March 9th, 2010
In this post we will be dealing with the second and third components of the CAPA model, which are attention and positive affect. As you can imagine, if you’re message is going to be persuasive, it needs to gain their attention first. Think about it for a second… Which audience do you think would be more palatable: One that is hanging on your every word, or one that is yawning and looking at their watches. Now your content and subject matter is a constant. Although you can indeed make changes in the ways in which it is presented, it “is what it is.” In other words, a presentation about life insurance can only be made so exciting at the end of the day. With that being said, you can maximize it’s potential for gaining your audience’s attention by varying the way in which it is presented. So, let’s take a look at some ways in which this can be accomplished:
- Be careful not to dwell on a specific subject too long. A study performed at the Helsinki Institute shows us that an average adult displays approximately 4 – 8 second bursts of attention before a correction occurs. Now I am not suggesting that you only talk in 4 – 8 second increments, but try to keep your talking to 30 second bursts. This is accomplished by maintain shorter points or using smaller bits of information.
- Use questions to keep the audience engaged in the material. This ties into their attention span and is a great mechanism to keep them interested.
- Be as poignant with the information your presenting as possible. What I mean by this is that you should make it “hit home” with your audience. If you are talking about life insurance to a group that is in their 30’s to 40’s, you should be talking about benefits that pertain to the surviving family, as opposed to funeral costs and retirement.
- Speak to your demographic by using their “language.” This is quite simple, using verbiage and content that is generally in line with your demographic will go a long way toward “speaking” to them at a subconscious level. It will be considerably more digestible and as a result keep their attention.
- Now I do realize that the content is a steady, but if possible use specific content components that are organically interesting to your audience. If not, try to present it in a way that can make it more interesting, such as applying the information to something that would be of interest to them.
- Use pictures or video if at possible during your presentation. As you can well imagine, we receive more stimulation from visual information than all others.
Ok, now that you have their attention, you need to focus on creating positive affect. What is positive affect? Well, at a basic level this refers to positive feelings that are associated with a stimulus. Now aside from the obvious advantages that are afforded us when we can make people feel good, there is another more direct reason to create this. In short, decisions about information are made based on the affect associate with the information. The act of persuasion is based on influencing decisions, isn’t it? So if you are going to direct your groups decision making, you will need to create positive affect toward your content. If you are able to create positive affect in your audience with your presentation, you will exponentially increase the chances of winning them over. So what can you do to accomplish this? Here are some suggestions:
- Use stories that represent positively valenced emotion – Robert Plutchik’s Psychoevolutionary Theory states that there are 8 basic (foundational) emotions that we are all born with. The positive ones are trust, joy, surprise and anticipation. The negatively valenced ones are anger, disgust, sadness and fear. In using stories that employ one or more of the positive ones, you can help to create positive affect.
- Use metaphoric stories that closely represent your audience’s demographic/position in life. Likewise, you can use characters that are analogous (at some level) to your audience.
- Use demographic-compatible humor ( judiciously) to directly create positive affect. Be careful when doing this however; refrain from political, religious, racial and sex-based humor.
- Used judiciously, ingratiation in the form of flattery can be good. Especially if it is based on truly exemplary or unique characteristics and attributes that your audience possesses. Be careful to use this only when extremely applicable and don’t dwell on it when presented, only mention in “passing.”
- Providing an overtly positive future forecast regarding your proposal is very powerful. This notion takes advantage of our psychological immune system, which helps us to focus on positive, optimistic predictions. Your forecast will provide fodder that can serve to “validate” any subconsciously generated optimism.
A very important part of creating positive affect lies in the way in which you look. I realize that some of you may not be so pleased to hear this, however research demonstrates this very aptly. Both social and evolutionary psychologies have determined that attraction plays a very large role in not only establishing credibility, but also in how much the audience likes the presenter. Now I am not suggesting that you get plastic surgery, however there are attributes that can easily be modified to help in one’s attractiveness. They are:
- Establishing symmetry and matching in the clothing that you are wearing. Ensure that the colors match and are generally neutral, that there are no wrinkles and it is congruent with the style of the people being presented to.
- Dress approximately 10% above the people you are presenting to. This will ensure a congruence between yourself and them in their subconscious mind.
- Ensure good hygiene, including hair (combed/brushed, parted on side or in the middle or in a ponytail), teeth whitened, facial hair (shaven), etc…
- Similarity in mannerisms such as speech, jargon and movement can help considerably as well.
- Portray confidence in your speech and mannerisms, which is a function of the above and the nonverbal displays you use. We will discuss this further in the next post when we talk about delivery of the presentation.
