How can you get others to convince *themselves* that you are right?
The always-excellent PsyBlog reveals the secret:
...you can try asking them to put aside their own attitude for a moment and try getting them to generate their own arguments for the point you want to make.
Why might this work?
...on average, people were more convinced by the talk when they gave it themselves than when they merely heard it passively. This suggests that we really are persuaded more strongly when we make the argument ourselves, even if it isn't in line with our own viewpoint.
The same trick works with attitudes to smoking. People are more put off smoking when they deliver an anti-smoking message than when they passively receive it (research described in Brinol et al., 2012)... The explanation seems to be that we are very good at convincing ourselves because we know just what sorts of arguments will sway us.
Follow me on Twitter here or get updates via email here.
Related posts:
10 things you need to know about persuasion
4 tips for being more persuasive
7 of the most powerful persuasion techniques by expert Robert Cialdini (Video)
What are the three best methods for networking?
Networking is vital to staying employed, salary growth and job satisfaction. Employees with larger networks perform better. Networking has even been shown to be vital for drug dealers.
You're likely to find out about your next job through people you know but aren't very close to so expanding the pool of "weak ties" increases opportunities.
1)
Reconnecting with old friends on Facebook and Linked In is a good first step.
2)
Linked In founder Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha's new book "The Start-up of You: Adapt to the Future, Invest in Yourself, and Transform Your Career" (which I'm featured in) offers solid tips on expanding your network the right way:
Reid's rules
In the next day: Look at your calendar for the past six months and identify the five people you spend the most time with -- are you happy with their influence on you?
In the next week: Introduce two people who do not know each other but ought to. Then think about a challenge you face and ask for an introduction to a connection in your network who could help.
Imagine you got laid off from your job today. Who are the 10 people you'd e-mail for advice? Don't wait -- invest in those relationships now.
In the next month: Identify a weaker tie with whom you'd like to build an alliance. Help him by giving him a small gift -- forward an article or job posting.
Create an "interesting people fund" to which you automatically funnel a certain percentage of your paycheck. Use it to pay for coffees and the occasional plane ticket to meet new people and shore up existing relationships.
3)
Harvard Business Review has another great technique:
After you identify your key contacts, think about how you first met them. In the center column of the work sheet, write the name of the person who introduced you to your contact (if you met the person yourself, write “me”). This column will reveal the brokers in your network and help you see the networking practices you used to connect with them.
These are the people you already know who are clearly able and willing to help you branch out. They should be the first people you call and where you invest a disproportionate amount of your time and energy.
Follow me on Twitter here or get updates via email here.
Related Posts:
How to quickly and easily improve your life
What are the 7 ways to effectively kiss ass without looking like a kiss-ass?
What's worse: losing your job or being afraid of losing your job?
Do guys who are night owls or morning larks have more success with women?
Night owls win:
Men and women differ in sleep duration and timing of sleeping. Men sleep shorter and are later chronotypes, thus go to bed and get up later than women. This sexual dimorphism in chronotype is most striking between the beginning of puberty and beginning of menopause indicating the possibility of a sexually selected trait. Sleep duration, however, is different between the sexes already before and after the reproductive phase, suggesting a trait that is not under sexual section. In men, the most influential predictor of mating success was extraversion, followed by age, propensity to stay out late and evening orientation. This was confirmed by structural equation modeling showing both, an indirect and a direct fitness benefit of eveningness even when imposing extraversion and age as important predictor variables. As eveningness is related to an array of problematic behaviors, we suggest that it can be viewed as a kind of handicap.
Highlights
► Eveningness is higher in men than in women, and we suppose some kind of sexual selection.
► Eveningness in men is related to mating success, even when controlling for going out behavior, age and extraversion.
► The higher mating success in evening men might be a result of extra-pair copulations and short term relationships.
Source: "Eveningness is related to men’s mating success" from Personality and Individual Differences
More on night owls vs. morning larks here.
Follow me on Twitter here or get updates via email here.
Related posts:
What incredible powers do gorgeous women have?
10 things science can teach us about being sexy as hell
What male quality is the best predictor of whether a woman will orgasm?
Does the female "G-spot" really exist?
Yes, scientists finally confirmed its existence:
Introduction. The anatomic existence of the G-spot has not been documented yet.
Aim. To identify the anatomic structure of the G-spot.
Methods. A stratum-by-stratum vaginal wall dissection on a fresh cadaver.
Main Outcome Measures. Primary outcome is the identification of the G-spot and the secondary outcome is its measurements and anatomic description of the G-spot.
