Tag Archive for: science of influence

What Do You Think About Donald Trump?

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“What do you think about Donald Trump?” That’s a question I hear more and more these days. People are curious about how he is in position to possibly win the presidency of the United States.

From the beginning the experts have been wrong about his chances and so was I. Remember when Trump announced his candidacy and proceeded to make remarks about Mexicans being criminals and rapists? Along with most of the political pundits I thought he was done before he even got started. We were wrong.

Remember when he said Senator John McCain wasn’t a war hero because he was captured? Political analysts thought he was done and so did I. But he wasn’t. Any number of things he’s said could have resulted in his demise. Consider this short list:

  • Carly Fiorina’s looks
  • Megan Kelly’s blood
  • Possibly punishing women who would get an abortion if abortion were illegal
  • The name calling with Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio

Despite these things his following only got stronger. Why? As I wrote months ago (Have We Changed or Are We Just Politically Correct), perhaps he is saying what many Americans actually think and feel but wouldn’t say in the politically correct environment in which we live. Now those people have a voice in Donald Trump.

Violence

Early on, Trump followers were denounced because of their strong-arm tactics at some of his rallies. They would shout down the opposition and sometimes get physical with Trump’s approval. People accused him of inciting violence.

Now the tables have turned. In Arizona we witnessed Trump protestors blocking roads to prevent his supporters from attending a rally. In several cities in California Trump protestors went much further than Trump’s followers ever had. Young people assaulted Trump supporters – male and female – without provocation. All the while the media showed Mexican flags waving in the background.

Confirmation Bias

Confirmation bias is playing a big role in favor of Trump. This psychological concept shows people aren’t always open to new information and possible change. No, most people look for information that confirms what they already believe. In the case of Trump, young Latinos shown harassing Trump supporters on the nightly news only confirms for many people that he has been right all along about immigration.

On the subject of confirmation bias, most anti-Trump people don’t realize they’re falling into his trap the more they try to bash him. His supporters simply see their actions as attacks on him and double down in their belief in him.

The Media

And then there’s the media. They don’t know how to deal with Trump either. Case in point, CNN’s Jake Tapper interviewed Donald about his comments regarding a Mexican-American judge presiding over a case dealing with Trump University. When Tapper tried to get Trump to admit his comment was racist, Trump didn’t yield an inch and didn’t come across as someone back-peddling. He continued to assert his point about why he said what he said. Tapper looked like he didn’t know what to do. Trump has taken considerable heat for the comment, especially from the Republican Party, but Trump supporters see this as proof that all along the establishment has been out to stop him. Their view isn’t that the party is doing this for America but rather for their own power that’s at stake.

Authenticity

With Trump, people feel like they know what they get. He speaks his mind and doesn’t come across as a polished, Teflon-fake, career politician. Does he flip on some issues? Yes but it doesn’t come across as someone who puts up their finger to see which way the wind is blowing. Right or wrong, like him or dislike him, Trump says what he believes, or more rightly, feels in the moment, and people are responding to that. For more on this read Donald Trump’s mASS Appeal.

Hillary and Bernie

It certainly helps Trump that he’s running against Hillary Clinton. Were it not for Trump being in the race, polls show Hillary would be the most disliked candidate to ever run for president. Her years in politics and numerous scandals (and Bill’s) have many people saying they would never under any circumstances vote for her. Her email scandal only reinforces for many people that she’s not trustworthy and is a “typical politician.”

To make matters worse, she’s in danger of losing many Bernie Sanders’ supporters who feel they cannot vote for her in a system they believe is rigged. They would rather send a message to the Democratic Party, even if it means losing the election, because when Bernie loses they will say it’s because of the rigged system. Why would they want to vote for Hillary, whom they see as part of the problem, after losing what they perceive to be an unfair election?

