How to open someone’s mind

COVID19 has resurfaced more than a discussion about pandemics and vaccines. As many admit, fear of the vaccines may be the greatest barrier to stopping COVID19. It stretches far beyond the so-called anti-vaxxer community: about 50% of Americans harbour questions about the safety of the COVID19 vaccines; 40% say they definitely or probably won’t get one.

COVID19 opened a discussion of open/close minds and stereotypes.

How can we open people’s minds (to using vaccines and in general) and get them to see what science, facts and reality are?

When we try to change a person’s mind, our first impulse is to preach about why we’re right and prosecute them for being wrong. Yet experiments show that preaching and prosecuting typically backfire — and what doesn’t sway people may strengthen their beliefs. Much as a vaccine inoculates the physical immune system against a virus, the act of resistance fortifies the psychological immune system. Refuting a point of view produces antibodies against future attempts at influence, making people more certain of their own opinions and more ready to rebut alternatives.

In 1980s, when treating substance abuse problems, psychologists (William Miller and Stephen Rollnick) developed a technique called motivational interviewing. The central premise: instead of trying to force other people to change, you’re better off helping them find their own intrinsic motivation to change. You do that by interviewing them — asking open-ended questions and listening carefully — and holding up a mirror so they can see their own thoughts more clearly. If they express a desire to change, you guide them toward a plan. This technique works well only when there is a genuine desire to understand people’s motivations and help them reach their goals.

Why is motivational interviewing effective in opening and changing minds? Studies showed that when we listen carefully and call attention to the nuances in people’s own thinking, they become less extreme and more open in their views. For example, when asking people how their preferred political policies might work in practice, rather than asking why they favour those policies, was more effective in opening their minds. As people struggle to explain their ideal tax legislation or healthcare plan, they grasp the complexity of the problem and recognise gaps in their own knowledge. In motivational interviewing, there’s a distinction between sustain talk and change talk. Sustain talk is about maintaining the status quo. Change talk is about a desire, ability or commitment to making a change. A skilled motivational interviewer listens for change talk and asks people to elaborate on it: the how questions that lead to thinking things through, introspection and opening of their minds.

In controlled trials, motivational interviewing has helped people to stop smoking, abusing drugs and alcohol, and gambling; to improve their diets and exercise; to overcome eating disorders; and to lose weight. The approach has also motivated students to get a good night’s sleep; voters to reconsider their prejudices; and divorcing parents to reach settlements.

So how can we conduct a motivational interview with intention of getting someone to become more open-minded or open to change? Below is one framework:

Start by assessing the importance of change to a relevant matter.
Reflect on answer (s) provided to the question above.
Elicit change talk about values, hopes, goals, or relevant matters.
Elicit discrepancy by placing the current behaviour in the context of current values or desired future.
Assess the person’s lack of self-efficacy. A person who has a high level of self-efficacy generally believes he/she can carry out what is necessary to realise his or her goals. Motivational Interviewing is particularly useful with people that lack self-efficacy and believe they may be unable to change.
Use Motivational Interviewing to build/improve self-efficacy.

Buy Now Pay Later: why it works

The number of times I come across mentions of Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) has dramatically increased and became ubiquitous in both brick and mortal businesses and the digital landscape in last 6 months. The BNPL concept is based on good repayment behaviour, in exchange for affordable purchases, through flexible payment plans. The market value of BNPL platforms such as Klarna, Afterpay and Sezzle is projected to rise globally at a CAGR of 21.2% by 2027.

Little bit of context for Southeast Asia. Out of the over 670 million people in the region, only 27% of the population have bank accounts. This sizable gap in banking penetration results in approximately 438 million unbanked individuals, with no bank account, credit or debit card or access to lines of credit. In parallel, there has been a shifting trend away from bank accounts and credit cards to services like BNPL, especially in younger consumers, due to debt aversion and ease of use. Hence, BNPL’s huge appeal.

The concept of BNPL is not new. Yet it is becoming increasingly popular and utilised due to a combination of factors, which include how humans are built as well as #COVID19 imposed restrictions (we have lot of spare time, are unable to travel and go shopping and feel the urge to online shop as a means of compensating), among others.