- To err is human, and being human is good… If you are too polished, this can make you “inaccessible” and can result in alienation from your audience. It is OK to fumble a few words or to not know every single fact and if necessary, you should force a few if it doesn’t come naturally. This will serve to further endear you (as the speaker) to your audience by being “one of them.”
Alright, now you have some great foundation to work with in gaining the attention of your audience and creating positive affect in them with your presentation. Unfortunately, your not out of the woods yet though. You still have write your presentation and deliver it. Not to worry though, we will deal with that in my next post.
David J. Parnell | The Communication Expert
Categories: Cognitive Psychology, Communication Strategy, Effective Communication, Evolutionary Psychology, Hypnotic Language, Persuasion, Questioning Strategy, Social Psychology
Tags: attention, Communication Expert, Communication Strategies, effective communication skills, group presentation, Hypnotic Language, Metaphor, Persuasion, positive affect, Professional Series, Subconscious
February 15th, 2010
The CAPA Model and Effective Presentations
Inc. magazine interviewed me last week as part of an article about improving presentation skills. As a part of my preparation for the meeting, I put together a quick outline to help my interviewer better understand the content I wanted to review. As a loyal reader of my blog, I thought/think that you deserve to benefit from this just as much as the Inc. readers. Likewise, it is unrealistic to think that they will place all of this information in the article. As such, the Inc. readers that have found their way over can benefit from garnering the complete resource. So, I am giving you access to the structure of one of my most coveted presentation models, The CAPA model. CAPA stands for credibility, attention, and positive affect. These are the three most important end goals that one should have in mind while creating and executing a presentation.
I loathe over simplicity, so in giving you the structure alone, please don’t run away from this thinking that you have a silver bullet in hand. This is however an amazingly functional structural guideline, and the “meat” will need to be filled in by yourself (or my if I’m working with you) regarding the specifics of your presentation. Filling in the meat is really where I earn the considerable sums of money I’m paid. With that being said, I am happy to lend the structural components and some vital information regarding how best to “fill them in.” So without further adieu, let’s begin the three part series by talking about credibility and a few of the many attributes that comprise it.
Credibility
Credibility, as defined by Wikipedia, refers to the objective and subjective components of the believability of a source or message. Now there are a number of other definitions on the net, but in my opinion this is works very well for our purposes here. This is because credibility really is a combination of objective and subjective information. This fact creates a much more complex scenario when attempting to achieve credibility. And why are we trying to achieve credibility in the first place? Well in short, this is one of the most important criteria for achieving behavioral compliance from the person/s you are attempting to persuade. Without digging too deeply, there has been considerable research performed on not only the importance of maintaining credibility, but also the factors/attributes that help to comprise it. So feel free to do your own research into the topic, for the time being though suffice it to say that it is highly important.
Some of the objective attributes that help to create credibility in a speaker are among the obvious. They range from academic degrees and/or titles to specific status symbols such as awards or memberships to illustrative accomplishments such as writing your own book, founding a successful company, etc. Now it should go without saying that if you possess any of these accolades, positioning them into the presentation in some gratuitous way will greatly increase your perceived credibility. But aside from these objective attributes, credibility is determined by some other specific subjective attributes. So let’s take a look at a few of these…
Don't be Pinocchio, establishing credibility is vital.
First, your messages and the information you are conveying should not be one-sided. In other words, they shouldn’t overtly appear as though you want to change the attendee’s attitudes. Generally, in taking a very weighted approach toward a particular side, the natural reaction of your audience will be to oppose you. The reason’s being that at a subconscious level, a one-sided approach is not only a long swing on the pendulum from the center of status quo but also an implication of the need for decision on their part. This can serve to up-regulate personal defenses which will result in their mind filtering information in a way that opposes this potential attack on “freedom” by forcing a decision. To buffer this one-sided attack, simply address both sides of the proverbial coin and provide more evidence for the side you are endorsing.- Second, the speed of your speech can have a profound impact on your perceived credibility. You see, the speed of information recall and presentation is important in that it is indicative of intelligence in the mind of the perceiver. Does it factually indicate intelligence? No, it doesn’t… There are plenty of slow talking professors who would make your head spin. With that being said, the average human will lend more credibility to someone who speaks just a bit faster than the average individual. So the bottom line is that faster and more succinct speakers are more credible. You can aid this ability considerably by establishing fluency with the material and the priming of that information before your meeting.
- Fluency with information – This is simple, study the information in detail ahead of time and be certain you understand it thoroughly. Before your actual presentation, give it to someone who doesn’t know the information at all and have them ask questions to expose your “blind sides.” By practicing and filling in your blind spots, you will maintain a strong grasp on the material.
