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It's a NEW YEAR, and it is going to be
a Great One.
One of the changes to Mind Farms is the presentation of
Guest Articles. This weeks Guest is Kevin
Hogan and I am
certain you will enjoy his article.
This article struck a chord with me because my many years
in the classroom. There is a "secret" hidden in his words that few
understand and even less apply. Although he doesn't point it (the secret)
out, it is there. I used this "secret" to raise the quality level of the
educational experience in each of my Students to a much higher level. -
Layard
Guest Article
Covert Persuasion Tactical Power
By Kevin Hogan
What do YOU want them
to think?!
At least a dozen times I've asked hundreds of people in an audience to
look around a room identifying everything that is brown and instruct them
to remember what they see because this is a very important experiment.
Then I ask everyone to close their eyes.
Everyone knows where everything brown is because each of their brains have
been instructed to focus and find all brown...and they have been told that
this is an important task.
"Now, point to something green."
No one can do it.
Those that point somewhere inevitably fail.
No doubt you may have participated in this fascinating experiment in the
past as well.
The Fascinating Human Brain
It's an amazing thing about the human brain. We can retain an unbelievable
amount of information.
But in this case, we can't remember where *anything* green might be...
We weren't told to look for it...
Imagine your friend teaches a grade school class and little Billy is
acting up in the back. Your friend tells a fellow teacher about the
experience.
"The kid is always acting up. He's probably 'ADD' and I wish he was on his
way out. He's driving me nuts."
"Huh. I guess I've never seen it in his behavior. He can be talkative but
he never misbehaves in my class and he's a pretty sharp kid. Sometimes
even helpful to the other students."
Your friend looks at the fellow teacher as if he has lost his marbles.
Your friend will not likely ever see the student in any way other than he
has and the other teacher will likely not change his view that the student
is a pretty good kid.
Here's what happens when the second teacher visits the first teacher's
class to observe...
Weeks later, the teachers agree to exchange notes on the student again.
They've both retained their original opinion.
Today, the second teacher decides to sit in with your friend in his class.
He sits at the back of the room and takes careful experimental notes on
the young boys behavior noting anything that diverges from sitting and
being quiet.
At the end of the day, the student had contributed four answers to
questions for the class, spoke out of turn once, helped another student
once, stopped an argument another time and laughed ridiculously loud once
at a joke another student told.
"Did you see him today? The kid was back at it again. He was smarting off
and disrupting the class again."
"Actually, he was pretty well behaved."
"You've got to be kidding!"
"No. I recorded everything he did today."
Your friend looked at the record and simply couldn't believe they were
talking about the same child.
Your friend saw what he expected while the actual record showed a very
different picture of what really happened.
KEY POINT: You remember what you expect to see.
And don't worry, your friend isn't crazy.... He also looked for everything
that was brown and saw what was brown.... and nothing else.
As soon as you have an attitude, opinion or emotional connection to
something or someone else, you immediately filter your awareness of that
stimulus through those attitudes, opinions and emotions.
It's how the brain operates. It's how the brain must operate or it would
see something new and have to start from scratch analyzing what "is" and
what causes what attitudes, emotions and opinions.
That would be incredibly time consuming and cause the destruction of the
human race. (I'll come back to this.)
Unfortunately as helpful as this "filtering" is in general, it creates a
very interesting life for each of us.
FACT ONE: We see what we expect to see.
FACT TWO: We don't see what we don't expect see.
FACT THREE: We see what we are told to look for...and not much else.
This week we found out something even more incredible. When a person
drinks a drink of alcohol something amazing happens when it comes to
people seeing what you want them to see...
FACT FOUR: People who have had just one drink lose their ability to
discriminate reality even more profoundly.
They REALLY see what they expect to see. They really feel what they expect
to feel. They really see what they are told to see.
Here is the research.
After you read this section, I'll give you some tips on how to utilize
this information in a persuasive context on the internet and in face to
face communication.
People who were given a simple visual task while mildly intoxicated were
twice as likely to have missed seeing the person in a gorilla suit than
were people who were not under the influence of alcohol.
The study, appearing in the current issue of The Journal of Applied
Cognitive Psychology, is the first to show visual errors caused by "inattentional
(new word) blindness" are more likely to occur under the influence of
alcohol. This phenomenon occurs when important, but unexpected, objects
appear in the visual field but are not detected when people are focused on
another task, according to Seema Clifasefi, a postdoctoral psychology
researcher at the University of Washington.