Results. The G-spot has a distinguishable anatomic structure that is located on the dorsal perineal membrane, 16.5 mm from the upper part of the urethral meatus, and creates a 35° angle with the lateral border of the urethra. The lower pole (tail) and the upper pole (head) were located 3 and 15 mm next to the lateral border of the urethra, respectively. Grossly, the G-spot appeared as a well-delineated sac with walls that resembled fibroconnective tissues and resembled erectile tissues. The superior surface of the sac had bluish irregularities visible through the coat. Upon opening the sac's upper coat, blue grape-like anatomic compositions of the G-spot emerged with dimensions of length (L) of 8.1 mm × width (W) of 3.6–1.5 mm × height (H) of 0.4 mm. The G-spot structure had three distinct areas: the proximal part (the head) L 3.4 mm × W 3.6 mm, the middle part L 3.1 mm × W 3.3 mm, and the distal part (tail) L 3.3 mm × W 3.0 mm. From the distal tail, a rope-like structure emerged, which was seen for approximately 1.6 mm and then disappeared into the surrounding tissue.
Conclusion. The anatomic existence of the G-spot was documented with potential impact on the practice and clinical research in the field of female sexual function.
Source: "G-Spot Anatomy: A New Discovery" from The Journal of Sexual Medicine, Volume 9, Issue 5, pages 1355–1359, May 2012
Follow me on Twitter here or get updates via email here.
Related posts:
Can you tell how much a woman orgasms by looking at her face?
What's the best way to use email?
Email is the new symbol of overload in our culture.
Studies show:
- It stresses you out.
- It can degrade social skills and even turn you into an asshole.
- People lie more via email.
- Spam wastes 20 hours of your life every year.
Despite all of this, ironically, you may find email more addictive than tobacco or alcohol.
So maybe it's not ridiculous that some have speculated that technology is tearing us apart.
But studies also show that:
- Technology and the Internet have made you happier.
- Web breaks make you more productive.
- Rapid computer based communication is what makes the best stock traders the best.
- Compulsive internet users have happier marriages.
So is it email in particular?
I doubt it.
We just weren't designed to do the majority of our communication so abstractly.
There has been similar speculation about Facebook and I think the same results apply to email:
The results were unequivocal. “The greater the proportion of face-to-face interactions, the less lonely you are,” he says. “The greater the proportion of online interactions, the lonelier you are.” Surely, I suggest to Cacioppo, this means that Facebook and the like inevitably make people lonelier. He disagrees. Facebook is merely a tool, he says, and like any tool, its effectiveness will depend on its user. “If you use Facebook to increase face-to-face contact,” he says, “it increases social capital.” So if social media let you organize a game of football among your friends, that’s healthy. If you turn to social media instead of playing football, however, that’s unhealthy.
Make sure that your relationships (business or personal) have a strong face-to-face component as much as possible.
Seeing friends and family regularly is worth an extra $97,265 a year.
If you're fighting a clogged inbox, I recommend Inbox Zero.
And if you're trying to waste less time on the internet, the first step is to get more sleep.
Follow me on Twitter here or get updates via email here.
Related Posts:
Would the legal warnings at the bottom of emails hold up in court?
Night owls vs. Morning people: who comes out ahead?
Their personalities are definitely different:
...morning types are attracted to concrete information rather than abstract thinking and like to rely on logic rather than intuition. They tend to be introverted, self-controlled, and eager to make a good impression on others. In contrast, evening types have a far more creative outlook on life, are more prepared to take risks, are more independent and nonconforming, and are a little impulsive.
Night owls are smarter. And male night owls do better with the ladies.
But morning people are more proactive and happier.
Can cigarettes make beer goggles worse?
Yes:
Background
Nicotine and alcohol are often consumed together. Previous research suggests that both can independently increase the perceived attractiveness of social stimuli, which may be a mechanism that drives continued use. This study examined whether there was an additive effect of nicotine and alcohol on perceived attractiveness of social and environmental stimuli.
Methods
Male and female (n = 96) social alcohol consumers and light cigarette smokers (no more than 14 cigarettes per week) were randomized to smoke either a nicotinized or denicotinized cigarette and drink either an alcoholic or non-alcoholic (placebo) beverage. The primary outcome was attractiveness ratings of facial and landscape stimuli. Secondary outcomes were self-report mood and craving.
Results
There was a main effect of drink (p = .031) and a trend toward a main effect of cigarette (p = .057) with higher ratings of attractiveness after alcohol compared to placebo and after a nicotinized cigarette compared to a denicotinized cigarette. Nicotine and alcohol appeared to work additively on ratings of attractiveness, with the highest ratings in the nicotine/alcohol group. There were no interactions between drink, cigarette and stimulus type.
Conclusions
When co-administered, nicotine and alcohol consumption resulted in the highest perceptions of attractiveness across all stimulus types. This additive effect may be a mechanism by which administration of one drug reinforces use of the other, and which leads to an increased likelihood of habitual consumption and relapse.
Source: "Effects of acute nicotine and alcohol on the rating of attractiveness in social smokers and alcohol drinkers" from Drug and Alcohol Dependence
Follow me on Twitter here or get updates via email here.
Related posts:
Is it really beer that causes "beer goggles"?
