minds, metaphors and (ethical) manipulation
Posts tagged rapport
How to influence the thinking body: gestures
Feb 15th
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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 More >
How to quickly convince someone to trust you (if you’re not an ‘expert’)
Jun 23rd
As you probably know, winning a person’s trust is often the first step to persuading them of anything. And it seems that we’re all in the persuasion game these days, ‘selling’ ourselves to prospective employers, friends and partners.
So, how can you quickly convince someone to give you their trust? If you’re a well-known expert in your field, if you’re the author of published books and articles with lots of letters after your name, or even if you have thousands of Facebook ‘friends’, then establishing trust may be easy. The psychological principle of ‘social proof’ is a compelling way of making yourself seem credible and therefore trustworthy.
But what if you’re just… well, you?
How can you quickly and easily become a trusted adviser, someone that people will turn to for help and advice… and perhaps, to buy things from?
There’s another psychological principle you can use to build trust quickly.
People trust people they like. And people like people who they believe are like them.
This principle is not as well known as ‘social proof’ (maybe because it doesn’t give the academics such an advantage) but it can work even more effectively… if you know how to convince someone that you are like them.
When you More >