Here we review the main behavioural and psychological factors that drive BNPL:

1) Lose aversion

2) Present bias

Loss aversion

Research has found that spending money triggers areas of the brain associated with pain and disgust and that different forms of payment trigger different levels of discomfort. The pain of making a payment depends on the amount to be paid and on the method by which payment is made. Consumers who paid by credit cards rather than cash seem to experience less of a pain and hence were more willing to incur a given expense. As cash represents a physical representation of value, we feel more pain as people literally see themselves losing money.

Credit cards can be considered a prototype to BNPL as they use the same premise, albeit the only difference is paying the total price at a later date. Paying with credit cards provides a smooth transactional process, essentially decoupling the pain of losing their money in exchange for a product as there is no real money counting/giving process. An MIT study looking at purchasing tickets to a basketball game found that card-paying students were willing to pay twice as much as cash-paying students. Payment via credit cards is perceived as parting with a lower monetary value.

In both cases, the pain is linked to loss aversion, which is the tendency to prefer avoiding losses to acquiring equivalent gains. E-commerce companies are particularly adept at this, and constantly create urgency, offer deadlines for discounts and other ways of creating a psychological phenomenon of FOMO.

In brief, we are built to avoid pain by all means, which, in our daily lives, is recurrent phenomenon every time we pay via cash or credit cards. Perception of payment sometime later feels less painful.

Present bias

We humans are built to be focused/biased in present. We value $100 more today then tomorrow, less the day after and even less in future. In other words, present bias represent that fact that people place a greater value on goods/income achieved in the present moment – rather than receiving the same goods/income in the future. It suggests given a choice between a payoff today and a pay off in the future; we will choose to have the pay off now.

The timing of payments impacts the perceived value of a product. For example, people that pay for gym memberships monthly are more likely to exercise and renew their memberships compared to those that pay annually. These services provide a balance between pain and the perceived value/connection to the product. The focus shifts towards paying in future via smaller instalments, which are perceived as appealing and more affordable. As a result of tangible cash being abstracted away from us, it is harder to resist our impulse not to shop/consume via BNPL.

The BNPL business model is heavily relying on payment in future in various industries. Flexible options from ‘buy now, stay later‘ hotelier packages supporting Asian tourism, to car manufacturers’ deferred payment plans for boosting car sales, all the way to ‘fly now, pay later‘ air travel are increasingly popular.

You may ask what is the result of these two phenomena combined? Studies show that tourists (and pretty much any anyone) with high loss aversion and high present bias are more likely to overspend.

Between love and fear: the most powerful human motivator

There is nothing like the elation and bliss of new love. Especially when you believed you had found ‘the one.’ That took it to another level. You may have felt you never really knew what love was before. You were probably infused with incredible joy and happiness. You finally found what you were searching for, and it was even better than you ever imagined.

And then one day something unexpected happened. You got a queasy feeling that you couldn’t shake. You sensed deep in your gut that he or she was pulling away. Your heart sank and your stomach clenched with fear.

In the process of the psychopathic bond, the moment when the joy at finding love turns into the fear of losing it is called the ‘manipulative shift.’ When that happens, the psychopath takes control. This is when the devaluation stage begins.

Fear takes away our ability to think clearly. It’s an intensely powerful and uncomfortable emotion, and we want it to go away. In this case, fear was caused by the threat of losing our (supposedly) wonderful relationship. When we see someone as being the one who can take our fear away, we will give them just about anything. In this situation, that would be the very person who caused it in the first place — the psychopath. He or she took our fear away by becoming attentive and loving again. If we asked him if something was wrong he told us that we were imagining things, or he blamed us, or made up some excuse for his lapses.

If fear is something we want to avoid, how did the psychopath use it to keep us hooked?

By alternating it with another extremely powerful emotion — love.

Creating fear of losing the relationship — and then relieving it periodically with episodes of love and attention — is the perfect manipulation, one known as Intermittent Reinforcement.

Those positive episodes that banished our fear released a potent dose of dopamine-induced euphoria. We weren’t going to lose the best thing we ever had, after all. We took a deep breath and relaxed.

Have you ever gone to a casino and played a slot machine? You feed in your quarters and pull the handle, over and over, and watch the little colorful images of fruit and numbers and bells whiz by. If you don’t win anything you start to fear that you might lose all the money you already put in, let alone not win the jackpot.

