Keywords:: PermanentNote makePublic
Tags: persuasion Mind Attention
Reference: R: Pre-Suasion by Robert Cialdini
“Nothing in life is as important as you think it is while you are thinking about it.” (p.33)
What’s salient is deemed important and what’s focal is deemed causal. On the other hand, what's not visible is as good as non existent.
Why? Because distinct objects remove the need for your mind to pick—you're saving energy (PN: To persuade help the mind save energy). Your mind will prioritize things that are easy to focus on. Therefore, anything that draws attention can make people overestimate its importance.
Cialdini describes it like this, frequently the factor most likely to determine a person’s choice in a situation is not the one that counsels most wisely there; it is one that has been elevated in attention (and, thereby, in privilege) at the time of the decision.
Unfortunately, this means that if you're not cautious, noise will win with merit. The one who speaks the loudest will win over the one that speaks the smartest.
What are the ways to ease your mind doing the picking?
Repetition. Repeated exposure to an object makes us more likely to like it and therefore lend it attention. (is this related to the familiarity bias?) For example, people who are repeatedly exposed to ads of particular products are more likely to like them more, even if they don't recall seeing the ads.
The power of repeated exposure is one of the reasons our environment impacts us so severely.
Is repeated exposure like a workout to the brain? Every time we see some information, we trigger an area in the brain associated with it (and other ideas that are associated with that idea). This makes it stronger. It's like a bicep curl. When it's getting stronger, it's getting more easily accessible to the mind. And your brain will prefer things that are more easily accessible because it wants to save energy.
Novelty. Inserting novelty makes a thing stand out more, which increases attention. Make something original or unfamiliar or surprising and you'll likely get attention that can then translate into importance.
Personalization. Personalization increases attention as well. At the end of the day, people care about themselves the most. If you can tailor your message to your recipient (for example, by referencing their name, sex, age, faith, etc. or by adjusting the language to make it more emotional or rational, for example, by either "I feel" or "I think" or playing music), they're more likely to lend it attention, find it interesting, take it seriously.
Completion (the Zeigarnik effect). Unfinished tasks linger in our attention because our minds craves closure. People who either planned to do something and didn't finish it or have been pulled away from a task they had been engaged in are more likely to think about it, remember details.
This can aid creativity: PN: Times of slack for serendipity
Here I must write about the benefits and dangers
Relevant notes:
PN: Prominence leads to importance: When you focus on something it gains importance. Therefore, if you want to be more powerful then make others talk about you more. If you want to cause people to forget about something then stop bringing it up.
Your mind prioritizes what draws the most attention,
Furthermore, emotional messaging is more prioritized it requires less energy. Is this true? Are we prioritizing emotional messaging over rational messaging?
Does emotional messaging have a differentiation effect and therefore decreases friction?
Are Cialdini's principles about motivation or ability?
Psychological tricks that tap into the shortcuts will also be prioritized.
For example, our mind will prefer things (objects or ideas) that are distinct, rather than vague. Therefore, the more something stands out, the higher the probability that the mind will directs its limited cognitive resources to it (more here: PN: What is focal is important).