Seven Magic Laws Of Influence – Authority
Beware Of Those In Power
The power to persuade has long been a sought after skill. One thing that many erroneously believe is that we instinctively know how to persuade, since we experience being persuaded on a daily basis.
The bad news is that since we are persuaded on an automatic and unconscious level, we don’t have any conscious idea of how it happens.
The good news is that there are scientifically proven techniques and methods to powerfully enhance your ability to not only persuade others, but to resist persuasion yourself.
One powerful law of persuasion is Authority.
Simply stated, any message coming from a person or group in authority carries much more weight than another source.
Authority carries a lot of weight in our minds, as it takes away the responsibility and burden to independently evaluate all the information and come up with our own conclusion. It is a very useful shortcut for our brain.
If our hunter/gatherer ancestors had to stop and have a lengthy meeting every hour when they were out chasing a woolly mammoth, our species wouldn’t have lasted very long. It is deep in our evolutionary history to crave a leader whenever a group assembles.
Social experiments have shown this again and again.
Every social group has an “alpha” or leader. Even in studies with high school students has shown this. Researchers separated the students by social status, and placed them in different cabins. Even in the group that was taken from the those least likely to become leaders, a leader emerged. It would appear that every one of us has the capability for leadership should the need arise.
So it makes sense that when there is a clear leader, or somebody with obvious authority status, we shut down our conscious thinking, and obediently follow.
In a shocking experiment done at a hospital, this was proven to be unsettling true. A “Doctor” would call a nurse, and introduce him self as Dr. So and So. The nurse had never heard of him, but she took him at his word that he was a doctor and therefore an authority figure. The nurses were directed by these “Doctors” (who were actually researchers) to give drugs to patients that would be potentially dangerous. Most of the nurses complied.
Of course, there were other researchers standing by to make sure the nurse never got far, and to explain that it was a social experiment approved by hospital administration. Patients were never in danger.
The nurses, however, were horrified that somebody claiming to be a doctor could so easily persuade them to give potentially life threatening medication to patients.
In what is likely the most horrifying experiment in recent years was done in the fifties.
A “Doctor,” wearing a white lab coat would take recruits, or test subjects, and ask them to participate in a new study that was investigating the effects of punishment and learning.
The subjects would give an electric shock to another participant whenever they got the answer wrong to a math problem.
The real study was to see how much of a “shock” (they were not real, the “subject” was faking it) they would give to the subject, before they quit.
What they found was so horrifying that psychologists agreed never to perform this experiment again. At least in the United States.
Many of the shocks given, if they were real, were enough to kill the subject. The subject, at one point, begged and pleaded for the experiment to end. The researcher merely told the participants to continue. Very few walked away. Most continued to deliver deadly shocks, even when the subject pretended to have heart trouble.
Fellow researchers were terribly dismayed that the normal, average person on the street could deliver deadly electric shocks merely at the word of an authority figure in a white suit.
This experiment was widely used as evidence that humans are one step away from brutal murder, and shed some light on how a whole nation of normal folks like you and me could be persuaded that killing Jews was perfectly normal.
While such extremes are thankfully rare, this particular law of persuasion is everywhere you look. It’s not uncommon for potential jurors to excuse themselves by saying something like “he’s in court so he must be guilty.” In this case it’s the authority of the situation that condemns the defendant before the trial begins.
Doctors, Lawyers, Police Officers, Teachers, all have a responsibility to wield their persuasive power with due diligence, as words spoken can have drastic consequences.
If you are a salesperson, quoting an authority figure can give your product a significant persuasive boost. It’s not uncommon for web sites selling things to have emblems from major networks, and certificates of authenticity to lend authority to their web sites.
If you are interested in defending against this, take a step back, put the message into the mouth of another, less authoritative person, and see how it sounds. As tough as it may be, the best defense against this law of persuasion is to simply think for yourself, and be prepared to go against the crowd that may follow a particular authority figure like sheep to a slaughter.