So there’s a confluence of things that are making Donald Trump’s improbable run a reality. Divorced from emotion, if someone would have told you years ago some of the things Trump would say and do I highly doubt you’d think there was any possibility he’d be in the position he’s in now. But we cannot divorce ourselves from emotion.

The Most Important Reason

This leads me to the final and perhaps most important reason Trump is succeeding – he’s a classic salesman. Good salespeople know people buy based on emotion and justify with logic after the fact. Trump drives home the message that America isn’t great right now and supports it by saying:

  • We negotiate bad deals
  • We overpay our share to defend the world
  • We have problems with illegal immigration
  • We have a problem with terrorism at home and abroad

It’s hard to dispute those things but Trump isn’t giving details on what he’ll do to make us great again. Instead he makes grand promises:

  • He will negotiate great deals
  • He will Cut defense funding to NATO, Japan, South Korea and other countries
  • He will build a wall…that Mexico will pay for
  • He will ban Muslims from coming to America for a period of time

In short, he “promises” to “Make America Great Again.”

Trump is tapping into emotions most other politicians can’t get to with their bland style of politics and old rhetoric. You may not agree with Donald’s methods, or like them, but there’s no denying he’s doing what almost nobody expected.

What’s to Come

There’s no guarantee he will win in November but there is one thing I think we can all agree on – this will be unlike any presidential campaign we’ve ever witnessed. Everyone should pay close attention to what is said by both parties to try to win our votes because the stakes are high.

Man’s Need to Add Meaning

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Over the years I’ve watched many of the Ken Burns PBS documentaries while running on my treadmill. I started with The War (WWII), and then it was on to Prohibition, The Dust Bowl, The Civil War, Baseball, Jazz, and most recently The Roosevelts. If you’ve never seen any of them I can’t encourage you enough to check them out because they are amazing!

I must admit, I’m not much of a baseball fan but the storytelling from the narrator and interviewees were so compelling and the players so interesting in that series, that I found myself excited every day to learn more about the history of the sport. Something that really stood out was the importance so many people put on the game of baseball as well as the meaning and significance they attached to America’s national pastime.

When it comes to necessity, I think it’s safe to say the local grocery store, corner gas station, a nearby hospital, your town’s fire department, banks and any number of other businesses or institutions are far more important to daily life than baseball. If baseball were gone tomorrow many people would be upset, would miss it terribly but life would go on pretty much as it does during the baseball offseason. However, without some of the institutions noted above, life would be much more difficult, dangerous and perhaps deadly in a matter of days in some cases.

So why is a sport like baseball so important to so many people? I think much of it has to do with the meaning we ascribe to it and the significance we attach to the game, its players, and the statistics. This line of thinking was driven home as I read the following from Daniel Pink’s book A Whole New Mind, in which he quoted a prominent linguist, George Lakoff:

“‘A large part of self-understanding,’ says Lakoff, ‘is the search for appropriate personal metaphors that make sense of our lives.’ The more we understand metaphor, the more we understand ourselves.”

In his most famous work, Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl shared his life experience having survived three years in four different Nazi concentration camps. He believed he could translate the pain he endured into a meaningful life where he helped others.

It’s a subtle, yet important difference: drawing meaning from what you’ve personally experienced versus something else like a sport. But in the end it’s the same desire – we want to know that our lives have meaning and significance. It’s inevitable that sometimes we attach more meaning to some things than perhaps they deserve. From the Burns’ series on baseball here are some examples:

Willie Mays is known more for his famous over the shoulder catch than any other play. It took incredible skill to cover as much ground as he did then essentially make a blind catch over his left shoulder. People who saw it swore nobody else could have made that catch. Spectacular? Yes! Impossible for anyone else? Doubtful.

When the Dodgers and Giants left New York it seemed disastrous! Fans were outraged and felt betrayed but the sun came up the next day and has every day for 60+ years. Life continued on just as it had before baseball. Their well-being and significance wasn’t as wrapped up in a team as they thought.

