The hidden tricks of powerful
Are we always in control of our
minds? As David Robson discovers, it’s surprisingly easy to plant ideas in
peoples’ heads without them realising.
By David Robson
24 March 2015
Are we all just puppets on a
string? Most people would like to assume that they are free agents –
their fate lies in their own hands. But they’d be wrong. Often, we are as
helpless as a marionette, being jerked about by
someone else’s subtle influence. Without even feeling the tug, we do their
bidding – while believing that it was our idea all along.
Jerk: If you jerk something or someone in a particular direction, or they
jerk in a particular direction, they move a short distance very suddenly and
quickly.
“What we’re finding more and more in
psychology is that lots of the decisions we make are influenced by things we
are not aware of,” says Jay Olson at McGill University in Quebec, Canada – who
recently created an ingenious experiment showing just how easily we are
manipulated by the gentlest persuasion. The question is, can we learn to spot those tricks, and how can we use them to our own
advantage?
Spot: To observe or perceive suddenly, esp under difficult circumstances;
discern
Olson has spent a lifetime exploring
the subtle ways of tricking people’s perception, and it all began with magic.
“I started magic tricks when I was five and performing when I was seven,” he
says.
As an undergraduate in psychology,
he found the new understanding of the mind often chimed
with the skills he had learnt with his hobby. “Lots of what they said about
attention and memory were just what magicians had been saying in a different
way,” he says.
Chime: To agree or harmonize
One card trick, in particular,
captured his imagination as he set about his research. It involved flicking through a deck in front of an
audience member, who is asked to pick a card randomly. Unknown to the volunteer,
he already worked out which card they would choose, allowing him to reach into
his pocket and pluck the exact card they had named – much to the astonishment
of the crowd.
Flicking through: If you flick through a book or magazine, you turn its pages quickly,
for example to get a general idea of its contents or to look for a particular
item. If you flick through television channels, you continually change channels
very quickly, for example using a remote control.
Deck: A deck of cards is a complete set of playing cards.
The secret, apparently, is to linger on your chosen card as you riffle through
the deck. (In our conversation, Olson wouldn’t divulge how he engineers that to
happen, but others claim that folding the card very slightly seems to cause it
to stick in sight.) Those few extra milliseconds mean that it sticks in the
mind, causing the volunteer to pick it when they are pushed for a choice.
Linger: To spend (time) idly,
slowly, etc.
Idly: If people who were working are idle, they have no jobs or work. If you
say that someone is idle, you disapprove of them because they are not doing
anything and you think they should be.
Riffle through: If you riffle through the pages of a book or riffle them, you turn
them over quickly, without reading everything that is on them.
As a scientist, Olson’s first task
was to formally test his success rate. He already knew he was pretty effective,
but the results were truly staggering – Olson
managed to direct 103 out of 105 of the participants.
Stagger: If something staggers you, it surprises you very much.
Unsurprisingly, that alone has
attracted a fair amount of media attention – but it was the next part of the
study that was most surprising to Olson, since it shows us just how easily our
mind is manipulated.
For instance, when he questioned the
volunteers afterwards, he was shocked to find that 92% of the volunteers had
absolutely no idea that they’d been manipulated and felt that they had been in
complete control of their decisions. Even more surprisingly, a large proportion
went as far as to make up imaginary reasons for their choice. “One person said
‘I chose the 10 of hearts because 10 is high number and I was thinking of
hearts before the experiment started’,” says Olson – despite the fact that it
was really Olson who’d made the decision. What’s more, Olson found that things
like personality type didn’t seem to have much influence on how likely someone
was to be influenced – we all seem equally vulnerable. Nor did the specific
properties of the cards – the colour or number – seem to make success any less
likely.
The implications extend far beyond
the magician’s stage, and should cause us to reconsider our perceptions of
personal will. Despite a strong sense of freedom, our ability to make
deliberate decisions may often be an illusion. “Having a free choice is just a
feeling – it isn’t linked with the decision itself,” says Olson.
Subtle menu
Don’t believe him? Consider when you
go to a restaurant for a meal. Olson says you are twice as likely to choose
from the very top or very bottom of the menu – because those areas first
attract your eye. “But if someone asks you why did you choose the salmon,
you’ll say you were hungry for salmon,” says Olson. “You won’t say it was one
of the first things I looked at on the menu.” In other words, we confabulate to
explain our choice, despite the fact it had already been primed by the
restaurant.
Or how about the simple task of
choosing wine at the supermarket? Jennifer McKendrick and colleagues at the
University of Leicester found that simply playing French or German background
music led people to buy wines from those regions. When asked, however, the
subjects were completely oblivious to the
fact.
Oblivious: Ignorant, unaware
It is less clear how this might
relate to other forms of priming, a subject of
long controversy. In the 2000 US election, for instance, Al Gore supporters
claimed the Republicans had flashed the word “RATS” in an advert depicting the
Democrat representative.
Gore’s supporters believed the
(alleged) subliminal message about their candidate would sway
voters. Replicating the ad with a made-up candidate, Drew Westen at Emory
University, found that the flash of the word really did damage the politician’s
ratings, according to subjects in the lab.
Whether the strategy could have ever swayed the results of an election in the
long term is debatable (similarly, the supposed success of subliminal
advertising is disputed) but it seems likely that other kinds of priming do
have some effect on behaviour without you realising it.
Priming: Training
Sway: Influence
Ratings: Evaluations
In one striking
result, simply seeing a photo of an athlete winning a race significantly
boosted telephone sales reps’ performance –
despite the fact that most people couldn’t even remember seeing the picture.
And there is some evidence showing that handing someone a hot drink can make you
seem like a “warmer” person, or smelling a nasty odour can make you more
morally “disgusted” and cause you to judge people more harshly.
Strike: Something that is striking is very noticeable or unusual. Someone who
is striking is very attractive, in a noticeable way.
Rep: Agent, representant
How to spot manipulation
Clearly, this kind of knowledge
could be used for coercion in the wrong hands, so it’s worth
knowing how to spot others trying to bend you to their will without you realising.
So it’s worth: It’s important in spite of the cost; it’s important despite the cost.
To spot others: Be conscious about how other can manipulate
Bend you to their will: Fold you to their desires
Based on the scientific literature,
here are four manipulative moves to watch out in your colleagues and friends in
everyday life:
Move: A move is an action that you take in order to achieve something.
1) A touch can be powerful
Simply tapping someone on the
shoulder, and looking them in the eye, means they are far more open to
suggestion.
It’s a technique Olson uses during
his trick, but it also has been shown to work in various everyday situations –
such as persuading people to lend money.
2) The speed of speech matters
Olson says that magicians will often
try to rush their volunteers so they choose the first
thing that comes to mind – hopefully the idea that you planted there. But once
they have made their choice, they switch to a more relaxed manner.
Rush: Hurry
The volunteer will look back and
think they had been free to make up their mind in their own time.
3) Be aware of the field-of-view
By lingering on his chosen card,
Olson made it more “salient” so it stuck in the
volunteers’ minds without them even realising it.
Field of view: The space area you can see
Stuck: Insert
There are many ways that can done,
from placing something at eye level, to moving something slightly closer to a
target. For similar reasons, we often end up taking away the first thing
offered to us.
4) Certain questions will plant
ideas
For example, “Why do you think this
would be a good idea?” or “What do you think the advantages would be?” It
sounds obvious, but letting someone persuade themselves will mean they are more
confident of their decision in the long term – as if it had been their idea all
along.
We may all be puppets guided by
subtle influences – but if you can start to recognise who’s pulling the
strings, you can at least try to push back.
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