(Denver, Colorado) For nearly 40 years, Robert Cialdini has been the king of the psychology of persuasion. The American psychologist now wants to convince the population to change their habits to counter climate change.
“The behavioral changes needed to save the planet are important,” said the Arizona State University professor in an interview before his presentation at the AAAS meeting. “Disseminating information will not be enough. We need to motivate people to use this information. »
One of Mr. Cialdini’s studies compared the impact of two campaigns to raise awareness of water waste. The first indicated that 48% of students put into practice certain anti-waste behaviors such as turning off the tap while brushing their teeth. The second added that this proportion had increased by 37% over the past two years. The second campaign led to water consumption reduced by 30% compared to the first campaign.
This is the application of one of the six “principles of persuasion” described in 1984 by Mr. Cialdini in Influence, a book that has sold five million copies and been translated into 48 languages. “People are very sensitive to social norms,” he says. If minority behavior is increasingly widespread, it is tempting to adopt it, to avoid being among the last to not respect what seems to be becoming a universal norm. »
Marketing, advertising and sales
Mr. Cialdini decided to devote his career to the study of persuasion after being sold a subscription to Sports Illustrated at University. “I didn’t have a lot of money and didn’t have much interest in sports. But I generally had a hard time saying no. The seller told me that Sports Illustrated was considered the best sports magazine by experts in the field, that many of my neighbors in the college dorm had subscribed, and that it was the last day of a promotional rate. He had used three of the six principles that I came to identify in Influence : quote experts, invoke social norms and give the impression of scarcity. »
PHOTO FROM ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY SITE
The psychologist Robert Cialdini
To isolate these six principles, Mr. Cialdini enrolled in professional courses in fields where the ability to persuade others is crucial: sales, advertising, marketing and public relations. “Each area felt like it had a different recipe than the others,” he says. But I quickly understood that there were common elements, these six principles. »
The six principles of persuasion according to Robert Cialdini
- Reciprocity: If you give something to someone, they will feel obligated to give back.
- Shortage: If a good or service exists in limited quantity, it becomes more desirable.
- Authority: Expert support makes a proposal more compelling.
- Consistency: To gain acceptance for a big change, it is better to start with a small step. This is the “arm in the twister” principle.
- Affinity: We more often say yes to someone we like.
- Social reinforcement: If a behavior becomes more popular in society, it becomes more desirable.
Since the publication ofInfluence, Mr. Cialdini conducted several studies to confirm the validity of these six principles. For example, a waitress who gives mints with the bill has a higher tip (principle of reciprocity). Or, a doctor’s advice is more followed if he displays his diploma in his office (principle of authority). He was a “behavioral advisor” for the electoral campaigns of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
In 2016, he added a principle of “pre-suasion” to his six principles of persuasion: if we first establish proximity with the person we must convince, by showing them that we are part of a same group, persuasion is facilitated.
Skeptics
Can we use the science of persuasion to convince climate skeptics to adopt anti-climate change behaviors? “If it is simply a question of people who have well-established habits, we can try to appeal to social norms,” replies Mr. Cialdini. If they see that more and more people have changed their habits, for example setting the heating temperature lower at night, they might be willing to change. »
For people who question the scientific consensus that the planet is warming and that human activity is to blame, we can bring in a converted former skeptic to testify. “A climate skeptic who lost his home in unprecedented flooding could be convincing. »
We must also respond to misinformation not by ignoring it, but by demonstrating its falsity. “A counterargument is always more convincing than an argument,” says Mr. Cialdini. When we give the floor to a climate skeptic researcher, we must make it clear that this is a very minority point of view among scientists. But if we dismantle his argument, it will be more convincing for climate skeptics than if we simply reiterate the scientific climate consensus. »
Reproducibility crisis
For around ten years, behavioral psychology has been hit by a “reproducibility crisis”: several studies, often those carried out with students, have been contradicted. Some analyzes reported 50% of studies whose results could not be reproduced.
Does this call into question Mr. Cialdini’s theories? “The big lesson from the reproducibility crisis is the importance of doing studies in the real world, not just with students. But most of the faulty studies were poorly designed. If we only take studies with good methodology, 80% of the results hold up. And my studies have been reproduced several times. »
More science news from the AAAS meeting
The pain of middle age
PHOTO MARK BAKER, ASSOCIATED PRESS ARCHIVES
In all rich countries, generations are increasingly healthy. Everywhere but the United States, according to a new study from Arizona State University.
In all rich countries, generations are increasingly healthy. Everywhere but the United States, according to a new study from Arizona State University. At least when it comes to “mid-life pain”, which appears between the ages of 45 and 65. These non-specific pains are twice as common among Americans born in 1975 as among their compatriots born in 1950, having increased from 20% to 40% of the population. By comparison, in England, mid-life pain fell from 40% of the population for those born in 1940 to 25% for the generation born in 1975. The largely private health care system in the United States and individualism would explain this American particularity. The study unveiled at the AAAS meeting did not have Canadian data.
AI threatens endangered languages
PHOTO WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
The Munsee language of an Ontario indigenous group, spoken by fewer than ten people, was identified in 2010 by UNESCO as one of the most endangered in the world.
Artificial intelligence threatens the vitality of 99% of the world’s languages, which do not have large samples to train AI models like ChatGPT. And yet, AI could be part of the solution, says Sarah Moeller, a linguist at the University of Florida. During a presentation at the AAAS meeting, Mr.me Moeller says “generative” AI works much better in English than in other languages and is ineffective for 99% of the world’s languages. However, 30% to 90% of the world’s 7,000 languages are already threatened with disappearing during the 21st century.e century. If AI strengthens the vitality of dominant languages, there will be more disappearances. M’s solutionme Moeller: have the AI read a few dozen texts from each endangered language, to produce a grammar.
The protective effect of bilingualism
PHOTO GRAHAM HUGHES, CANADIAN PRESS ARCHIVES
Preliminary studies show that dementia rates are lower in countries with more than one official language.
Bilingualism pushes back the age of a dementia diagnosis by four to six years, according to Viorica Marian, a psycholinguist at Northwestern University in Chicago. Preliminary studies also show that the rate of dementia is lower in countries with more than one official language. The next step in M’s researchme Marian is to demonstrate that the more languages we know, the lower the risk of dementia, and that the higher the number of languages spoken in a country, the lower the rate of dementia, she explained during a session of the AAAS meeting.