The Psychology of Persuasion

Parallel form of human automatic action is aptly demonstrated in an experiment by Harvard social psychologist Ellen Langer. A well known principle of human behavior says that when we ask someone to do us a favor we will be more successful if we provide a reason.People simply like to have reasons for what they do. Langer demonstrated this unsurprising fact by asking a small favor of people waiting in line to use a library copying machine:  There was a queue for the copying machine. The experimenter asked if they could go in front of someone. The likelihood of being given permission to queue-jump depended on how the request was phrased:

“Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I’m in a rush?” (a meaningful reason) –  The effectiveness of this request-plus-reason was nearly total: 94%  of those asked let her skip ahead of them in line.

Compare this success rate to the results when she made the request only:

“Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine?” (no reason) – 60% of those asked let her skip ahead of them in line.

At first glance, it appears that the crucial difference between the first request was the additional information provided by the words “because I’m in a rush.” But a third type of request tried by Langer showed that this was not the case. It seems that it was not the whole series of words, but the first one, “because,” that made the difference. Instead of including a real reason for compliance, Langer’s third type of request used the word “because” and then, adding nothing new,merely restated the obvious: "Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I have to make some copies? ". The result was that once again nearly all (93 percent) agreed, even though no real reason, no new information, was added to justify their compliance.

 “Just Because” 

When we ask someone to do us a favor we will be more successful if we provide a reason. 

Credits : “ Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion” by Robert B. Cialdini (Professor of Psychology at Arizona State University).

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Pygmalion Effect

The work of Rosenthal and Jacobsen (1968), among others, shows that teacher expectations influence student performance. Positive expectations influence performance positively, and negative expectations influence performance negatively. Rosenthal and Jacobson originally described the phenomenon as the Pygmalion Effect.

“When we expect certain behaviors of others, we are likely to act in ways that make the expected behavior more likely to occur.” (Rosenthal and Babad, 1985)

“High achievement always takes place in the framework of high expectation”.—CHARLES KETTERING, PROLIFIC INVENTOR AND FORMER HEAD OF RESEARCH FOR GENERAL MOTORS

Individuals tend to rise to the level of other people’s expectations of them. In general, people tend to perform up to the level that others expect them to perform. If you don’t expect much from the people you work with, it’s likely you won’t inspire them to perform to the limits of their capabilities. Let them know you expect great things from them, and more often than not, you’ll find that they perform well.

The Pygmalion Effect is a tendency named after the protagonist of a Greek myth. Pygmalion was a gifted sculptor who created a statue of a woman so perfect that he fell in love with his creation. After Pygmalion desperately prayed to Aphrodite, the goddess of love, she took pity on him by bringing the statue to life. The Pygmalion Effect explains why all of our relationships are, in a very real sense, self-fulfilling prophecies. The effect was first verified in studies that examined the relationship between teachers and students. If a teacher believed a student was “gifted” or “smart,” the teacher would act in ways that encouraged the student to live up to that assessment. If the teacher believed a student was “difficult” or “challenged,” they wouldn’t receive as much support and wouldn’t perform as well—a self-fulfilling prophecy.

In How to Win Friends and Influence People, Dale Carnegie recommends “Giving others a great reputation to live up to.” He was a wise man—raise your expectations of others, and they’ll naturally do their best to satisfy those expectations.

The Pygmalion Effect isn’t an excuse to have unrealistic  expectations of other people. Even the best builder on earth couldn’t replicate the pyramids of Egypt in an afternoon, so expecting that level of performance from anyone is a recipe for disappointment and frustration. Expecting quality and performance is one  thing—expecting miracles is unrealistic. 

The Pygmalion Effect also features a paradox: having high expectations of people will produce better results, but it also increases the probability that you’ll be disappointed.

The Expectation Effect means that our perception of the quality  of someone’s work is a function of our original expectations. The higher our expectations are to begin with, the higher their performance will generally be, but the risk that our expectations will be violated is also much higher. If you’re doing a formal assessment of someone’s performance, remember to judge performance objectively and quantitatively as much as possible. Let others know you expect great work from them, and they’ll do their best to live up to your expectations.

Pygmalion in Management -  J. Sterling Livingston writes,

“Some managers always treat their subordinates in a way that leads to superior performance. But most … unintentionally treat their subordinates in a way that leads to lower performance than they are capable of achieving. The way managers treat their subordinates is subtly influenced by what they expect of them. If manager’s expectations are high, productivity is likely to be excellent. If their expectations are low, productivity is likely to be poor. It is as though there were a law that caused subordinates’ performance to rise or fall to meet managers’ expectations.”

Source: ”THE PERSONAL MBA” by Josh Kaufman

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