It was thought that no one else could have done what Jackie Robinson did. What he did was heroic, considering all that was going on in society and he is to be admired for his courage to step into the situation becoming the first black player in the majors. But if it were not Jackie, someone would have eventually taken on that role.

This post in no way is meant to diminish baseball or any of its heroes. In fact, quite the opposite for me because I haven’t been as drawn to the game as I was watching the series, since I was an adolescent.

However, sometimes we attach too much significance to things, people, and events and that choice ends up hurting us. If your favorite team fails to win the big game or championship it stinks but life goes on. Or if a hero turns out to be something different than what we thought (Tiger Woods, Lance Armstrong, Pete Rose, etc.) it devastates some people. To allow any of these situations to do more than give you a bad day or memory is to give it more power over your life than it deserves.

People, places and things do not define us. We define ourselves and that means we can narrate our own stories. So I’ll leave you with this question – What story are you writing?

What The Hell Were You Thinking?

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What the hell were you thinking? Ever thought (or said) that as you interacted with someone? Anyone ever said that to you? I bet at least one person thought it because we’ve all done things without thinking.

There’s lots of research that clearly shows the vast amount of our behavior is driven by non-conscious forces. Martin Lindstrom, author of Buyology, believes 85% of what we do is driven by our subconscious. I’ve seen other stats that put that number closer to 95%. Bob Nease, author of The Power of 50 Bits wrote, “of the ten million bits of information our brains process every second, only 50 bits are devoted to conscious thought.” Wow, that’s not much!

Bottom line, we don’t always know why we do what we do because we don’t devote much effort to thinking about it. Henry Ford famously said, “Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it.” Using our brains in conscious thought takes a lot of energy and humans were built to conserve precious calories for survival – for activities like hunting, running or fighting off enemies. We may not need those precious calories for those same reasons in today’s world but the human brain has not evolved as rapidly as society.

I recall a time when Abigail was five years old and she overheard Jane and I talking about a couple that was going to move out of the neighborhood. Abigail asked if her friend Jordan was leaving and when we said yes, Abigail cried. It wasn’t the cry of a five-year old that wanted a toy or candy; it was a cry from a deeper place because she knew she was losing her best friend.

During the next week Jane told me Abigail had been acting like a brat. I said I thought it was because Jordan was moving. Jane didn’t agree but I said, “Think about how often we’ve said or done things and not known why. She’s five years old and knows her best friend is moving but doesn’t know how to process that so it’s coming out in bad behavior.”

During a drive I told Abigail that mom said she’d been acting bad. There was a guilty look on her face because she knew it was true. I told her I thought it was because Jordan was moving and explained why. Abigail is 20 years old now and still remembers that conversation.

One more story. When I was in high school I was expelled for three days for inappropriate language towards a teacher. The teacher and I disagreed on something and when she said, “If you don’t like it you can leave,” I responded with, “Fine, I don’t give a damn. I’ll get the hell out of here.” She tracked me down in the hallway and to her credit she gave me every opportunity to apologize. Being an angry, testosterone-filled teenager, I refused and suffered the consequences.

Here’s the reality. My parents were going through a divorce and that certainly was having an impact on me but I had no clue. If you would have tried to tell me the divorce was impacting my thinking and behavior I would have denied it and insisted the teacher was an expletive. There’s plenty of research to show something like divorce has a huge negative impact on kids but as an angry teenager I didn’t know what the hell I was thinking or feeling when I responded to the teacher in an uncharacteristic way.

Why am I writing about this? When it comes to influencing others you need to understand where they’re coming from, why they’re doing what they’re doing even if they might not be fully aware. It’s not easy, especially if someone says or does something that offends you, but if you’re able to step back for a moment, trying to understand why they said or did something, you’ll probably respond in a different, better way. Seldom does matching intense emotion with intense emotion lead to a better outcome.

