Another way to improve your persuasion skills:
ke sure your body language matches your verbal strategy: How can we be more successful in persuading others and increase the odds of behavioral compliance? We argue that when a verbal influence strategy is embedded in a nonverbal style that fits its orientation, this boosts the strategy's effectiveness, whereas a misfit attenuates its impact. In field-experiment 1, agents tried to persuade participants in buying a candybox by using an approach-oriented strategy (Door-In-The-Face, DITF). An eager nonverbal style increased the impact…
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Do stores trick you into buying more by stocking less?
elf-based scarcity in the form of relative stocking level depletion significantly affects consumer preferences (van Herpen et al. 2009). While both popularity and quality inferences are induced by stocking-level depletion, this paper demonstrates that popularity (rather than quality) inferences are the primary driver of the effect. Shelf-based scarcity is shown to have an impact in the presence of other signals, such as brand names and quality ratings, which indicates its effect may be widespread. However, its effect on preferences is…
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Is there a way to quickly and easily make people be more kind and ethical?
ople are nicer after recalling memories from their childhood: Four experiments demonstrated that recalling memories from one's own childhood lead people to experience feelings of moral purity and to behave prosocially. In Experiment 1, participants instructed to recall memories from their childhood were more likely to help the experimenter with a supplementary task than were participants in a control condition, and this effect was mediated by self-reported feelings of moral purity. In Experiment 2, the same manipulation increased the amount…
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How to quickly and easily improve your listening skills:
om the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School: Contrary to popular belief, active listening doesn’t mean sitting patiently while your counterpart talks. Nor does it simply entail saying “I understand” or establishing good eye contact. Rather, active listening is a dynamic process that can be broken down into three different behaviors: paraphrasing, inquiry, and acknowledgment. And: Here’s how you might respond using the three aspects of active listening: • Paraphrase: “It sounds as if you’re satisfied with our component…
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A good reputation pays off
conducted the first randomized controlled field experiment of an Internet reputation mechanism. A high-reputation, established eBay dealer sold matched pairs of lots -- batches of vintage postcards -- under his regular identity and under new seller identities (also operated by him). As predicted, the established identity fared better. The difference in buyers’ willingness-to-pay was 8.1% of the selling price. A subsidiary experiment followed the same format, but compared sales by relatively new sellers with and without negative feedback. Surprisingly,…
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A Musician’s Clothing Affects How Much You Like Their Music
is study investigates the effects of concert dress and physical appearance on perceptions of female classical soloists’ musical abilities over a range of genres. Four female violinists were recorded playing three pieces, in four styles of dress of varying formality. Each combination of performer, piece and dress was recorded twice, once as the performer’s own interpretation and again with a master-track dubbed over the top. The master-track provided a constant musical soundtrack and allowed the investigation of observer perceptions based…
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Does insincere flattery work?
is research uses a dual attitudes perspective to offer new insights into flattery and its consequences. The authors show that even when flattery by marketing agents is accompanied by an obvious ulterior motive that leads targets to discount the proffered compliments, the initial favorable reaction (the implicit attitude) continues to coexist with the discounted evaluation (the explicit attitude). Furthermore, the implicit attitude has more influential consequences than the explicit attitude, highlighting the possible subtle impact of flattery even when a…
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Does repeating yourself make you more influential?
spite the importance of doing so, people do not always correctly estimate the distribution of opinions within their group. One important mechanism underlying such misjudgments is people's tendency to infer that a familiar opinion is a prevalent one, even when its familiarity derives solely from the repeated expression of 1 group member. Six experiments demonstrate this effect and show that it holds even when perceivers are consciously aware that the opinions come from 1 speaker. The results also indicate that…
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