Even though you risk losing more money, you are compelled to keep trying to win. What if you walk away from this machine now, after investing all this time and money, and the next person to sit down and pull the handle wins? You feed in a few more quarters, pull the handle and — amazingly — images of a red number 7 line up and bells ring while colourful lights flash. Handfuls of quarters pour loudly from the machine into your waiting hands. These rewards cause your brain to light up, too, by releasing a burst of pleasure-inducing dopamine, and you want more. Your fear vanishes, and you think that since you now have all these quarters you should keep playing. Who knows, maybe you’ll win the big jackpot next time! You start feeding the machine again. You’re hooked.

Psychology researchers have long considered intermittent reinforcement the most powerful motivator on the planet. It is also the most manipulative. Intermittent reinforcement is simply unpredictable random rewards in response to repeated behavior, but there is no more powerful formula to get someone to feel or act in a desired way. It can be elevated gradually (and subtly) to increasingly extreme levels, creating compliance that is obsessive and even self-destructive. I think this comes as no surprise to many of us. When we look back, we clearly see that intermittent reinforcement was hard at work.

The more infrequently the crumbs of love are offered, the more hooked you get. You become conditioned, like a rat in a laboratory cage. When rats are taught to press a lever that randomly dispenses a delicious morsel, they press the lever obsessively. After a while, they will keep pressing the lever even if no more morsels come out… until they starve to death (I think this is an unconscionable experiment, by the way, one probably carried out by psychopathic researchers).

Similarly, we may have held on even when there was no more “love” to be had.

Morsel-Bombing

Lab rats are taught to press the lever by starting them out with continuous positive reinforcement. In the beginning, every time they press the lever they get a morsel (just like the idealization phase, or ‘love-bombing’). Then the researchers change the game — the rat presses the lever, but a morsel isn’t delivered each time anymore, only once in a while. He is fearful that he won’t get fed but he knows pressing the lever brought food in the past, so he keeps pressing it until he gets some. As long as he gets a morsel once in a while, he keeps pressing it. When the morsels stop coming, he’s sure he’ll get one next time he presses it, or the next time, or the time after that… so he never stops trying.

Intermittent reinforcement plays a big role in traumatic bonding. A trauma bond is a very strong attachment to an abuser that develops not in spite of, but because of the abuse.

“Dutton and Painter have elaborated a theory of ‘traumatic bonding,’ whereby powerful emotional attachments are seen to develop from two specific features of abusive relationships: Power imbalances and intermittent good-bad treatment.”

So what can we do to prevent from being victimized by intermittent reinforcement in the future? It was hard to recognize because it emerged later in the relationship, and it was hard to walk away because we were already attached. Also, we may not have been knowledgeable about this powerful manipulation technique. Now we have that knowledge along with experience to go with it, and we can put it to work for us.

Here are some things to keep in mind for future relationships:

Trust is based on three things: Predictability, dependability and faith. Predictability is based on the consistency of a partner’s behavior, which is in stark contrast to intermittent good-bad treatment. Dependability is the degree to which you trust your partner to be honest and reliable. Faith represents your conviction that your partner will be responsive to your needs, can be relied upon, and be counted on to behave in a kind and caring manner. Don’t judge these things by how they were at one time, in the past — consider how they are at the present time. Psychopaths are good at gaining our trust, but not good at keeping it.
Look for the hallmarks of a healthy relationship: Intimacy, commitment, consistency, balance, progression, shared values, love, care, trust, and respect.
Listen to any alarm bells that go off in your head, and listen to friends and family members whom you know to have your best interest at heart. Don’t ignore them, no matter how much you would like to.
Become and stay very conscious of the dynamic of the relationship, and of the part you play in it. Be aware that when you feel chronically insecure, heartsick, anxious or hurt, you can get caught up in the drama caused by manipulation and become blind to the larger dynamics at play.
Keep in mind the signs in yourself that you’re being manipulated — it is easier than trying to figure out your partner, who will be lying and making excuses. You will not feel like this in a healthy, normal relationship.
Work on developing good, clear boundaries now, before you get involved with someone. This is probably the most important thing you can do.

How we feel about covid-19

Experts used to believe that people evaluate risk like actuaries or insurance agents, using objective metrics and pro/con analysis. Many experiments and much research has found that people use mental shortcuts for measuring danger or assessing opportunity. These shortcuts, which humans developed during the long evolutionary process, are meant to let humans pay attention to dangers/opportunities that are worth their while while disregarding those that aren’t.

