Changing anyone’s mind is a difficult task at best. It’s hard to find the best way to make your case, and a new study reveals that persuasion is only partly about your words, anyway — the way you say them provides clues that tell an audience if you’re worth listening to in the first place.
The researchers, Juliana Schroeder of the University of California at Berkeley and faculty at the University of Chicago, got the idea for their study after one investigator’s odd experience, according to Schroeder, who emailed the Washington Post:
“One of us read a speech excerpt that was printed in a newspaper from a politician with whom he strongly disagreed. The next week, he heard the exact same speech clip playing on a radio station. He was shocked by how different his reaction was toward the politician when he read the excerpt compared to when he heard it. When he read the statement, the politician seemed idiotic, but when he heard it spoken, the politician actually sounded reasonable.”
The team studied 297 people’s responses as they read, watched, or listened to opinions regarding topics we all tend to feel strongly about: war, abortion, and rap music. Afterward, researchers asked each subject how they felt about the person making the argument, interested in seeing if that opinion was influenced by the medium of presentation.
In general, and regardless of the form of delivery, people tended not to think too highly of someone voicing an opinion with which they disagreed. The study quotes the late George Carlin’s insight, “Have you ever noticed when you’re driving that anyone who’s driving slower than you is an idiot and anyone driving faster than you is a maniac?
” The study asserts it’s all about “dehumanization—that is, representing others as having a…The post To Convince Someone, Talk, Don’t Write appeared first on FeedBox.