- Priming – Although there are a few different processes and components involved in memory recall, a specific one that you can control is known as activation potential. This refers to the threshold of “energy” that needs to be met in order for the memory to enter into consciousness. As you can imagine, the lower the threshold, the easier the memory is to recall. The easier the memory is to recall, the quicker it will be made declarative to you so that you can speak about it. One of the processes that increases activation potential is known as priming, which is the activation of the memory in the recent past. This will occur (ideally) as close to the point of necessity as possible. A method to help prime yourself is known as the question dump. In this exercise, you write down as many questions as you can possibly concoct that pertain to your presentation. This will be a brainstorm of sorts, but will be focused onto the presentation rather than letting the brain just run wild. So just let your brain go with it and keep writing… By performing this in close temporal proximity to the meeting, you will very effectively prime the material in your brain.
Again, keep in mind that credibility is the result of the culmination of a number of different attributes, skills and information. The above points are a strong point of reference from which to begin creating your own credibility. In my next post I move onto the next portion of the CAPA model, which is attention. We will talk about what attention is and what you can do to maintain it…
David J. Parnell | The Communication Expert
Categories: Communication Strategy, Effective Communication, Persuasion, Social Psychology
Tags: credibility, effective presentation, fluency, priming, The CAPA Model
January 21st, 2010
My apologies to my devoted followers for my absence. In the end however, my time away will serve to benefit you… The better portion of last year was spent on writing a book regarding strategic interpersonal communication. It is entitled The Communication Genome Project and has combined the fields of cognitive, social, developmental and evolutionary psychology for two major purposes:
- First, I show you, step by step how “thought” is generated and information is processed by the brain.
- Second, I break all of the aspects of communication down into their individual parts so as to make “systems” for using them appropriately.
The term “appropriately” meaning strategically and effectively by taking advantage of the processes by which the human brain functions. I am in the editing stages at this point and the book has grown to be a comprehensive, 900 page text book that addresses every single aspect of functional communication. This is my opinion (so it is biased 
), but based on all of my research and reading, there is no other text available today that can even approach what I have written here. The proof will lie in the proverbial pudding once it has been published. I hope to be back to my typical blogging schedule shortly… In the mean time, please feel free to continue contacting me directly.
David J. Parnell
Categories: Uncategorized
June 22nd, 2009
Mood Congruency and Its Effect On Our Communication
The Effect of Mood Valence on Memory Recall and Communication.
Have you ever noticed that when you are depressed that pretty much everything seems depressing? You may look at a couple happily walking down the street and all you are thinking about is how they are eventually going to get into an argument and break up… Or how they will eventually cheat on each other and end the relationship. Or maybe you are watching your children play and rather than thinking about how wonderful it is that they are happy, all you can think about is how sad it is that they will eventually grow up and leave the nest…
As you probably know by now, the way that our mind makes sense out of things or draws “meaning” from what it is experiencing, is by relating the information it is receiving to semantic, episodic and autobiographical memories that it has stored away. It is like a big filing system in a computer and when it receives a new experience it needs to go into the files to look at similar experiences to see “how this turns out…” if you will.
When your mind is routing around in it’s own filing system, what is very interesting is that there are many possible alternatives from which it can make sense out of the current experience. In other words, this is not a black and white search that will draw up “the exact, uniquely correct” piece of data that will help make sense of things. Experience is indeed subjective, and it is subjective for this very reason. The meaning that a given experience has is dependent not only upon the context it is occurring in but also upon what experiences it is related to… So the question becomes, how does our brain determine what experiences to relate this information/experience to?
Now this is, as you can imagine, a very loaded question and inherently has no simple answer. However, one attribute that is indeed a reliable and integral part of determining which types of memories are recalled is found in what is known as Mood Congruency. The term “mood congruency” refers to a process whereby a specific mood will evoke the recall of memories that are consistent with that very mood. In other words, if you are happy, then you will automatically recall happy memories and sad memories will become more repressed.
In an example given by J. M. G. Williams, (Professor of Clinical Psychology and Wellcome Principal Research Fellow at the University of Oxford) he describes a situation with a depressed patient that he worked with regarding her recollection of going swimming in her past. When she was depressed, she would describe the event as being stressful and humiliating and could really only think about how terrible she looked in a bathing suit. Interesting enough, when she was happy she would recall her swimming experience as being fun and really enjoyable…So why does this occur exactly? How is our brain creating this looping system?
Well it turns out that the culprit of mood congruency lies in the actual encoding of the memories in the first place… in 1982 a very bright Professor of Psychology from the University of York by the name of Alan Baddley stated this very clearly. When human’s find themselves in an “emotional” state, whether it be happy or sad, the cognitive material that is surrounding them is encoded in a way that is RELATED to the person’s current mental state. What this means is that the context in which an experience occurs is encoded INTERACTIVELY rather than simply in an additive fashion. As a direct result of the way in which the information is encoded, it’s future recall is made significantly easier when the person is in a similar state of mind. In other words, a depressed state will encode information in a depressed way and cause the person to recall this depressed information easier the next time they are depressed.