And they do so unconsciously, i.e. gut feeling, instinct and emotion usually play a significant role in decision small and big. With current covid-19 epidemic, many of our evolutionarily-programmed shortcut are being activated, without us realizing it. For example, as media in most countries started blasting about the perceived danger of the covid-19 outbreak, we visualized the most recent ‘similar’ H1N1 and SARS outbreaks. This is what is called availability bias. We retrieve from our memories the most accessible – usually either the most recent or the most traumatic/peak experiences – and consider this case to be like them.

Another mental shortcut is novelty. We are conditioned to focus heavily on new threats, leading us to obsess over the scariest reports and worst-case scenarios, perceiving the danger to be bigger. Assessing covid-19 as quite difficult ,considering even experts disagree on its potential impact (long term health implications, potential to have it second… time, optimal treatment, etc) but our brains make it look easier for us, translating gut feelings into reasoned beliefs.

“Our expectations about frequency of events are distorted by the prevalence and emotional intensity of the messages to which we are exposed”
Daniel Kahneman, Nobel Laureate in Economics

In extreme cases due to reports about covid-19, now with many European countries having thousands of cases and closing their borders or locking in an entire country, crowding out effect happens, i.e. our emotional impulses – fear, anxiety, panic, overwhelm our rationality.

If a risk seems especially painful/disturbing, people tend to raise their estimate of how likely it is to happen to them. Reports on covid-19 often feature upsetting imagery, people in panic, city-scale lockdowns.

Another trigger is a threat not understood or without a precedent. The less known it is, the more people fear and overestimate it. Research shows only 25% of weight is coming from facts and the rest is mixture of emotions, luck, and context. Consider the response to the partial meltdown of the nuclear plant at Three Mile Island, in Pennsylvania, in 1979. Though the incident caused no deaths, it led to public demand to turn from nuclear power to fossil fuels whose impact on air quality, alone, is thought to cause thousands of premature deaths every year.

Our minds tend to either “round down” the probability to 0 and we underreact, when it looks far or not touching us. When it comes to us, as it inevitably does, then we overreact, overestimate and go crazy about facts. This is again happening again in case of covid-19.

Only peak and end matter

Imagine you arrived at the airport on time, cruised through security, got the seat you wanted, your flight left on time and was smooth, yet when you landed, the plane sat on the runway for 30 minutes or your luggage was lost – how would you rate the overall experience? If you are like most people, you will not be happy about your flight despite the fact many things at the beginning of this trip went well.

You aren’t happy because you are wired to remember two parts of your overall experience: the peak and the ending. In psychology this is called peak-end rule. According to the peak-end rule, our memory of past experience (pleasant or unpleasant) does not correspond to an average level of positive or negative feelings but to the most extreme point and the end of the episode (Kahneman, 2000b).

Chip and Dan Heath also explore this concept in their book ‘The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact.‘

They suggest that a peak moment requires at least one of the four elements below, with the best having all four:

Elevation: these are moments of happiness that transcend the normal course of events through sensory pleasures and surprise
Pride: these are moments that capture us at our best; whether it be moments of achievement or moments of courage
Insight: these are our eureka moments; they change our understanding of ourselves of the world and give us a moment of sobering clarity
Connection: these are moments which are social in nature; think weddings.

Evolution has built us humans to maximize our brainpower and conserve cognitive energy, by helping us avoid spending brain capacity on memories that are irrelevant and not intense. Findings supporting peak-end theory suggest that a small improvement near the end of an experience can radically shift one’s perception of the event.

If you are a business, think how can you improve last impressions about your product/service delivery or engagement. If you are about to go into a negotiation, think what the last 5-10min of your discussion should look like. If you are an event organizer, think what the last part of your event should look like.

Rethink sales incentives

Recognise the best, engage the rest

Sales incentive programs are usually aimed at the middle 60%-70% of the population. Some might say “why do I need to incentivise them, it’s what I pay them for.” If there is no gap between your objectives and the performance of the sales force you may well not need an incentive. However, if there is a gap, a well-designed sales incentive program is likely the best way to close it. And there is a reason for that.

