Have you ever tried to influence someone and failed ? Despite having a good business case with robust research and solid, hard statistics ?
Did you spend hours re-writing a paper or checking the maths…?
There is a piece of research on the science of influence that I find helps my clients enormously.
The research was done at Yale (so I reckon we can probably believe it…) by one of their law professors – Dan Kahn. I direct my clients not directly to the research paper but to an article I love by Marty Kaplan on Alternet which asks – “Is this the most depressing discovery about the brain ever…?”
Many of us know that our brains are wired to pay attention to seek out evidence of what we already believe to be true. It is well documented that we will selectively listen and filter out things we don’t want to hear, of using instead on the things that back up our deeply held, sometimes subconcious views.
The research is “depressing”, because the news is even worse! This research suggests that if you have a particularly strong belief about something, not only will you filter out information but when presented with statistics that may prove you wrong, you are simply unable to do the maths.
Yes. You read that right.
Kahan’s research suggested that when people were presented with statistics that backed up something they believed to be true already, then they could understand the stats and do the maths. But when presented with the same statistics to challenge something they didn’t believe, they actually struggled to do the maths!
So there seems to be something about our brains that means even if we are an FD or well versed in interpreting data, we might not be able to actually understand statistics that contradict what we already believe to be true.
This research was specifically about beliefs which were political in nature. But it would be foolish to ignore the implications for influencing when stakes are high and there are strong beliefs round the table. Particularly if you were hoping that your statistics would speak for themselves…
Kaplan notes that “in the experiment, some people were asked to interpret a table of numbers about whether a skin cream reduced rashes, and some people were asked to interpret a different table – containing the same numbers – about whether a law banning private citizens from carrying concealed handguns reduced crime. Kahan found that when the numbers in the table conflicted with people’s positions on gun control, they couldn’t do the math right, though they could when the subject was skin cream. The bleakest finding was that the more advanced that people’s math skills were, the more likely it was that their political views, whether liberal or conservative, made them less able to solve the math problem.”
…So we think that we are rational. But recent research endorses that emotion drives behaviour. We think it’ss logic. But what if it’s emotion masquerading as logic ? What if we are backfilling with logic to justify what we believe and data and maths simply can’t convince us otherwise ?”
I’ve quoted further research below. But if you are convinced already, is it time to be depressed?
Well I’m a glass half full person so I think perhaps not ! Perhaps knowledge is power we can share?
My dad (a joiner by trade who built our family home at super-low cost) always used to say, “If you can’t hide it, feature it” – I think the same could apply here…
If we help people to understand that in an internal battle between emotion and reason, emotion will win (even if disguised as reason!) perhaps that knowledge in itself can help people to grow, change and to be more open minded to genuine debate. They know they won’t be, unless they make a conscious and deliberate choice to try to listen and think differently. Could we see this emotion/logic challenge as a “feature” of being human – and not something we have to strive to “hide” because we don’t want it to be true?!
I think knowing this science has made me more careful and cautious about dismissing something I don’t think to be true…
…or can I just find good evidence for that belief ?!
Contact me at dulcie@profitablyengaged.com if you find yourself needing some help to influence when stakes are high and beliefs are strong. I’d hope with a good, honest and robust discussion, we could find a way through it together !
Further Reading
It’s Not Bloody Rocket Science – Dulcie Swanston (available from Amazon and by order in any bookstore).
Kaplan quotes further research that tried to identify whether facts actually matter. Sadly, the answer is more depressing than no…he quotes research that generally giving facts and statistics to people when they believe something to be true is unlikely to work and in fact “giving them facts to correct those errors only makes them cling to their beliefs more tenaciously.”
Here’s some of what the research that he quote found to be true:
People who thought George W. Bush banned all stem cell research kept thinking he did that even after they were shown an article saying that only some federally funded stem cell work was stopped.
People who said the economy was the most important issue to them, and who disapproved of Obama’s economic record, were shown a graph of nonfarm employment over the prior year – a rising line, adding about a million jobs. They were asked whether the number of people with jobs had gone up, down or stayed about the same. Many, looking straight at the graph, said down.
But if, before they were shown the graph, they were asked to write a few sentences about an experience that made them feel good about themselves, a significant number of them changed their minds about the economy. If you spend a few minutes affirming your self-worth, you’re more likely to say that the number of jobs increased.
Here’s the articles if you want to read them in full.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2319992
http://www.alternet.org/media/most-depressing-discovery-about-brain-ever
http://grist.org/politics/science-confirms-politics-wrecks-your-ability-to-do-math/