In an amazing FMRI study performed out of London, participants encoded (put to memory) positive and negative words and then were tested for their subsequent recall. The recall was performed during a number of induced positive and negative moods to see what was happening in the participants brains during their recall. There were two separate encoding “nodes” if you will that they were interested in watching. There are the subgenual cingulated which is associated with the encoding of positively valenced items and the posterior-lateral orbitofrontal cortex which is associated with the encoding of negatively valenced items. Their prediction what that where one was more active during encoding of a word, the same would be more active during the mood congruent retrieval of that same word…
Well their FMRI results showed just that. The node specific encoding of an item showed much more up-regulation activity during attempts to retrieve the same information during mood congruent conditions. In other words, the way a word was encoded dictated the way in which it was retrieved… Why is this important? Well when you are communicating with someone, isn’t it important to know not only what type of information they will be representing in their own speech but also how they will be processing your communication as well?
Have you ever noticed that when you are in an argument that it almost always spirals into itself and implodes into an un-constructive mess? While you are arguing, have you noticed how easily everything comes to mind that the other person did in the pass that made you mad? Or how about their uncanny ability to recall everything YOU did that made them mad? Or how about communicating with a depressed friend. When you are talking to them about how things “aren’t’ so bad” and how they “should cheer up”, isn’t it frustrating how they just continually produce “reasons” why things aren’t that good?
Now you know the reason why… It is NOT their fault. This is simply a naturally occurring neural mechanism that is working in an automatic and covert fashion that is keeping them in their current mental state. So, the question becomes “How do we deal with this from a communication stand point”.
That is a complex question and the notion of aptly dealing with it in a single post is almost absurd. That being said, I will give you a few tips on how to be more effective.
1. In a heated situation, your best bet is to simply walk away for a bit of time so that things can cool off. Although anger is a mental state, just like any other emotion it also involves hormones and bodily chemicals that are creating internal sensations. Unless you are a very skilled communicator and are effective in talking someone “down from a ledge”, you should agree to leave things alone until the two of you are more relaxed. Continuing on in a heated discussion will only snowball and result in exacerbating the situation.
2. In a situation where you are dealing with depression, try to get the person “away” for a bit. This means get them out of the house for a walk or anything else that involves activity. Depression is often a symptom of a person’s bodily chemical composition at the given time. Exercise, or any other form of movement caused the release of both serotonin and dopamine into the brain and body. Although a simple walk won’t make them ecstatic, they will indeed begin to move from their depressed state as a result of it. This in turn can help facilitate the flow of more constructive memories and information into their working memory.
3. In a situation of happiness…. Enjoy it!
Mood congruence is a very real and important communication challenge that needs to be paid close attention to… not only in the people you communicate with but also in yourself while communicating.
To learn more about how the brain works to better your understanding of how to develop effective communication skills, please explore the rest of my blog The Communication Expert.
The Communication Expert | David J. Parnell
The Communication Expert Blog
Categories: Cognitive Psychology, Communication Strategy, Effective Communication, Listening Strategies, Neurology / Neurolinguistics, Nonverbal Communication / Body Language, Persuasion, Psychological Platform, Questioning Strategy, Social Psychology
Tags: Brain, Categorization, cognitive dissonance, communication, Communication Expert, David J Parnell, Effective Communication, effective communication skills, effective listening, elicitation, Emotions, Feelings, Listening Strategies, Listening Strategy, Neural Net, Persuasion, Subconscious
June 19th, 2009
Communication Con-Men. How can you tell if they are really an expert?
ARE THEY AN EXPERT OR NOT?
This is a touchy subject as you can imagine… Why? Because I am going to blow the lid off of the communication, sales, relationship and persuasion industries by saying what I am about to say. Now let me forewarn you, there may be a bit of an edge to the tonality of this writing. I may be blowing my horn a bit as well here so please give me a bit of room to run with this… This is a response to all of the email I get from dissatisfied people who have been swindled on someone else’s informational products or coaching services. So please, don’t shoot the messenger (well sort of… )
Let me start out with explaining what the average person wants when they are seeking information to help them better communicate. When I am speaking about the average American, I am talking about the guy or girl who gets up in the morning, has their coffee, does the 9 – 5 and comes back home just to do it all over again. Whenever possible they will engage in forms of escapism to more enjoyably help pass the time… This person, the average human, at the subconscious level wants “relief” when they are out looking for information on the web.