Recognising the contribution of top performers is critical, and should be treated as an investment in retention of not only top performers but also middle. If you don’t recognise them, your competitors will. An incentive program that calls for the top 10% of sales reps to qualify for a travel award may engage 30% or so of the population. The remaining 70% feel they have no real chance to earn the award. A sales incentive program is often designed to drive increased unit sales, accomplishment of individual objectives or delivery of incremental volume. In any event, a well-designed sales incentive program will engage all participants because, unlike with a top performer program, the sales rep needs only compete with him/herself, not with the entire group. The ability to be reinforced for individual increment is what differentiates the incentive from recognition. And because top performers are just that, the increment they can generate is often limited.

Just the opposite is true for the middle 70%. Design the program with these sales reps in mind and the sales incentive will often generate more than enough incremental profitability to fund both the recognition and incentive programs.

Why it works

Studies show the most effective way to drive additional sales is to engage those in the middle of your performance curve.

Most top-tier performers are already operating at or near capacity
To gain additional sales, you need to engage the middle of your performance curve
Identify shared behaviours among your top sales reps
Inspire those desired behaviours among middle performers
Use the right mix of culturally-relevant rewards, incentives and recognition

Top 8 psychological hacks to boost you work and social interactions

1) Go into any interaction with acceptance and comfort mindset

2) Pay attention to people’s feet when you approach them

If they turn only their torsos and not their feet, it means they are in the middle of an important conversation and they don’t want you to interrupt them. If they turn both torso and feet, it means you are welcome.

3) When arguing, stand next to the person, not in front and move your eyes around

As subconsciously, this might be perceived as confrontational, and thus exacerbate the argument.

4) Show attention and understanding during conversation

rephrasing what he/she just mentioned
labelling his/her feelings using words (which has deflating and positive effect)
mirroring, i.e. repeating his/her words for more clarification/elaboration – animals mirror each other for comfort and to instil trust
nodding and using “uhm” and other silent confirming sounds
summarise in order to get “That’s right”: this will show that you heard, understood and identify with his/her issue/points and hence the answer “that’s right”
ask open-ended questions using “how” and “what”: both give a chance to the other person to elaborate and clarify, which instills further understanding for you and the longer the other person talks, the better he/she feels about you

5) Use silence in conversations

We tend to think silence is awkward. Don’t shy it, let it flow and let the other person or yourself ponder in the silence periods and then continue answering. Silence periods may seem awkward but they induce understanding and bonding.

6) Enrich your conversations

storytell: package information into stories and anecdotes (using details of colours, music, tastes, smells, movements, etc) – we are evolutionarily wired to buy into stories and trust those who tell them
tone and inflection: no one finds monotone exciting. Switch up your tone of voice from deep for declarative statements, to high inflection when you want to leave them guessing.
ask them to guess what happens next: where relevant/possible, this will create engagement and anticipation
avoid using “I think” and “I believe” where possible: instead use “I will” and “I know” to show a stronger and more confident footing

7) Use Benjamin Franklin effect

A person who has done someone a favor is more likely to do that person another favor than they would be if they had received a favor from that person. Similarly, one who harms another is more willing to harm them again than the victim is to retaliate.

In social situations, you can hack this by making someone do something small for you, then asking for your true favor. It’s such a small favor that they will say yes, and due to cognitive dissonance their brain will rationalize that they must like you enough to do you a favor in the first place. This is also called the foot-in-the-door effect.

8) Frame your request as a choice

No one likes to feel pressured into doing something they don’t want to do. By subtlety rephrasing a request, you can make the person feel like they came to the decision on their own terms.

Also this insightful blog post on overall work ethic touches on some of these and other psychological factors..

Using anchors to win deals

How do people know if the price is right? How do they decide if they want to buy something for a specific price displayed in the shop? “People make estimates by starting from an initial value that is adjusted to yield the final answer,” explained psychologists Tversky and Kahneman in their 1974 paper. “The initial value, or starting point, may be suggested by the formulation of the problem, or it may be the result of a partial computation. In either case, adjustments are typically insufficient. That is, different starting points yield different estimates, which are biased toward the initial values.” This means that the initial anchor serves as the benchmark for the rest of the pricing/deal negotiation – hence the cognitive bias ‘anchoring‘ that plays a huge role in our decision making process.

