatively to that possibility not because he is being a pain but because people were designed to think in such a way.

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So if we were to combine all this knowledge now, what are the implications of change or loss of stability when we try to persuade someone? How must a person communicate if he wants to introduce change even if people were designed to resist change in the first place?

In order to answer these questions, we have to simulate a situation where a person was trying to introduce a particular change but was unable to do so because of the distortion of his message.

Here’s the hypothetical situation: let’s say that Person B was trying to convince a whole room of people that they should invest their money into Company B because this company has been experiencing a lot of success in the past year and all economic markers point to the positive.

Unfortunately, Person B was trying to say “Company B is doing excellent!” but his body language was actually saying “Company B is secretly already in ruins, stay away!”.

People were naturally keen to discover the truth and the dissonance between what he was saying verbally and what he was stating non-verbally was enough to convince people not to listen to him. Person B completely lost his audience because he was unable to convince the room that Company B was indeed worth their time and effort.

Now let us examine what just happened in the hypothetical situation. Why didn’t the people in the room just believe Person B even if he was saying outright that Company B was doing extremely well? Why weren’t the people swayed by all the statistics and pie charts presented by Person B? The problem boils down to dissonance.

Person B wanted people to believe in him and he wanted to introduce change (i.e. investing in Company B instead of other companies). Since there is a natural resistance to change, people needed to see and hear that everything was indeed true.

As much as people wanted to see facts and figures, the audience also wanted to see confidence, conviction and genuineness in the speaker, because he was the only ‘live marker’ in the room. He was the fountain of information and people expected more of him.

People weren’t expecting more statistics and such, the audience wanted to see congruence in what his body language and what his verbal language was transmitting. Any incongruence between the two channels of communication will easily convince people that the speaker is not telling the whole truth.

People would become even more resistant to the message of change because their internal alarm systems have gone off because of the dissonance between the verbal language and the non-verbal language being used by the speaker.

When you think about it, so much is really at stake when we communicate to people. We can’t expect people to convince themselves to change.

Speakers need to convince people, period. Speakers need to deliver both content and non-verbal cues that will prevent people from being resistant to what is being said in the first place.

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.

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.

The 3 Types Of Eye Gazes

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Recently I posted an article about some of (what I consider to be) very interesting facts about the eyes and how you can learn a lot about what a person is thinking by simply paying closer attention to things like pupil dilation.

Someone had posted a comment which was actually a question about how you can stare into a person’s eyes without looking like a “weirdo”.

In other words, how do you look deep enough into their eyes to determine if the pupils are dilated without appearing obvious to the degree that the person feels uncomfortable?

I answered that question but felt it would be even better to really elaborate on the topic of looking into someone’s eyes.

Ok. So first and foremost, according to body language experts Allan and Barbara Pease, when it comes to gazing, there are basically three types: Social Gazing, Intimate Gazing and Power Gazing.

1.) Social Gazing – Much research on gazing has shown that most people focus on a triangular area between the eyes and the mouth on another person’s face for around 90% of the gaze time during social encounters.

2.) Intimate Gazing – When approaching another person from a distance, we usually look quickly at their face and then to the lower body. We do this first to determine their sex and then to determine our interest level in them. This gaze is across the eyes and below the chin to lower parts of the other person’s body. During close encounters, it’s the triangular areas between the eyes and chest. During encounters from far away, it’s from the eyes to the groin or lower. This gaze is used by both men and women alike to show interest in others and to reciprocate when this type gaze is placed on them from someone they find interesting. It typically consists of 2 quick glances followed by a look at their face. What’s interesting is how most people think that men do this more than women when in fact the opposite is true. Research has shown that women check men out more than men check out women but the difference lies the ability to make it obvious which women are equipped to do better as their range of peripheral vision (45 degrees) is much wider than that of a man's. This means she can basically appear as though she is looking at a man’s face but actually be looking below his waist…..talk about a hidden advantage.

3.) Power Gazing – Power gazing takes place when a person focuses on the area in between the eyes of another person. It’s almost as if there’s an imaginary third eye on the face. Focusing on this area automatically lets the person know you mean business and creates a very serious atmosphere.

So back to the original question on how you can pay attention to the pupils without coming across as a weirdo.

The answer is simple. First, remember that environment dictates a lot. If you’re meeting someone for the first time in casual setting, use the social gaze and check for pupil dilation from time to time. This will prevent you from appearing obvious. If you are on a date with someone or are in an intimate setting, then intimate gazing is acceptable and there’s usually a general understanding that this is the way most people look at each other in these environments. This also makes it a lot easier to check for pupil dilation because staring into someone’s eyes in an intimate environment is not unordinary; it’s expected. And if you find yourself in a serious conversation with someone and you are checking for pupil dilation, chances are that person won’t even be thinking about it. Instead, they will be too wrapped up in the serious subject matter.

More Framing Research Shows Compliance Rates Quadrupled

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One study by Kahneman, Slovic And Tversky proved yet again how powerful framing truly is.

They presented hundreds of subjects with two situations and asked which option they would choose.