Are sexier women more stereotypically "girly"?
Yes. Women with sexier figures are more empathetic, better at identifying the emotional states of other people and may be better at telling if a guy is a "cad":
Body configuration is a sexually dimorphic trait. In humans, men tend to have high shoulder-to-hip ratios. Women in contrast, often have low waist-to-hip ratios (WHR); i.e., narrow waists and broad hips that approximate an hour-glass configuration. Women with low WHR’s are rated as more attractive, healthier, and more fertile. They also tend to have more attractive voices, lose their virginity sooner, and have more sex partners. WHR has also been linked with general cognitive performance. In the present study we expand upon previous research examining the role of WHR in cognition. We hypothesized that more feminine body types, as indexed by a low WHR, would be associated with cognitive measures of the female “brain type,” such as mental state attribution and empathy because both may depend upon the activational effects of estrogens at puberty. We found that women with low WHRs excel at identifying emotional states of other people and show a cognitive style that favors empathizing over systemizing. We suggest this relationship may be a byproduct of greater gluteofemoral fat stores which are high in the essential fatty acids needed to support brain development and cellular functioning. It is interesting to note that our findings suggest lower WHR females, who are more likely to be targeted for dishonest courtship, may be better at identifying disingenuous claims of commitment.
Source: Bremser JA and Gallup GG Jr. (2012) Mental state attribution and body configuration in women. Front. Evol. Neurosci. 4:1
Follow me on Twitter here or get updates via email here.
Related posts:
What incredible powers do gorgeous women have?
10 things science can teach us about being sexy as hell
What male quality is the best predictor of whether a woman will orgasm?
When you're exhausted should you concentrate harder or just trust your gut?
Go with your gut:
Recent studies showed that a period of unconscious thought can help when making complex decisions. Under some circumstances, unconscious thought improves decisions even more than conscious thought. Executive functioning depends on energy provided by glucose, and we know from previous research that the performance of various conscious processes deteriorates when energy is low. Unconscious processes require less energy and may operate unhampered when energy is low. Therefore, we propose that whereas low blood glucose levels impair conscious thought, this is not the same for unconscious thought. An experiment, where we manipulated blood glucose levels, indicated that indeed, when making decisions, the unconscious can best be trusted when blood glucose levels are low, whereas conscious deliberation yields the best results when blood glucose levels are elevated.
Source: "Food for thought? Trust your unconscious when energy is low." from Journal of Neuroscience, Psychology, and Economics, Vol 5(2), May 2012, 124-130.
Follow me on Twitter here or get updates via email here.
Related posts:
How little sleep can you get away with?
10 things you didn't know about the power of music:
- Background music does not improve your ability to concentrate but will help you when you're at the gym. It can affect how you work. A little background noise makes you more creative, a lot hurts creativity.
- Your favorite song is probably your favorite because you associate it with an emotional event in your life. Both social influences and quality affect which songs you like. You don't like the original version of a song because it's better, you like it because it's the one you heard first. Whether a musician makes eye contact during a concert and what they wear affects whether you like their music.
- When times are tough people prefer music that's more meaningful. Music can predict the stock market. Popular music has been getting more narcissistic for a while now. All the best songs are about sex anyway.
- There's a lot of evidence that playing music can make you smarter. Listening to classical music might increase that IQ as well. (And smarter people like classical music.) Music can literally affect the way you see the world and lyrics can influence your behavior. Liberals own a wider variety of music than conservatives.
- Bar owners get you to drink more by turning the music up. Love songs and romantic music make you spend more in flower shops. Classical, jazz and popular music make you spend more in restaurants.
- Rockstars do really live fast and die young. It can cost upwards of a million dollars to make a hit song. Music piracy helps big bands and hurts little bands. "Overall, the Beatles' lyrics became darker, more psychologically distant, and less immediate over time."
- The music you like does say a lot about your personality because different personality types are drawn to different music.Your personality also affects how you use music. You get some of your musical taste from your parents. The music you'll like when you're old is probably what you were exposed to between ages 16 and 21. You can tell how conscientiousness and agreeable a man is by watching him dance -- and if he keeps dancing he'll get more creative.
- Country music can make you want to kill yourself but rock music won't. Classical is the most relaxing. People who like heavy metal don't have issues. Jazz musicians actually "turn off" part of their brain to be more creative. Romantic music does help men pickup women. Music can persuade you to do unethical things. Good music can increase pain tolerance and reduce anxiety. Melodies are more responsible for how music makes us feel than lyrics.
- People who really like music are more likely to get songs stuck in their head and the best way to deal with an "earworm" is to just accept it. People who are very open to new experience are more likely to get the chills from good music. Yes, you can be addicted to music but Robert Palmer will be disappointed to find out you probably aren't "Addicted to Love."
- "An Italian singer wrote this song with gibberish to sound like English. If you've ever wondered what other people think Americans sound like, this is it."