That teacher wasn’t an expletive. She was a good teacher and a good friend to my older sister. As I mentioned earlier, she gave me a chance to apologize and I didn’t take it. The result was a three-day suspension and I suspect loss of being a National Honor Society student as a junior.

What the hell was I thinking? I didn’t know then but I do now. I encourage you to give more thought to why you do what you do and a little more grace to others when you wonder what the hell they’re thinking.

What You Can Expect from Influence PEOPLE in 2016

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Welcome to the New Year! I hope 2016 is your best year yet and that each coming year only gets better and better.

My goal is to help you grow professionally and personally so you can enjoy more success and happiness. My expertise is in communications – specifically influence and persuasion. I firmly believe if you understand how people think and behave (why they do what they do) and you’re willing to change how you communicate with them, you can achieve more success and happiness.

How can I help you? There are numerous ways:

This blog – Every Monday at 5:30 p.m. Eastern Time, a new blog post goes online. Posts revolve around the principles of influence and how they are applied in sales, leadership, business, politics, society, parenting as well as other areas.

Videos – My YouTube site has lots of videos that explore different aspects of influence. I hope to post more new videos in 2016.

Social Media – I regularly update Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Google+ with tips, posts and other information I come across that can help you.

Website – By the end of the first quarter I will have a new Influence PEOPLE website.

Drip marketing – This year I will share updates from Influence PEOPLE every Monday through Friday. Updates will go out at 11 a.m. and 11 p.m. to accommodate as many people as possible from around the world. Here is what you can expect:

  • Monday – An influence tip along with a graphic
  • Tuesday – Blog update on the latest post
  • Wednesday – A video or interview that highlights influence
  • Thursday – Another blog update on the latest post just in case you missed it earlier in the week
  • Friday – Another influence tip with a graphic

I encourage you to reach out to connect with me on social media:
Facebook, Facebook Fan Page, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, YouTube

I’d also like to hear from you.

  • What articles or information would you like to see?
  • How have these posts helped you?
  • What are your influence challenges?

Last but not least, if your organization is looking for a keynote speaker, training, coaching or consulting when it comes to the application of the psychology of persuasion, please contact me.

Best of luck in 2016. I hope the year is off to a great start for you so far.

PAVE the Way to Success in the New Year

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If you’re like many people then you’ll be making New Year’s resolutions in a few days and if you’re like most people you’ll break your resolutions within a few days. According to one study, more than half the people who make resolutions are confident of achieving them, yet barely more than 10% do so. That’s amazing because most resolutions are good!

Here are a some of the most popular New Year’s resolutions:

  • Spend more time with family
  • Lose weight
  • Begin exercising
  • Quit smoking
  • Quit drinking
  • Get organized
  • Get out of debt

The list is admirable so why are these goals so difficult to achieve for 9 out of 10 people? There are probably as many reasons as there are resolutions and dwelling on those reasons would not be as beneficial as giving you scientifically proven ideas that can help make 2016 a year of positive change for you. Around this time every year I share an influence technique that can help readers PAVE the way to success in the New Year.

In the study of persuasion there’s a powerful motivator of behavior known as the principle of consistency. This proven rule tells us people feel internal and external psychological pressure to act in ways that are consistent with their prior actions, words, deeds, beliefs and values. When we act in consistent ways we feel better about ourselves and other people perceive us in a more favorable light.

There are four simple things you can tap into in order to strengthen the power of consistency in your life. These simple ideas will help you PAVE the way to success because they’ll dramatically increase the odds that you’ll follow through on your New Year’s resolutions.

Public – Whenever you make a public statement, whether verbally or in writing, you’re putting yourself and your reputation on the line. The mere fact that another person knows your intention and might ask you how you’re doing is often enough motivation for you to follow through.

Recommendation #1 – Share your New Year’s resolution with another person, or group of people, and ask them to hold you accountable.

