Persuasion. Advertising and marketing strategies are built around it, even parenting and workplace politics depends on it. In a Federal election year, we will all be subject to it.
But how susceptible are you to persuasion? And just how convincing are you at getting what you want or need?
Well, according to UNE Adjunct Professor of Psychology Navjot Bhullar, your personality type has a great deal to do with it.
Navjot has collaborated with colleagues from Edge Hill and Ulster universities in the United Kingdom to explore how persuasion works. It’s a little more complex than you might think, but the findings are worth noting. Trust me.
“As social beings, humans communicate all day long and we are always asking things of those around us,” Navjot says. “We are good at talking with people, talking at people or talking over people, but communicating is a completely different ball game, and it has never been more important for us to understand how to communicate effectively. What our study found helps us to understand what motivates people, and what influences their thinking patterns and behaviour.”
These are important insights in a time of COVID, when engaging people in preventative health behaviours can be a question of life or serious illness, if not death.
So what determines whether someone takes the action we desire?
Our personality, for one thing, according to the researchers. Whether we are one of three types – malevolent, socially apt or fearful – influences our susceptibility to persuasion. Malevolent types are typically extroverted, self-oriented and manipulative; fearful types are typically socially inhibited, fearful and anxious; and socially apt types tend to be agreeable and conscientious.
The researchers correlated these personality types with scores on six techniques they commonly used to persuade people. These techniques include:
· Authority: People are more inclined to follow requests that come from authority figures.
· Consensus: People tend to behave in the ways that others are behaving.
· Commitment: People tend to maintain their beliefs and behave in ways consistent with their past actions.
· Scarcity: People are persuaded when they see the perceived value of something, due to its limited availability.
· Reciprocity: People are more likely to return a favour.
· Liking: People are more likely to agree with people they like or are more like them.
“We found that the fearful sample tended to follow the crowd (consensus) or be persuaded by people in authority,” Navjot says. “Malevolent people were less likely to be persuaded by authority figures and more likely to be persuaded if something was scarce or only available for a limited time.
“The majority of respondents were in the socially apt grouping, and they were more likely to be persuaded to do something if it was consistent with their beliefs and past actions; if it maintained their commitment to something they had done before.”
But it doesn’t stop there.
Replicating the study with an Australian sample, Navjot has also uncovered that, perhaps not surprisingly, our ability to persuade others can come down to our precise language. Analysing linguistic styles (as behavioural indicators of people’s thinking patterns), Navjot found that the socially apt group use more authentic language and significantly more positive words (indicating less anxiety and hostility) compared to the other two personality types.
So why should you care about this?
“Human behaviour is a complex thing to change and we cannot have a one-size-fits-all approach and expect people to follow any advice,” Navjot says. “Effective communication is vital to all kinds of messaging, especially public health. It’s critical to disease prevention, even suicide prevention, but also the protection of our environment and responding to climate change.
“We don’t respond to messages similarly. Different strategies work for different segments of the population because of their psychological make-up. If we produce targeted messaging that resonates with how people think, that messaging will be more effective and we will get the desired action or outcome.
“In the workplace or at home, we need to choose persuasion techniques that are aligned with the person’s make-up to have best effect.”
