
To Persuade Someone, Look Emotional - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/blog/to-persuade-someone-look-emotional
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copperx
> According to a recent study, people who make instinct-based moral judgments
> are perceived by their peers to be more moral and more trustworthy than
> those who rely on reasoning alone.

That's a depressing fact if true. Reasoning is a superior way of making a
moral judgement, solely because we're wired to thing about ourselves and our
close tribe before anything else. It's only through reasoning that we can
consider the true "big picture."

~~~
Nasrudith
I've heard worse from an interviewing course from a Human Resources veteran
who left the field to care for family that has me conclude that much of
humanity is frankly batshit insane by the definition of 'divorced from
reality'.

In addition to paying 80% attention to how it is said instead of the content
of what is said they tend to judge people who are better at putting on an
appropriate 'mask' of confidence as 'trustworthy' when they all know that
nearly everyone puts on a show for interviews anyway. That is believing that
people who demonstrate better capabilities of actively faking emotions are
more trustworthy. When aptitude is widely linked to practice. Saying you want
a surgeon who can't stand the sight of blood so they'll make fewer unnecessary
cuts is more logical than that.

That is beyond trusting your intuition and into flat out divorced from reality
and putting on a heaping helping of cognitive dissonance on top.

The revelation was disturbing yet it also explains /a lot/ of societal
dysfunctions and why high functioning sociopaths are disproportionate among
CEOs.

~~~
akvadrako
I somewhat agree with you, but I don't think you're giving these intuitions
enough credit. Feelings are fine-tuned over millions of years to be good
signals. Things like the halo effect, for example trusting people because they
are attractive, are well-rooted in empirical evidence.

Humans may recently have found a better way but that remains to be seen; on
the face of it, reason is much more abstract and hence more 'divorced from
reality'. It certainly doesn't warrant an immediate switch of strategies.

~~~
maze-le
>> Feelings are fine-tuned over millions of years to be good signals.

If you're going for a hunt on large mammals, gut feelings about your peers is
probably a good way to judge a person. An interview for a job is (usually) an
entirely different situation.

>> Things like the halo effect, for example trusting people because they are
attractive, are well-rooted in empirical evidence.

Oh my god, please don't tell me you trust people because they are looking
good. If you do, you should consider establishing a different trust-metric,
one that maybe has to do with the job a person is actually requested to do.

~~~
xamuel
I didn't read it as "we should trust people based on looks", but more as "we
DO trust people based on looks" (I assume the "empirical evidence" refers to
evidence of this being hardwired into us, not to evidence of it being useful).

~~~
akvadrako
I meant that the existence of the effect means it was selected as beneficial.
If we want to override this response we should use our higher-level reasoning
to (1) understand why it works that way (2) show that we can do better.

The burden of proof is on those proposing a new system. I doubt it’s as easy
as many rationalists assume.

~~~
eivarv
... not necessarily.

The existence of the effect really means that it wasn't selected against.

~~~
akvadrako
Sounds right; maybe it's a side-effect of something else.

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dotancohen
I've done A/B/C testing to see how likely someone is to install Telegram when
they get surprised that I don't have Whatsapp. Those to whom I explain in a
straight-faced manner that Whatsapp is intrusive, almost never install it.
Those to whom I whine that I don't like the intrusiveness are very likely to
install it. The third group, to whom I whine that I just don't like Whatsapp,
are also likely to install it.

In short, don't give someone a reason to do something. Just whine.

~~~
lx3459683
On a related note, I noticed that it's a bit socially looked down upon to be
privacy conscious. This is pretty much a 180 from what the public perception
was 20 years ago.

~~~
Ntrails
Everyone is fine with you being privacy conscious to some degree. It's when
you start telling them that _they should be too_ that it tends to get a
negative response.

I'd argue that this is why the GP succeeds in their B/C tests - because they
made it about their own choices. In A it's trying to convince the other party
of a position on privacy instead which is, unsurprisingly, a lot harder

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ilamont
TFA doesn't differentiate between types of emotion. What if it's anger,
exasperation, or some other negative emotion?

I've worked with people who tended to display these emotions when making
decisions, interacting with people, and carrying out their work. Far from
persuading me, it was more likely to make me think that the quality of their
decision-making (and other aspects of their work) was compromised.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
"Emotional" in this context is generally understood as "appealing to the
audience's emotions."

Displaying anger _at_ your audience may not be convincing, but if you want
your audience to be angry about something else, then displaying the anger you
want them to share can be quite effective.