Active – You have to actively do something. Merely thinking about a resolution, just keeping it to yourself as some sort of secret, will lead to the same results as people who don’t make any resolutions. In other words, nothing will change. This came to light in a study with a group of students who wanted to improve their college grades. One group was asked to write their goals down, one group kept their goals in their heads, and the last group had no specific goal whatsoever. As you can imagine, the group with the written goals succeeded, with nearly 90% of students increasing their grades by a full letter grade! With the other two groups the results were identical and poor. In each group fewer than 1 in 6 students improved a full letter grade. It’s worth noting, they were all given the same study materials so they all had the same opportunity to better their GPA.

Recommendation #2 – Make sure you have to take some active steps. It could be as simple as buying a book to help you learn more about the changes you’re hoping to make or writing them down.

Voluntary – This has to be YOUR goal, not someone else’s goal for you. If you’re trying to do something – quit smoking, lose weight, get in shape – it’s not likely your motivation will last if someone told you that you have to do it. The goal has to come from you because if it’s forced on you it’s not likely your willpower will last long. Samuel Butler said it best when he wrote, “He who complies against his will is of the same opinion still.”

Recommendation #3 – Make sure it’s something you really want to do of your own free choice.

Effort – It was already noted that you have to actively do something. In other words, making the commitment should require some effort on your part. The more effort you expend setting up your goal, the more likely you are to succeed. Something as simple as writing down your resolution can make a difference, even if you don’t share it with anyone. But, taking the time to share it also fulfills the public requirement, which gives you more bang for the buck! Robert Cialdini puts it this way, “People live up to what they write down.”

Recommendation #4 – A little more effort, like committing pen to paper, will increase your chance for success significantly.

So to recap the four recommendations:

  • Public – Share your resolutions with others.
  • Active – Make sure to take some active steps.
  • Voluntary – Make it your goal and own it.
  • Effort – Commit pen to paper.

None of what I just shared is new but I’m guessing many of you haven’t tried to PAVE the way to success before. If you’ve failed at your resolutions in the past then give this approach a try. If you fail again you’re no worse off but this different approach might just be your key to success in 2016. Good luck and Happy New Year’s!

Don’t be so Quick to Restock that Shelf

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My daughter Abigail’s good friend, Maxie, used to work at a bakery in our hometown of Westerville.  One Saturday morning Abigail and I stopped by to say hello and get a sugary treat after having coffee. I noticed Maxie was busy replacing donuts and making sure the pastry trays were completely full. Unfortunately, it was a bad persuasion move on her part.

I asked Maxie why she was so quick to restock the trays after a few donuts or pastries were purchased. She said the bakery owner liked the trays to be full and he believed they looked better that way. I told her that approach is actually working against the bakery making more sales. Let me explain.

Two principles of influence were potentially at work in the bakery if the situation was handled correctly. The first was consensus – we look to others to see how we should behave in certain situations. The second principle was scarcity – we value things more when they’re rare or diminishing.

When people walk into a bakery and see a tray with very few donuts left, consensus kicks in as the first thought is – those must be good donuts because everyone seems to be buying them. Next comes scarcity – with so few donuts left, if I don’t get one soon I might not be able to get one. Both principles become a huge draw do make a purchase!

I’m pretty confident the owner of that bakery has many things for employees to do other than constantly restocking the shelves. One big thing would be having them engage customers to share what items are “selling like hotcakes.”

Have you ever been to a store where you obviously needed help but employees seem more concerned with stocking the shelves? That’s frustrating. Some of that may be due to their hesitancy to interact with people but I’m sure some of the pressure comes from managers who believe fully stocked shelves are a high priority for the store. Not smart if you want to sell more goods.

Think about where you work. Are there things you have that people actually see? If so, don’t be so quick to “restock the shelves” because doing so reduces the impact of consensus and scarcity. Rather, manage the process so you convey what other people are buying and get your customer to “act now” so they don’t lose an opportunity. If you’re worried about employees standing around, teach them how positively engage customers in such a way that customers enjoy the buying experience and keep coming back.