They have had some troubles as of recent, whether they be with work or at home and have decided that the ability to communicate better is the answer to pacifying those problems. Sounds good so far, right? Well here is the catch, and pay close attention to this as it will be a life changing epiphany for most people reading it. At a subconscious level, relief can and does attractively come in the form of ABSOLUTION OF RESPONSIBILITY.
IN OTHER WORDS, PEOPLE DON’T WANT AN ACTUAL SOLUTION, THEY WANT ABSOLUTION…
And absolution is usually packaged in the form of a fluffy, easy to follow, 1,2,3 methodology that some yokel created for the masses. The psychological term for the mechanism that drives us to take this route is known as The Least Energy Expenditure Principle. The laymen term for this is “path of least resistance”…
“Well I bought that CD set and tried my best, it just didn’t work out…” “I did my part, they just didn’t do theirs…” “I used that silver bullet technique and for some odd reason it didn’t work… oh well, I tried.” I am sure you have heard it before and unless you start to pay attention you will hear it again…
YOU NEED TO UNDERSTAND… THAT THIS ISN’T YOUR FAULT!
From an evolutionary stand point, we are psychologically set up to subconsciously take this route whenever possible. The end result is a drive to seek out absolution rather solution. The problem for you as a potential client is that most “experts” know this, and they take advantage of it… A fraction of the coaches and experts on the market today offer any real solution at all. I am basing this on the umpteen thousands of books, websites, training courses and conversations I have had with the so called experts. In my opinion, effective communication can only begin with a thorough understanding of how the mind works. Only then can you begin to prescribe effective solutions.
So you want to be an expert? Or maybe you just want the help of an expert, whether that be in the form of coaching or informational products. Well let me help you out by showing you what a communication expert SHOULD know…
- They need to understand how a thought is created from a neurological and psychological level.
- They need to understand how information is gathered, processed and stored as memory.
- They need to understand how that information is recalled and used as reference information.
- They need to understand how the explicit neurological components of working memory function to create our consciousness and how they help in dictating attention and action.
- They need to understand how the implicit mind drives behavior, hijacks attention and functionally interacts with the explicit mind to help in dictating attention and action.
- They need to understand how beliefs, values, goals and strategies are created, stored and how they interactively function with each other in dictating both action and communication.
- They need to understand how various communication components (such as the Meta Model, Milton Model, Presuppositions, Quantum Linguistics, Pragmatics, Tonality, Body Language, Priming, Framing, Etc…) effect the thought process of the people receiving them.
- They need to have real world experience in applying these skills and knowledge.
- They need to understand how ALL of these things work together to form effective OR ineffective communication, and
- They need to be able to assess the specific needs of a given situation and prescribe a functional system for the remedying of the ailment that this situation is creating.
That prescription can be anything from an effective negotiation strategy for closing a multimillion dollar corporate transaction to an effective plan for fostering a romantic relationship or just getting the best deal on buying a new car. Regardless of the problem, they need to be able to use this battery of knowledge to give solutions, not just absolution’s.
In my opinion there are only a handful of people that I have run into who possess this combination of knowledge and skills. Betty Sue who has soft touched her way out of an HR department into a communication coaching role HARDLY has these qualifications. The hard charging corporate sales guy who has decided to try his hand at communication coaching, again, hardly has these qualifications. Or how about the person that simply decided to leave Corporate America, took a coaching certification class and started charging money for their coaching services? Do you really think they are qualified? The answer is NO on all accords. So where do I stand?
- I’ve read hundreds of books AND thousands of academic studies in the following disciplines:
- Neurology
- Cognitive Psychology
- Social Psychology
- Developmental Psychology
- Evolutionary Psychology
- Linguistics
- Body Language and Facial Expression
- My posts and writings are proof of the depth, scope and strength of the knowledge that I have gained and use on a daily basis in my career as the founder of an Executive Recruiting firm and as an Executive Coach. My first book, The Communication Genome Project is forthcoming this fall and is a systematic approach to understanding all of the bullet points listed above. My work is substantial, deep, heavy and effective. Everything is based on academically grounded work as I detest “fluff,” and am committed to never allowing any into my curriculum.
- I am a Master Level Practitioner of Neuro-Linguistic Programming which is the most advance strategy for interpersonal communication in the world today.
- I personally coach Attorneys from the top 50 law firms in the world on their communication AND professional endeavors. This means my methods and techniques are present in the board rooms of some of the most sophisticated and complex deals, mergers and negotiations in the world.
If you want someone to simply hold your hand and tell you it is going to be OK, then you are in the wrong place. But if you are serious about finding an effective solution for your journey, then I am your man. The ability to effectively communicate is highly complex and this is because different situations call for different solutions. When you are ready to embark on that path that leads to your own personal solution, please contact me to learn more.