~~~
AstralStorm
Like certain popular politicians who shall not be named.

A common enemy is among the oldest tricks in the book.

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cardiffspaceman
The title suggests that what you need to do is appear to be making an
emotional decision but the article seems to suggest that you need to actually
make an emotional decision. The difference is between Dukakis quickly saying
no and instead revealing all the feelings he'd have before choosing principle
over vengeance.

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classichasclass
I think it's also because people who feel strongly on an issue want at least
to see that you take the issue with the same gravity they do, and the best way
to demonstrate that is that you, too, have a visible emotional response to the
topic, that it gave you as much internal turmoil to come to the conclusion you
did.

The worst thing you can do is to make a weighty issue seem simple or that you
regard it tritely. That's what Dukakis did wrong, even though I have every
belief he actually did think the issue through.

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asdf1234tx
In the absence of historical data, receiving information from another person,
without any quick way to verify what has been communicated, coupled with a
necessity to decide/act, has long required/used a shortcut.

You look in that person's face, you make the call. You'all remember that
stuff. Maybe not so common now, but it's still on TV.. "My word is my bond."
and all that.

If that utterance doesn't come with a hardcore look of sincerity playing
across the face, well then it's not believable. Looking emotional doesn't mean
looking distraught. It means not looking like a mannequin.

Even with data, logic, reason, and an armful of facts, imagine two people with
equal amounts of the aforementioned, trying to convince a 3rd party, but one
of the individuals throws in expressions/mannerisms that communicate "trust",
"sincerity", and "competence"...

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natrik
Is persuasion using emotion to heighten the strength of the persuasion
manipulation?

Relevant - [https://i.imgur.com/yN2l1Cp.png](https://i.imgur.com/yN2l1Cp.png)

~~~
Cyphase
The other screenshotted discussion:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17662135](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17662135)
[How to tell the difference between persuasion and manipulation]

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paulpauper
Persuasion seems like a pseudoscience , much like hypnotherapy, telekinesis,
speed reading, ediic memory, etc. If were as effective as the people claim,
you could just persuade a million people to give you $1 and be a millionaire.
That example may seem contrived, but how hard should it be to persuade someone
to give someone as little as $1, especially with special persuasion
techniques? Surely that shouldn't be too hard. But that is what panhandlers
try do, so I think much of persuasion is just begging, or begging is the most
effective persuasion technique. If you keep pestering enough people to do
something, some may capitulate. There's not much science or any sort of
special 'social engineering' techniques involved in that. People think that
there is a science or special skill to being persuasive, but 4-year-olds and
beggars seem to excel at it.

People who are reasonably intelligent and competent are not going to fall for
these persuasion techniques...it's better to learn how to be more competent
than waste time trying to learn persuasion. Yeah, you can probably persuade a
stranger to give you a few dollar, but it won't work in situations where the
stakes are higher. Regarding Dukakis and the 1988 presidential debate,
attributing his loss to his answer is an example of the Post hoc ergo propter
hoc fallacy. Because he lost, pundit needs to work backwards to try to find a
reason why he lost, but that does not prove that his answer was why he lost.
Scott Adams (and this is where I disagree with him) attributes Trump's win to
special persuasion techniques, but Trump was going to get about 50% of the
vote (just by virtue of being that GOP nominee) regardless of any special
techniques. And also, if pursation were so effecvie, he why not just purade
everoyne watchign his Periscopte to give him a few dolalr.s Surely that shoudl
not be too hard.

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itronitron
'scientists say' << I guess I could either read the source material or just
wait a year and see another headline that refutes their conclusions.

~~~
cjohansson
that is a scientific fact, any refutations are more probable that no
refutations