Now that we have an idea of what’s anchoring, how shall we use it to win deals/pricing negotiations? Let’s start with an elephant in the room. If you want to win a deal/negotiation, never be needy for the deal. Always appear to have your BATNA figured and ready. Keeping this in mind, let’s explore anchoring tactics that will help you win pricing deals/negotiations even in most difficult of situations.

Tactic 1: Use Bandwagon effect

Suggest a price to which the crowd is drawn. This must be the ideal price tag you want to draw your customer too.

Tactic 2: Use Ackerman Model

This tactic has been developed by Mike Ackerman, former CIA agent, for hostage negotiations. It’s one of the most effective negotiation tactics around.

Set your target price (your goal).
Set your first offer at 65% of your target price.
Calculate three raises of decreasing increments (to 85%, 95%, and 100%).
Use lots of empathy and different ways of saying “No” to get the other side to counter before you increase your offer.
When calculating the final amount, use precise, non round numbers like, say, $37,893 rather than $38,000. It gives the number credibility and weight.
On your final number, throw in a non monetary item (that they probably don’t want) to show you’re at your limit.

Tactic 3: Leverage Contrast Bias

a) Use an extreme anchor to put a benchmark from which rest of negotiation will follow. As we are susceptible to anchoring bias, an unreasonable anchor – however unreasonable it may be – sets the starting point of negotiation.

b) Another potential strategy is to show your competitors’ prices on your pricing page. This gives your customers a frame of reference from which they can evaluate your product, but also risks drawing in competitive options for them to choose from. Use this method if your offer is the best value amongst your competitors or can be framed as such competitors.

Tactic 4: Show genuine anger

When you show passion and conviction (to injustice or impossibility of working our the deal), this causes the other side to become more sensitive to anger/fear, which turns on flight-or-fight instinct in the amygdala. Channel that anger to the proposal/deal, not the person with something like “I don’t see how this would ever work” (strategic umbrage).

With above being said, when you don’t know the market value of the deal you are negotiating or are uncertain of the full information that your counterpart has, avoid making an initial anchor until you collect some information about your counterpart.

This article was published on e27.

Top 5 psychology tricks in sales

1. Give your prospect fewer options

Providing your prospect with too many different options makes it harder for them to make a decision – which increases the odds they’ll walk away without buying anything at all. This is due to what in psychology is called choice overload.

2. Leverage loss aversion and FOMO

Even hesitant buyers have a hard time saying no to a great opportunity – especially if they’re thinking about what they’ll lose by turning it down. You can tap into this by framing your offer as something they’ll miss out on if they don’t make a purchase, rather than just highlighting the added value. Very impactful is to make positive comparison with a competitor, which makes your offer stand out even further.

3. Ask hesitant prospects to explain their reasoning

One of the easiest ways to poke holes in a prospect’s excuse for not buying is to ask to them walk you through their reasoning.

A simple, “What’s holding you back?” can get prospects to open up about their reservations. Whether it’s a matter of budget, timing, or product fit, knowing your prospect’s sales objections gives you a chance to reframe their perspective.

Another method is to ask your prospect to rate their readiness to buy on a scale of one to ten (with one being “not ready at all” and ten being “completely ready”). Regardless of their answer, ask why they chose the number they did.

4. Use storytelling to make an impact

Sharing a relatable customer success story is more powerful than simply listing the benefits of your product. Not only does telling a story allow you to connect more quickly with your prospects (by releasing the “trust hormone” oxytocin), it also helps you motivate your audience to take a desired action.

5. Use extreme anchoring
Anchoring is so powerful that it works even when you know it’s being done to you. You’re better off setting a high anchor that skews the entire negotiation your way than letting the client set a low anchor. The anchor serves as the mental reference point throughout the negotiation. Studies have shown that the higher the anchor, the higher the final price.

3 things today: psychological hacks of investor mindset

3 things today: investors (like other human beings) use mental shortcuts (called cognitive biases) in their decision-making process.

Top three shortcuts used include:

confirmation bias (investors look for confirmation of their beliefs/values when evaluating startups and favour those with most “confirmations”)
hindsight bias (investors think past successes of founders give them a good chance for a repeat success in future)
bandwagon effect (investors jump on an investment opportunity that has other influential investors, advisors or founders with good track record).