The Communication Expert | David J. Parnell
The Communication Expert Blog
Categories: Cognitive Psychology, Communication Strategy, Effective Communication, Evolutionary Psychology, NLP (Neurolinguistic Programming), Neurology / Neurolinguistics, Nonverbal Communication / Body Language, Persuasion, Pragmatics, Psychological Platform, Social Psychology
Tags: Communication Expert, effective communication skills, Professional Series
April 4th, 2009
Communication Expertise with Cognitive Rule Sets 2.
So now that we have a rough frame work of how a decision is made, let’s talk about the rational component of this process which is the “cognitive decision”. Although they are not necessarily the most important, or influential part of the general decision making process, they are indeed an important part. Understanding someone’s rationalization strategy is an extremely important part of the overall persuasion process.
If someone is not able to place rational reasons or logic around a particular decision, it can become extremely difficult to make that very decision. Dissonance sets in and unless there is “good reason”, the average person will default to the safety and predictability of the status quo. So it is really important to understand what belief systems someone uses to dictate their behavior around a certain subject.
Cognitive Rule Sets will do just that… Our Cognitive Rule Sets are the rules of conduct/action and identity statements that help us to determine how exactly we will react/act in a given situation. Should I buy? Should I give them my phone number? Should I run or fight? These types of decisions for the most part are determined by the makeup of our Cognitive Rule Sets.
There are a 12 different Cognitive Rule Sets and accurately handling them in two posts is not in the cards. Some quick examples of them are your “Needs”, “If/Then’s”, “Cause/Effect’s”, etc… In understanding what all of them are, how they interact and how to properly elicit them you will be well on your way to some very persuasive communication. Below, we will talk about the “Shoulds” and the “Either/Or’s” as example to illustrate their usefulness.
From an elicitation stand point, you can (and should start out with) a broad/open elicitation that allows their mind freedom to run with the question and give you interesting feedback. Once you have some rules from the broad elicitation you can then begin to narrow in with some focused elicitation questions that can more acutely examine each rule.
So let’s take a look at a “relationship” scenario so that I can give you an example of Cognitive Rule Sets in action… You are sitting down to breakfast with your newly acquired girlfriend (a direct result of the red sports car ) and you want to understand her better to make this relationship work. After some rapport building you launch into the following two questions:
BROAD ELICITATION – “SHOULD’S”
Here we will use the rule set of “Shoulds”. This word “should” is a very powerful and illuminating word. “Should” rule sets give you a BROAD AND STRUCTURAL view of how people believe a certain context needs to “execute” on behalf of all parties involved.
When people use the word “should” in their terminology, you are getting a look at the tip of a very influential iceberg in their mind. “Should” is a staple rule set and is a great place to start when illuminating someone’s thought process. So you question may sound something like this:
“What do you think a guy SHOULD do in order to make a relationship function better?”
By asking this question, she will communicate a list of “rules” that she has set in her subconscious and are showing up in her cognitive thinking process. You NEED to know these if you are going to satisfy her needs in the given context.
One of her answers to this question may be that “A man should always let the woman do whatever she wants without recourse…” (Sounds like you picked a winner here…) Now this is a pretty broad and all-encompassing statement so we really should dig in on this further. To hone in on this, you will elicit another one of her “rules” that surrounds this thought. For this we will use the Either/Or rule set.
Cognitive Rule Sets help determine which actions someone will take
FOCUSED ELICITATION – “EITHER/OR’S”
A very specific and acute Cognitive Rule Set is the Either/Or rule set. This information will basically give you the belief system that dictates the outcome or repercussions of a given action. Either/OR rule sets are the result of dichotomization occurring due to our minds drive to categorize information for instant recall.
The information that this type of rule set will give is very NARROW AND ACTION SPECIFIC.
It is a very specific question and is great when you are doing a focused elicitation. So you may follow up her answer of “A man should always let the woman do whatever she wants without recourse…” with the following focused elicitation:
“So… EITHER the man lets the woman do whatever she wants, OR what happens…?”
Now her response may be “OR the woman leaves him never to return”, or it may be “OR the woman will whine about it for 3 days…” Regardless of the response, you now have a MUCH better view of where you stand and what you are dealing with. The result of this process being that you can now make a much more informed decision about how best to move forward… if you decide to at all. With these two simple questions you have elicited two extremely telling RULES that govern her actions on a relationship setting.
In knowing what a person’s “shoulds” and “either-or’s” are, you have a powerful tool in persuading them. You can now tailor your communication to match up with their cognitive rules. This will help them to better accept the decisions you are persuading them to make.
