Catalyst - Jonah Berger Page 0,13
a declaration that’s imposed on them, it’ll be a shift they feel they participated in. They’ve already committed to the conclusion, which will make them more willing to go along with the work to get there—which will speed the change.
Ask, don’t tell.II
Highlight a Gap
Giving people a menu, or asking rather than telling, avoids usurping their sense of control. But another route to self-persuasion is to highlight a gap—a disconnect between someone’s thoughts and actions or a disparity between what they might recommend for others versus do themselves.
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Can I get a light?
Talk to any smoker, even someone who smokes casually, and they’ve probably heard this question at least once if not hundreds of times. It’s a modest request from one fraternity member to another, like asking someone to hold the elevator. Most people are happy to oblige.
But when smokers in Thailand were stopped on the street and asked this question, their responses were nowhere near as positive. “I’m not giving it to you,” said one smoker. “Cigarettes contain poison,” responded another. “They drill a hole in your throat for cancer. Aren’t you afraid of surgery?” lectured a third. Smoking makes you die faster, leads to lung cancer, and causes a variety of other ailments, they replied.
These weren’t public health workers talking. These were everyday smokers who were currently in mid-cigarette themselves. Yet they were inspired to rant about how smoking was a terrible idea.
And they did so because of the person who asked.
Because the person who made the request was a child. A small boy wearing a monkey T-shirt, or a girl in pigtails. Each no more than four feet tall and barely over ten years old. The kids pulled cigarettes from their pockets and politely asked smokers for a light.
After being rejected and often chastised for their request, the kids turned to walk away. But before they did, they handed the smoker a piece of paper. A small note, folded into fourths, almost like a secret passed under the table at school. “You worry about me,” it said, “but why not about yourself?”
And at the bottom was a toll-free number smokers could call to kick the habit.III
For more than twenty-five years, the Thai Health Promotion Foundation had promoted this free hotline to help smokers quit. But despite investing millions of dollars in advertising and other persuasive messaging, few people called. Smokers either ignored the campaigns or didn’t give the messages much thought. They knew smoking was harmful but weren’t doing anything about it.
So, in 2012, the foundation tried reducing roadblocks. They realized that the most convincing speaker wasn’t the foundation or celebrities; it was the smokers themselves. To really quit, people had to convince themselves. The foundation designed the Smoking Kid campaign with that insight in mind.
Almost every smoker who received the note from a child paused and threw away their cigarette. But no one threw away the brochure.
With a meager budget of only $5,000 and no media spending at all, the campaign had an enormous impact. Calls to the helpline jumped more than 60 percent. A video filming these interactions went viral, gaining more than 5 million views in barely more than a week. Even months later, calls to the helpline remained up by almost a third. Many called it the most effective anti-smoking ad ever.
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The Smoking Kid campaign worked because it highlighted a gap, a disconnect between what smokers were suggesting to others (kids) and what they were doing themselves.
People strive for internal consistency. They want their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors to align. Someone who says they care about the environment tries to reduce their carbon footprint. Someone who preaches the virtues of honesty tries not to tell lies.
Consequently, when attitudes and behaviors conflict, people get uncomfortable. And to reduce this discomfort, or what scientists call cognitive dissonance, people take steps to bring things back in line.
Thai smokers faced exactly this discord. They were already smoking, but after telling kids smoking was bad they were stuck. Their attitudes and behavior weren’t lining up. To reduce that dissonance, something had to give. Either they started telling kids that smoking isn’t so bad after all, or they took a closer look at their own behavior and thought harder about quitting. Which was exactly what they did.
Researchers used a similar idea to get people to save water.17 California was facing one of its periodic water shortages, and university administrators were desperate to get students to save water by taking shorter showers. Traditional persuasive approaches had some effect,