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Old December 7, 2012, 04:18 PM
Dien Rice Dien Rice is offline
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Join Date: Aug 2006
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Default Giving a reason why helps with successful persuasion!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Glenn View Post
So.

IF you Understand the REASON WHY Psychology - it's very profitable in ANY
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Thanks Glenn, for posting that! More great (and absolutely true) wisdom...

Giving a "reason why" is a proven way to be more persuasive...

In his book "Influence," Robert Cialdini reports on an experiment done in the late 70s...

The social psychology researchers had people ask to cut into line to use the photocopier at a university.

The first gave a reasonable reason why.

The person asked...

"Excuse me. I have 5 pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I'm in a rush?"

- 94% of people agreed to let the person cut in line.

The second test was to give no reason why...

"Excuse me. I have 5 pages. May I use the Xerox machine?"

- In this case, only 60% of people agreed to let the person cut in line. Much fewer let the person cut into line when no "reason why" was given!

The third test was to give a meaningless reason why...

"Excuse me. I have 5 pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I have to make some copies?"

- 93% of people agreed to let the person cut in line - almost as much as those who agreed with the "reasonable" reason why!

(In this case, saying "because I have to make some copies" is essentially meaningless - because everyone waiting in line "has to make some copies"!)

Clearly, giving a "reason why" could be more important than what that actual reason is...

Anyway, fascinating research...

Best wishes,

Dien
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