There are a vast number of rules and sets of elicitation strategies that are necessary to know if you want to have a successful relationship, whether business or personal. To learn them all you will have to wait for my book coming out in November of 2009. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me directly.
To learn more about Cognitive Rule Sets and other forms of communication that can help you refine your own effective communication skills, please explore the rest of my blog The Communication Expert.
The Communication Expert | David J. Parnell
The Communication Expert Blog
Categories: Beliefs, Cognitive Psychology, Communication Strategy, Effective Communication, Listening Strategies, NLP (Neurolinguistic Programming), Neurology / Neurolinguistics, Persuasion, Psychological Platform, Quantum Linguistics / Directionality, Questioning Strategy, Social Psychology
Tags: Categorization, cognitive dissonance, Communicate, Communication Expert, Communication Problems, Communication Strategies, David J Parnell, Effective Communication, effective communication skills, effective listening, elicitation, Language Tutorial, Listening Strategies, Listening Strategy, Persuasion, Professional Series, Quantum Linguistics, Questioning Strategy
April 3rd, 2009
Cognitive Rule Sets are an integral part of decision making
Communication Expertise with Cognitive Rule Sets.
Decision making has been an inherently interesting subject for the field of psychology. In understanding the process by which people make decisions, it is significantly easier to predict and direct their behavior…
For us to move further in our discussion, the term “decision” is important to define and understand first… Now when I say “decision”, many people are only envisioning a buying decision which is fair enough.
What most people really don’t realize though is that decisions are not only involved, but are the life blood of literally every single turn in our life. When you heard the noise to your right while reading this, you made a “decision” to look that way, or not. When you were walking toward a man on the street last week you made a “decision” to move left or right. When you were in Macy’s, you made a decision to NOT buy certain items… Well you get the point.
The actual definition is “the passing of judgment on an issue under consideration” per the freedictionary.com. The question that comes to bear is, where exactly is the judgment is made? Traditionally (a long time ago…) it was thought that when a decision was made, you did this cognitively. In other words:
- You want a red sports car BECAUSE it is red and you know it goes fast.
- You purchase the sports car and THEN you feel good.
Well subsequent research in psychology and neurology has proven that this is a myth… Actually things do not occur like this at all. Quite to the contrary, your decision making process actually happens in reverse. Decisions are made at the subconscious level, well before they reach our awake/conscious mind.
Let’s take a look at what is really going on internally with the cliché scenario of the mid life crisis.
- You are sitting in your house at 45 years old and feeling lonely because you are now divorced and have no girlfriend…
- Deep down inside your have the sensation you are feeling that you have labeled as “lonely” categorized as “bad” (harmful) due to evolutionary properties, developmental properties and social norms established in your subconscious.
- Your subconscious goes to work figuring out how to get rid of “lonely”…
- It knows that “lonely” is due to NOT having a woman around, so how do you get a woman?
- It knows that Don Johnson in “Miami Vice” always had women. He lived on a boat and drove a sports car.
- You know NOTHING about boats, but cars… yes. Sports car = getting women.
- Your subconscious MAKES THE DECISION to get a sports car and sends back up to you (your cognition) a visual of a sports car with you driving it and picking up women.
- This visual causes the other parts of your brain to release a mixture of hormones that cause certain sensations that feel “GOOD”… These break the lonely feeling.
- NOW, your cognitive mind begins to place overt and logical reasons AROUND this pre-made decision to pacify “you” (your conscious, awake mind is “you”, your personality…) regarding purchasing it. This is done to avoid any cognitive dissonance over buying the car. (Although your cognitive mind knows you can’t afford it, it can and will “flex” to become congruent with your subconscious so as to avoid the anxiety caused by the dissonance of the incongruity).
- You begin to say things internally like “I really deserve to get a sports car, I worked hard…” or “I just need some fun and then I will be back to normal”…
- WE NOW CALL THE RESULT OF THESE RATIONALIZATIONS (the purchasing of the car) OUR DECISION.
Like it or not, this is what is going on… Do we have conscious control over the actual decision? Yes, of course, should you decide to volitionally exercise control of it. Most people have very limited control over this though and either exercise it in only the direst of circumstances or exercise it temporarily…
In our next post we get right into the nitty gritty of cognitive rule sets and how to elicit them for effective communication.
To learn more about Cognitive Rule Sets and other forms of communication that can help you refine your own effective communication skills, please explore the rest of my blog The Communication Expert.