Why Thankfulness Matters

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This week people across America will be celebrating Thanksgiving. While this holiday has its origins going back to the 1600s with the Pilgrims it wasn’t until Abraham Lincoln that we formally acknowledged the last Thursday in November as the day of celebration. Franklin D. Roosevelt altered that in 1939 when there were five Thursdays in November. FDR declared the fourth Thursday to be the official day and the Senate ratified his decision in 1942, officially making the fourth Thursday Thanksgiving in the United States.

The truth is we should be thankful every day and multiple times each day because there’s so much to be grateful for. If

Viktor Frankl could find reason to give thanks while held prisoner in Nazi concentration camps then we can all find reasons to be thankful each day. Unfortunately it’s human nature to take things for granted so it’s not until something is missing that we appreciate it more. That’s the principle of scarcity in action.

Speaking of being thankful, here’s an example of the wrong way to go about it. Many years ago a colleague needed help with something. What was asked not only required my time but the time of several others as well. It forced us to put things on hold for other people but nonetheless we “stopped the presses” and accommodated the request. This person got what they needed and went about their business the next day. What stood out to me was this – never did they thank us in person, by phone, or in writing. I remember thinking, “I don’t work for thanks. I get paid well to do my job,” but I also knew in my heart I wouldn’t extend myself for that person again and I certainly wouldn’t ask others to do so.

I don’t think I’m different than the average person in this regard. When I go out of my way to help someone – even when paid – if I don’t get some acknowledgment of appreciation I know I won’t try as hard the next time. Contrast that with people who offer genuine thanks and appreciation. I bet most of you would go above and beyond for such people.

Giving thanks is a form of reciprocity. This principle of influence tells us people feel obligated to give back to those who first give to them. According to the French social psychologist Marcel Mauss, every human society teaches its people the way of reciprocity. We see this as we raise our children because one of the first things we teach them to say is, “Thank you,” when someone has done something for them.

Because we’re all brought up in the way of reciprocity most people are somewhat offended when the person they helped cannot take a moment to say thanks. Beyond offense, people are less willing to help thankless people as time goes by. It’s a natural human response.

Here’s why thankfulness matters. When you do express sincere appreciation people are more likely to help you – and others – in the future. Think about it; you help someone, they express gratitude, and you feel good about the action you took. You’re naturally more likely to repeat behaviors in the future that made you feel good about yourself. And the person you helped is more likely to help others too. That’s called “paying it forward.”

As we approach the day that commemorates giving thanks pause to reflect and see if you’re someone who regularly gives thanks when someone does something for you. If you don’t, or don’t as regularly as you should, make a commitment to start. I think you’ll be amazed at how people respond to you and you’ll be thankful you changed your ways.

 

Halo Good Looking! Are You as Talented as I Think?

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Have you heard of the “halo effect?” For those with teens, I’m not talking about the Xbox game your kids might be playing where they seek to destroy aliens. The halo effect can be more insidious than the game when it leads us to harmful decisions.

Let me describe the halo effect for you:

  • You meet a tall, broad shouldered man, the new boss, and instantly assume he’s a good leader.
  • You’re interviewing a former college athlete, someone who set records at your alma mater, and you think her training habits will translate into a successful business career.
  • You’re introduced to someone and learn they have the IQ of a genius, which leads you to believe he would be a great asset to your organization.

Do you get the picture? The halo effect leads us to make all kinds of assumptions about someone based on a few attributes that may have no bearing on the skills, abilities, or talents needed for the current role.

Tall men are looked upon as being better leaders. That’s part of the reason taller men usually win political elections.

Sure, we can think of exceptions, like Napoleon, but when we do we attribute their success to something like “the little man syndrome.” We assume they had to try harder because they were smaller and wanted to prove everybody wrong. Couldn’t they have simply had the right skills to lead?

