minds, metaphors and (ethical) manipulation
Body-Mind
Influence: actions speak louder than words
Apr 4th
Influential language is important. Questions, listening and metaphor are important. But there could be an even more important factor in influence: the purely “incidental” behaviour of the people around you.
“Turns out your colleague’s husband’s sister can make you fat, even if you’ve never met. And a happy friend affects your happiness more than a bigger income. It turns out our connections – our friends, our friend’s friends, even our friends’ friends’ friends – have an astonishing influence on our behaviours, beliefs and even health.”
That’s the blurb from Connected by Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler, which sets out the science behind these surprising claims.
As I blogged recently, the infectious metaphors in people’s language, including their body language, provide one of the important ways in which behaviours spread through groups.
And there’s more to it than that.
Because behaviours can spread through networks of people even when there’s no intentional communication – and even no direct relationship – between the people involved.
Actions speak louder than words – and significantly louder than the small gestures which are generally thought of as “body language”.
Here’s an example. I live very close to the Brentford football ground and yesterday, the team was playing at Wembley.
At one level, Wembley is a More >
How can you tell if someone’s body language is “real”?
Feb 16th
I blogged yesterday about how you can use someone’s gestures to influence them. It’s a fascinating, easy and fun technique that really works.
Why does it work? Because in normal circumstances, a person’s gestures are outside their conscious awareness. In other words they come directly from the unconscious mind, from the “Elephant” rather than the conscious “Rider”.
And when you keep track of where they “put” important things they are talking about, and show that you know where they are by looking at them or gesturing towards them, it’s usually their Elephant, not the Rider, that notices.
So it’s their Elephant that gets the message that you really understand them. And since it’s their Elephant that largely drives the person’s behaviour, that’s a powerful way of influencing someone.
Of course, there are circumstances where this approach doesn’t work so well. On the phone or Skype, for example.
And you can use it to help you notice that a person is making gestures which seem to be under the Rider’s control. They suggest the person may be trying to control their body language consciously and presumably purposefully.
What could this mean? Well, it might mean that they are nervous. (Watch a few “beginner” videos on YouTube and you’ll see what I mean.)
But More >
How to influence the thinking body: gestures
Feb 15th
We think with our bodies as well as with our brains. Scientists are finally waking up to this fact, as I reported in a recent post.
And some of us have known about this for years, and have been using that knowledge to influence others.
David Grove, creator of Clean Language, used his knowledge of embodied cognition to devise a therapeutic process called Clean Space, which I’ll write about some other time.
But he also had a particular take on the gestures people use – which you can use to build rapport with people and so set the stage for influencing them.
All you do is watch their gestures, noticing where they ‘put’ the things they are talking about in the space in and around themselves.
Then when you mention those things, look at, and/or gesture towards, exactly the same place as they did. Not the same place in or around your body: the same place they did.
As one delighted student put it, “it’s as if you agree to treat their imaginary friends as real.”
They’ll soon believe you see the world in exactly the same way as they do.
And what happens next is up to you…
Warning: If you know some NLP, please don’t mistake what I’m More >
Grasping embodied cognition: how we use our bodies to think
Feb 11th
Why do we look up to those we respect, stoop to the level of those we disdain and think warmly about those we love? Why do we hide dirty secrets or wash our hands of worries? Why do we ponder weighty subjects and feel a load lift after we have made a decision? Why do we look back on the past and forward to the future?… … A rapidly growing body of research indicates that metaphors joining body and mind reflect a central fact about the way we think: the mind uses the body to make sense of abstract concepts…. The implications seem almost preposterous. Holding a warm cup of coffee will make me view others more warmly as well? Entering a Windex- scented room will bring out the Good Samaritan in me? Holding a heavy clipboard while responding to a survey will give the issues at hand more gravitas? As far-fetched as such sensory non sequiturs may seem, the evidence for “embodied” or “grounded” cognition is persuasive. “The empirical case is becoming increasingly overwhelming,” says psychologist Lawrence Barsalou of Emory University. “Cognition is emerging, to a significant extent, from all these things—like warmth, cleanliness and weight—that we used to think were irrelevant to cognition.” Siri Carpenter, Scientific American Mind (January More >
