International Law

Are You Just Like Me?

Fascinating article in the New York Times about persuasion called, How to Build Rapport

"Psychologists have been studying the art of persuasion for nearly a century, analyzing activities like political propaganda, television campaigns and door-to-door sales. Many factors influence people?s susceptibility to an appeal, studies suggest, including their perception of how exclusive an opportunity is and whether their neighbors are buying it.

Most people are also strongly sensitive to rapport, to charm, to the social music in the person making the pitch. In recent years, researchers have begun to decode the unspoken, subtle elements that come into play when people click.

They have found that immediate social bonding between strangers is highly dependent on mimicry, a synchronized and usually unconscious give and take of words and gestures that creates a current of good will between two people.

By understanding exactly how this process works, researchers say, people can better catch themselves when falling for an artful pitch, and even sharpen their own social skills in ways they may not have tried before."

Does it matter that you are aware of the fact that someone is pitching you?

Apparently not.

"In a similar experiment, the psychologists found that this was especially true if the participants knew that the interviewer, the mimic, had a stake in the product?s success.

?This is somewhat counterintuitive," Dr. Chartrand said in an interview. "Normally, you?d expect when people realize that someone was invested in a product and trying to sell it to them, their reaction would be attenuated. They?d be less enthusiastic.

"But we found that people who were mimicked actually felt more strongly about the product when they knew the other person was invested in it."

I haven't read the academic experiment so I cannot comment on it.

But, as someone who has had to deal with victims of con criminals for over 10 years the experiments ring true.

Con criminals use the same persuasion techniques as good salesmen: they just have nothing to sell.

Hard to tell the difference, though.

Full post as published by Misleading Advertising Law on February 18, 2008 (boomark / email).