While the research, a pilot study, did not test driving aptitude, the
study has strong implications for people operating motor vehicles after
consuming alcohol, according to Clifasefi, who is affiliated with the UW's
Addictive Behaviors Research Center.
"Driving requires our full attention. We need to perceive information from
a variety of sources when we are driving, but alcohol reduces our ability
to multi-task. So we focus on one thing at the expense of everything
else," she said.
"Say you have been at a party and are driving home after having a couple
of drinks. You don't want to be stopped for speeding, so you keep eyeing
the speedometer. Our research shows that you will miss other things going
on around you, perhaps even a pedestrian trying to cross the street."
In the study, 46 adults ranging in age from 21 to 35 were brought into a
bar-like setting. Half of them were given drinks containing alcohol to
bring their blood alcohol level up to 0.04 -- half the legal level for
being drunk in most states. The other half were given drinks containing no
liquor.
After the volunteers had their blood alcohol levels measured by a breath
test, they were taken to a computer monitor and asked to watch a 25-second
film clip. The clip showed people playing with a ball and the volunteers
were told to count the number of times the ball was passed from one person
to another. In the middle of the clip a person dressed in a gorilla suit
appeared, walked among the players, beat its chest and then walked away.
Results??? (You aren't going to believe this....)
Afterward, the subjects were asked if they saw the gorilla. Just 18
percent of the drinkers said they noticed the gorilla while 46 percent of
the sober subjects indicated they saw the gorilla. The research was based
on older research without the involvement of alcohol. The results were
just as impressive. People simply don't see that gorilla. It SEEMS
impossible, but what seems ridiculous is EXACTLY how our brain works in
reality.
And it's a bit unnerving when you think about it!
TWENTY FIVE SECONDS! That's it. And in the middle of that 25 seconds, a
gorilla shows up on the screen beating his chest and if you've had a
drink, you didn't see it. More than half of those who didn't have a drink
didn't see the gorilla.
The power of focused attention via suggestion is absolutely shocking.
Applications:
The applications are far reaching and can be applied to almost any
persuasive setting. The covert nature of the behavior is obvious.
When you are writing copy or making a sales presentation it is VERY
IMPORTANT to encode your targeted information into your client's
awareness.
If you write for your website, make sure you tell people what to look for
early on. ALL THE BROWN!!! Make sure you have not led them into some other
world where they are asked to see green.
If you tell them that you have a money-making opportunity and then offer
facts to support that. Talk about unrelated things and they will be
filtered out making a story that is incomplete, incoherent and entirely
forgettable.
"What we're looking for are ways to get this project done without spending
tons of money on waste like x, y, and z. Our competitor isn't interested
in that, and whatever you ultimately decide, those factors can't be
forgotten..."
That client will be listening for x, y and z...and ways to get the project
done, so you better do something with those four pieces...because that's
what they are going to be filtering for...and what they will be hearing!
This works in text and face to face communication.
Whatever you direct the person's mind to is where they will be primed to
pay attention to. Very much like a magician.
One worthwhile additional bonus:
If you say something negative about your competitor, your client WILL
remember your competitor. It may not be good or bad...but they'll remember
...and if you haven't put a greater degree of emotion on your own
product...they won't remember yours at all.... NEVER mention a competitor
or anything about them, except in the context noted above..
One final suggestion: Write down the facts and key points from this
article on a piece of paper and keep it on your desk for a week. Just one
week. Refer to it every time you write copy or review your sales materials
and presentation strategies.
Many covert persuasion techniques will ever yield the results this one
will!
Til next time!
About the Author: Kevin Hogan is the author of
Covert Hypnosis, a guidebook that Dr. Joe Vitale (star of "The Secret"
movie) has said to be "the most powerful stuff I've EVER seen for selling,
persuading, and motivating."
Kevin is the nation's
leading body language expert. He is a dynamic, well-known international
motivational and inspirational keynote speaker, consultant and corporate
trainer. He has trained persuasion, sales and marketing skills to leaders
in the government of Poland, employees from Boeing, Microsoft, Starbucks,
Meespierson, Auntie Anne's, Cargill, Pillsbury, Carlson Companies, Fortis,
Great Clips, the State of Minnesota, 3M, The United States Postal Service
and numerous other Fortune 500 companies. He recently spoke to The Inner
Circle and at the Million Dollar Roundtable (MDRT) convention.
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