Good looking people tend to get elected more, hired more, make more money and get lighter sentences when they commit crimes.

Like much of our thinking, we’re unaware of how our biases affect our decision making. After all, no one would say they voted for someone because of their looks, or paid them more money, or gave them a lighter sentence. But the statistics tell another story.

In the Bible there’s a story about how the Israelites clamored for a king and defaulted to someone who looked the part rather than someone who would have been a good king based on merit. In 1 Samuel 9:2 we read, “He (Kish) had a son whose name was Saul, a choice and handsome man, and there was not a more handsome person than he among the sons of Israel; from his shoulders and up he was taller than any of the people.” Saul ended up being a poor king and was replaced by David, someone who didn’t look the part but was the greatest Israelite king.

You might be thinking about all the athletes who’ve done well in careers after their competitive days are over. There are many examples but that’s partly due to the fact that we seldom hear about the failures or those who only do as well as the average person. When we do hear about the failures, we just assume they were the exceptions, and we would never be so foolish.

It’s often assumed the smartest people, those with the best grades and highest IQs, will do the best in life. In recent decades something called emotional intelligence (EQ) has challenged the notion that high IQs is what it takes. Studies show those with higher EQs do better than those with high IQs. Still, old habits and legends die hard.

Certainly, tall people can be good leaders, athletes can take what they’ve learned through competition to succeed in business, and sometimes people with high IQs turn out to be wildly successful.

The point of this week’s post is to alert you to how many times irrelevant factors play a big role in our decision making process without us being aware. My advice would simply be this – question your assumptions. Perhaps you’ll find your initial impression was correct, but you might also realize you’re being swayed by factors that have nothing to do with what you’re really trying to assess.

Brian Ahearn, CMCT

Jerry Seinfeld: Following the Lead of an Expert

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I’m a big Seinfeld fan. No matter how many times I’ve seen an episode I always laugh. I’ve watched reruns so many times over the past 25 years I feel like Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer are personal friends. What I appreciate most is how the show portrays everyday situations in such a humorous light. An episode I watched recently went right to the heart of one of the principles of influence, so I felt compelled to write about it.

In this particular Seinfeld rerun Jerry bought a fancy, very expensive tennis racquet from Milosh, the owner of the sporting goods store associated with the tennis club Jerry belonged to. A short time later Jerry discovered Milosh was a terrible tennis player while playing at another club with Elaine. Apparently Milosh was so bad he wouldn’t play at his own club because he knew it would kill his reputation and sales. The following conversation ensued between Jerry and Elaine later at Jerry’s apartment:

Elaine – “So he was bad. What do you care?”

Jerry – “Elaine, I paid $200 for this racquet because he said it’s the only one he plays with. He could play just as well with a log.”

What sealed the deal for Jerry was the thought of a tennis pro – an expert – playing with the suggested racquet. He thought if it was good enough for the pro then of course he should play with it too because pros only use the very best equipment.

Jerry’s actions go to the heart of the principle of authority – we rely on those with superior knowledge, wisdom or expertise, when making decisions. And the advice of an expert is even more effective when someone isn’t sure what to do.

Jerry had been playing with a wooden racquet and had no idea there was a better option available until the pro told him so. Any newer racquet would have been an improvement but the more expensive racquet must be better because, after all, “you get what you pay for,” according to the old saying.

This happens quite often, especially when someone takes up a new sport. They buy lots of fancy, expensive equipment because that’s what the best athletes use. Unfortunately the novices could have saved a lot of hard earned cash by going with good, but less expensive equipment, until they got much better. The very best equipment makes a difference for the very best players because sometimes the difference between winning and losing is a fraction of a second, a single stroke, or inches.

Is expert advice worth listening to? Most of the time, yes, but just be leery when that advice might lead to very costly purchases that make very little difference in the end.