Situation A: You win $1,000 in a game. You now have a choice between a guaranteed $500 or a 50% chance of winning an additional $1,000  and a 50% of winning nothing.

Situation B: You win $2,000. You now have a choice between a guaranteed loss of $500 or a 50% chance of losing $1,000 and 50% chance of losing nothing.

In situation A, 84% of people chose the first option which was the guaranteed $1,500. Only 16% took the 50/50 chance of getting either the $1,000 or $2,000.

In situation B, 31% of people chose the first option (the guaranteed $1,500). 69% of people were willing to gamble on the 50/50 chance of ending up with either the $1,000 or $2,000.

Both of these situations are IDENTICAL.

In both cases, you are deciding between a guaranteed $1,500 or a a 50/50 chance of ending up with $1,000 or $2,000 yet because of the framing in situation B, we see the response rate more than quadruple in favor of that option.

Imagine if you could multiply the amount of times people say "yes" to you by 4 by simply changing a few words.

How would this impact your income, your relationships, your opportunities?

Realize this; people respond more to the way that information is presented to them than to the content of the information itself.

People will also almost always choose a guaranteed win/gain over any future risk but they will allow their current losses to run till the wheels fall off simply because they're already heavily vested.

Think about how this information applies to what you do in life and begin to figure out how you can apply it and see better results.

If you're in sales or business, it's pretty easy to relate but even on personal levels, think of how you can apply this information when you make requests from your friends, family, children, lover, etc.

It works.

Body Language 101: What Can We Tell From The Legs?

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When it comes to reading body language, many people focus on the most obvious and easy-to-read areas; the eyes and the arms.

And while both areas are extremely important, you wouldn't believe what you could learn about a person by paying closer attention to their legs and there are a few reasons why.

Firstly, people tend to be less conscious of their leg movements. Even though the face and arms can give away a lot about a person, they can also be tougher to read; especially if you're dealing with a person who is very conscious of their body language and will make it their business to try to hide their emotions.

Even some novices are capable of putting on a fake smile in front of their boss even though deep down inside they may despise him/her.

The legs however, are a whole other story. I fact, when it comes to parts of the body that people who are trying to hide their emotions pay attention to, the legs take a back seat to the face, arms, hands and chest.

This means that a even a person who maintains complete composure in the face may be giving away important clues through their legs without even realizing it.

Secondly, humans are hard wired to use to legs to move closer to what we desire and to move away from what we don't want. You see, originally the legs only served 2 purposes: to get food and to run from danger. This basic instinct still resides within us and will come out during certain emotional states.

For example, when a person maintains open or uncrossed legs, they are showing an open or dominant attitude whereas crossed positions reveal uncertainly or closed attitudes.

According to psychologist Paul Ekman, leg movements can also help detect liars as people tend to increase lower body movements when they lie and observers can also expose a person's lies more easily when they can see the liars entire body.

There are many different positions that a person can take using their legs and at some point, I'll probably touch on all of them but for now, just know that the legs can be equally - if not more - important as the face arms when reading someone.

Body Language 101: Arm Crossing Decoded

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We learn at a very early age to hide behind barriers when we want to protect ourselves.

As we get older and hiding behind objects like our mother's skirts, tables, chairs, etc. became unacceptable, we subconsciously find other ways to protect ourselves and one of the "go to" tactics is by crossing the arms.

Arm-crossing is most likely an inborn function as the act itself so perfectly protects vital organs like the heart and lungs from injury.

The key point here is that arm-crossing is a protective gesture. If a person crosses their arms, its because they subconsciously feel anxious, nervous, defensive or just plain old uncomfortable.

To put it simply; its not a good sign. While it may not be the most negative of gestures in terms of body language, it certainly isn't good.

Now many people will claim that having their arms crossed just feels comfortable to them but the truth is that's just an excuse.

Without sounding vulgar, imagine that you are sitting in a chair receiving oral sex from someone and you are really enjoying it, do you think you would have your arms crossed during this moment of extreme relaxation, submissiveness and pleasure?

I think you get my point, you cannot truly feel comfortable if you are taking this position with someone.

Here's why this information is valuable to you as an influence master (man I love the way that sounds).

When attempting to persuade someone. its extremely important to know their state of mind and being able to read their body language will give you the best view into their mind's eye.

If your target has their arms crossed, you should immediately focus your attention on getting them to uncross them as research has shown that when in this position your target is not only uncomfortable but he/she is also likely to not retain the information in your message. In other words, you're not getting through to him/her.

In fact in one study, 2 groups of volunteers were asked to attend a series of lectures in which one group was instructed to cross their arms tightly during the lectures while the other group was told to keep their arms and legs open and take a more relaxed , casual position.

At the end of the lectures, the results showed that the group which kept their arms open learned and retained an average of 38% more information than the group who kept their arms crossed.

One quick and easy way to break this position is to give your target something to hold or give them something to do. Try giving them a pen, a piece of paper, a business card or a brochure. This causes them to have to open their arms and lean forward into a much more open position.

