There are times when you need to be able to influence others (at work, on important issues, your children,…) and not just their actions but their beliefs too.

You could use reciprocity, social proof, authority,… There are many ways to influence others. This one is based on Cognitive Dissonance and I particularly like it because it can have positive long-lasting effects on people – if used positively!

First, let’s review briefly what Cognitive Dissonance is. We previously talked about Cognitive Dissonance to highlight how it can help promote change and kick out unhealthy habits (read the previous article here: Cognitive Dissonance: The Lies We Tell Ourselves And How They Can Help Us Change).

Cognitive Dissonance is something we all experience when we have conflicting thoughts or our actions do not match our thoughts and values (smoking, despite knowing how harmful it is for instance).

Cognitive Dissonance causes discomfort.

So we find a way to reach harmony once again by changing our thoughts, our values or our behavior.

The Basic Way To Use Cognitive Dissonance To Influence Others

There’s a basic way to use Cognitive Dissonance to influence others: simply by introducing a contrary thought.

Imagine, you have a friend who dislikes somebody you quite like. Drop in the conversation an example of them being helpful and nice. And leave it at that. Your friend will have to struggle with the dissonance and might end up starting to change their opinion.

A similar technique is used by teachers when they asked students to express their beliefs about a subject before giving them new contrary information. The students have to resolve the conflict and, guided by the teacher, learn in the process.

This is a good technique but it requires you to be present to monitor the outcome.

For a more profound and surer way to influence and change others’ beliefs and even beliefs system (which is what I want to talk about in this article), we need to get back to how Cognitive Dissonance was discovered.

The First Experiment Of Effort Justification

Leon Fistinger (who later coined the phrase Cognitive Dissonance) ran an experiment in the 1950s where he asked students to spend an hour on a very boring and repetitive task. Then, he asked them to rate the task. Before doing so, two thirds of the students were asked for a favor: to try to convince new recruits that the task was interesting. Half was paid $1 for the favour, half was paid $20.

The students who ended up rating the task as the most interesting were the students paid… $1.

Why?

Because they’re the one who experienced the most cognitive dissonance. They needed to reconcile the most to themselves what they were saying to the potential new recruits versus what they had actually experienced. So they convinced themselves that the task was actually interesting.

The ones paid $20 had less need to convince themselves that the task was interesting. They were doing it for the money.

So, How Do We Use Cognitive Dissonance To Influence Others?

We need to follow the precepts of the experiment:

• Use only a small amount of pressure to get someone to do something that is contrary to their private opinion.In the experiment, they were asked for a ‘favor’. Using more pressure than is needed will actually make it less likely that they will change their mind about it.
• Make sure that what they do cannot be undone.
• Make sure there is no external justification. The reward must be small.

People will change their beliefs because they feel they don’t have enough reason/justification for acting the way they did.

A Few Concrete Examples

There are of course lots of examples I could throw at you but here are just a couple…

Creating motivation for learning

In order to create a real motivation for learning, research has proved children must be encouraged to learn and must be offered no reward (or very small ones). The ones who receive big rewards become uninterested in the subject once the promise of a reward is taken away. Whereas the ones who had received no reward have come to enjoy learning for its own sake.

I found this particularly interesting as a mom. My children complained many times at how little money they received (compared to their friends) when presenting a good report. We explained they were learning for themselves, not the money. They’ve stopped asking but the good reports have kept coming. 🙂

Promoting healthy and social behaviors

If you ask people who do not follow health and social behaviors to talk to others about the virtues of these principles, they will end up applying these principles themselves (for example things like using condoms, not littering, anti-bullying and healthy eating).

Final Words: Keep It Positive And Beware How Powerful This Can Be

Unfortunately, as well as being a great way to create positive change and promote good habits and behaviors, as with all understanding of technology, there is a dark side if used in the wrong way. This is so powerful and efficient a method that it has been used for good and also for bad results. For example it has been used by sects during war times to brainwash people and convert them to their own ideologies (using small rewards and incremental favors). People cannot attribute their acts to the small rewards so they convince themselves they have really changed their beliefs.

So, be wary of this.

Don’t let it happen to you and, of course, show caution and ethics when influencing others.