Anchors Aweigh on You More than You Realize

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The human mind is a fascinating creation. With it we move, breathe, consciously decide what to do and subconsciously do things with little knowledge of why or how we do them. With the help of our five senses, our brains help us make sense of the world around us. Despite its wonder our brains can be easily tricked. Consider the following:

The Placebo Effect – Many studies show when people believe they’re taking medicine their conditions improve just as if they took the actual medicine.

Magicians – These clever folks use their understanding of how the mind works to fool audience members into believing objects miraculously appear and disappear. I saw it with my own eyes!

Physical Comparisons – Have you ever gone to pick up something anticipating it was heavy and suddenly it felt light? Or perhaps you went to pick up something you assumed was light and it felt heavy. Ten pounds is ten pounds but sometimes ten pounds feels heavy and sometimes it feels light.

Sales – We’ve all bought things on sale feeling we got a great deal because we saved a certain percentage or dollar amount off of the list price. That good deal doesn’t seem so good when someone else announces they got the same item for even less that we paid!

There’s something that impacts us every day, which we give very little thought to and yet it makes a big difference in how we perceive things and the decisions we ultimately make. What I’m referring to are anchors but not the kind dropped over the side of a ship into the water. In psychology, according to Amos Tversky and Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman, an anchor is “an initial value that serves as a benchmark or starting point for an unknown quantity.”

There are many things in life that we can’t accurately put a value on. For example let’s consider a house. A four bedroom, two and a half bath house with 3,000 square feet, a wooden deck, family room, dining room, kitchen and den might go for $250,000 in a small Midwestern town. The exact same home on an equivalent sized lot in Southern California might go for more than $500,000.

You might be thinking it’s because the market dictates a higher price in California than in the Midwest. No dispute there but the point would be this – the value you put on the home would be dictated in large part by the other values you learn about (the anchors).

Consider this experiment from Tversky and Kahneman.  A wheel with numbers 1-100 is spun and is set to “randomly” stop on either 10 or 65. Let’s say it stopped on 10. Participants were then asked if the percentage of African nations in the United Nations is higher or lower than 10%. Next they were asked to make their best guess on the actual percentage. Those who saw the wheel stop at 65 were asked if the percentage of African nations in the United Nations is higher or lower than 65%. Then they were asked to guess the actual percentage.

For most people, estimating the percentage of African nations in the U.N. is nothing more than a guess. However, those who saw the wheel stop at 10 guessed 25% of the African nations were in the U.N., but for those who saw it stop on 65 the average guess was 45! That’s quite a difference. Each group was heavily influenced by the anchor they were exposed to before making their educated guess.

So what does this have to do with you and me? Think about all the things we’ve encountered over time with little or no thought about how the value was determined other than market forces:

Long distance charges – I remember when 25 cents a minute was a bargain. When charges were dropped to 10 cents we couldn’t believe it! Now it’s practically free on a per minute basis.

Newspapers – Some people still pay to get the weekly and/or weekend edition of their favorite newspaper. Others go online and see the same stories…for free! You could argue the online version is more valuable because it’s portable, updated multiple times and day and doesn’t create any waste.

Movies – We used to drive to Blockbuster and pay $8-$10 to rent two or three movies for the weekend. Now many of us watch nearly unlimited movies and shows on Netflix for just $8 a month.

In each instance what we paid and what we felt was a good deal, or bad deal, was impacted by the anchor because it served as a comparison point.

There are some things we can’t change and have little room to barter on. That’s why most Internet plans are in the ballpark of one another. But when it comes to things like buying homes and cars you should recognize your purchase price will be heavily impacted by a list price for a home or the MSRP (manufacturer’s suggested retail price) for a new car. You would do well to do some research beforehand and go into those situations with your own anchor to start bidding from. And remember this tidbit for negotiations; the person who puts out the first number sets the anchor and most of the time the negotiated price will be close to that number. Don’t let a good deal get aweigh from you.