Once you have them in the open position, begin your presentation again but slightly differently in perhaps a more diplomatic fashion and center it around their immediate benefit.

This will cause them to be more receptive to your message.

What Lies In The Eyes? Apparently A Lot

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Much of what you read about on this site has to do with verbal communication. But the truth of the matter is that when it comes to influence and persuasion, verbal communication actually matters the least.

The reason why I write so much about verbal communication is because I think much of the tactics are easier to understand and easier to relate to by most people. But who knows….I could be just assuming.

In any event the study non-verbal communication (primarily body language) is not only something that has fascinated me for many years but it's also an essential area that one needs to understand if you really plan on mastering this influence/persuasion stuff.

There are 3 main reasons for this.

First, endless research suggests that we are perceived through body language more than 55% of the time we are communicating.

Secondly, because of this we should pay very close attention to the signals that we are giving off to others when trying to gain compliance from them as we can be sending messages to them physically that completely contradict what we are saying verbally.

Thirdly, understanding the mechanics behind body language will enable us to better understand what our target is thinking so we can adjust our presentation accordingly.

When it comes to body language, one of the most important parts of the body to pay attention to are the eyes. This may not necessarily be news to you. You've probably heard things like "if a person can't look you in the eye, they're probably lying" or "if a person keeps looking away, they're probably not interested in what you have to say".

Nothing really groundbreaking there. So today I wanted to share (what I believe)to be some truly amazing facts about the eyes and body language that hopefully you haven't heard before that will help you.

The first has to do with pupils. Did you know that when a person gets excited, their pupils can dilate up to four times their original size? And when a person becomes angry or agitated, the pupils contract and become much smaller.

Former head of the Department of Psychology at the University of Chicago Eckhard Hess found that a person's general state of arousal affects pupil dilation.

What's interesting is the subject matter that actually causes the dilation and how it actually differs in men and women.

For example, in one study that Hess performed on pupil response he showed 5 pictures to respondents which included a baby, a naked female, a landscape, a mother and a baby and a naked male.

As predicted, the pupils of heterosexual men dilated most when looking at the naked woman. The pupils of gay men dilated most when looking at the picture of the naked man but the pupils of the women dilated most when looking at the picture of the mother and baby with the picture of the naked man coming in second.

Here's another interesting fact. Humans are the only primates that have the sclera or "white of the eye". This part of the eye evolved over time as communication aid to help humans see where other people are looking because the direction of our eyes  are directly linked to our emotional states. Because women are actually better hardwired to read emotions, they actually have more white in their eyes.

So what's my point in sharing this information? Well more than anything else, I wanted to share something that I thought you hadn't heard before and maybe create a little shock value.

But aside from that, I wanted to to point out the fact that the eyes are in fact the windows to soul and there is ALOT we can learn about other people through them.

I will actually be writing a lot more about this topic but I wanted to start with a few interesting facts first.

Oh yeah, here's one more. Dilated pupils are actually perceived as more attractive than constricted ones.

In fact, Revlon was actually able to increase sales of their lipsticks by almost 45% by simply enlarging the pupils of the models in the photos…..pretty amazing.

Next time you're having a conversation with someone, pay attention to their pupils.

If they're dilated, chances are they're excited or interested in what you have to say. If they're constricted (and the room is not unusually bright), they're either annoyed, agitated or irritated.

Might be time to shut up 🙂

Case Studies On Mirroring Reenforce It's Power

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Ever order food in a restaurant only to have the server respond by saying "ok" or "coming right up?"

How does this make you feel?

At first glance, you may think you feel indifferent about receiving either one of those responses but subconsciously you would probably prefer if they repeated the order back to you. At least that's what the subjects in Rick van Barren's case study showed.

In fact, diners in one restaurant increased their tip sizes by nearly 70% simply because the server repeated the order back to them.

Can you imagine increasing the amount of money you receive each day by simply changing a few words? This is extremely powerful.

Aside from the element of interest displayed by ensuring the order is correct, the server is also mirroring the diner.

Similar to matching, mirroring is basically when you align your actions or movements with that of your target and countless studies have proven how effective it is.

Take the experiment by social psychologists Tanya Chartrand and John Bargh where one group of research assistants were asked to mirror the posture and behavior of subject while another group was told not to.

When the study concluded, the participants who were paired with an assistant who mirrored felt that interactions went smoother than those who were paired with assistants that did not.

Another researcher by the name of William Maddux and his colleagues conducted a set of experiments on mirroring during negotiation sessions. During the trial MBA students were either asked to subtly mirror their partner or not mirror them at all.

The results showed that the group who mirrored were 67% likely to reach a deal whereas the group who didn't mirror was only 12.5% likely.

Mirroring creates connection through similarity. When we feel similar to someone, we are more likely to open up to them because we feel comfortable around them. Oftentimes, it's the details that we disclose during  a state of comfort that allow agreements to be reached.

Aside from that, when we feel similar to someone we are more open to their point of view and more likely to accept their opinions.

Never underestimate the power of mirroring. It continues to prove itself over and over again.