The Communication Expert | David J. Parnell
The Communication Expert Blog
Categories: Beliefs, Cognitive Psychology, Communication Strategy, Effective Communication, Evolutionary Psychology, Meta Model / Clear Language, NLP (Neurolinguistic Programming), Persuasion, Psychological Platform, Quantum Linguistics / Directionality, Questioning Strategy
Tags: Categorization, cognitive dissonance, communication, Communication Expert, Communication Strategies, David J Parnell, Effective Communication, effective communication skills, effective listening, Language Tutorial, Persuasion, Professional Series, Questioning Strategy, Subconscious
March 30th, 2009
In our final post we are going to talk about some specific examples of hypnotic language patterns and how they can be used in real life. As I stated before, hypnotic language patterns can be broken up into two fundamental categories based on the processes that they create and/or work with within the mind of the recipient.
1. Cognitive Dissonance / Certainty – These types of patterns either create confusion in the mind with ambiguity or overtly reinforce preexisting rules to “grease” the acceptance of certain information. The wonderful side effect of that confusion is that as the subconscious mind is “making sense” out of the statement, its critical thinking system is “occupied” for lack of a better term. This provides the communicator with an open and unimpeded channel in which to implant their suggestions into the busy mind of the recipient.
2. Rapport Building / Pattern – These types of patterns create predictability through familiarity, pattern and rhythm in not only the phonology of your speech but also the content/verbiage. The resulting “predictability” that occurs creates a safe and comforting environment to the subconscious mind of the recipient and thus lowers their critical thinking radar. This in turn, again, provides the communicator with and open and unimpeded channel in which to implant their suggestions into the busy mind of the recipient.
So let’s get right into it with Cognitive Dissonance / Certainty Milton-based patterns. The ones we will talk about here today are Complex Equivalences, Lack of Referential Index and conversational postulates.
A Complex Equivalence is when a complex situation, idea or object is purported to mean, or actually be something else. For example, take the statement “Wearing that suit IS career failure”. In this statement the process of wearing a specific suit is synonymous with career failure. The dissonance and certainty comes into play on two separate levels in this statement.
- Career failure can mean so many different things that the mind of the recipient will simply “fill in the blanks” on this. As a result, the dissonance is occurring at a semantic level. To the speaker it may mean that they will simply lose this particular sales pitch. To the recipient it may mean that they will literally never work in this town again. The reality of the matter is that it could mean anything in between t hose two statements. As a result the recipient’s mind will take a self-anchored approach and simply encode that with their own meaning regardless of accuracy. This facilitates the acceptance of the statement.
- Since our mind is so accepting of the conjoining qualities of predicate calculus terms such as “if – then”, “Is”, “And”, etc… the connection of the two terms (which is almost absurd if you really think about it, a suit demolishing and entire career?) is readily and easily accepted. As a result, the certainty is occurring at a rules-based level.
The result is that the person will generally absorb the statement and deal with it as their own value systems, belief systems and personality deems appropriate. So where can something like this be used in a constructive manner? Let’s take a look at some examples.
- You’re standing in the doorway of a small living room at a party with some friends. In the living room someone is laying out lines of cocaine that a friend of yours would like to try for the first time.
- a. “Buddy, you know as well as I do that drugs EQUAL failure…”
- b. “Walking into that room IS the beginning of the end for you…”
- c. “That room IS poisonous to life.”
- d. “Your success as a human IS staying right here and not going into that room.”
- 2. Your friend is angry with your boss because they didn’t get the promotion that they thought they deserved. In their emotional state they want to go and give the boss a piece of their minds. We both know that this is probably a bad idea…
- a. “Listen, you yelling at the boss IS the death of your child’s college fund.”
- b. “You giving the boss a piece of your mind MEANS that you are in the poor house.”
- c. “Yelling at the boss EQUALS home foreclosure and a strict diet of Raman Noodles…”
- d. “Staying right here and cooling off MEANS not getting fired.”
A Lack of Referential Index is an utterance where the identity of the subject that is acting or being acted upon is left out entirely. Statements such as “It is really demanding” or “It is a dangerous thing” are extremely ambiguous. What exactly do they mean when they reference “It”? In most context you can get a “pretty good idea” of what “it” is, however your notion of “it” and their notion of “it” is rarely the same believe it or not. In this scenario only mental confusion is coming into play and the hypnotic advantage appears on two separate levels.
1. In order for the person’s mind to make complete sense out of this type of statement they need to work with a number of different parameters in their Lexicon and memory retrieval subsystems to understand it. Again, during the brief period of retrieval and confusion the person is in an open state of suggestibility.
2. The broad and open sleight that an ambiguous statement like this provides creates a much higher probability that what you communicating is readily accepted. Let’s look at the subject of riding a motorcycle. As a polarized example, if you say “Riding your motorcycle on a busy street without a helmet while running from the cops is dangerous” the recipient will most likely have far fewer experiences relating to this than they would the statement “It is dangerous”. When there are no obvious experiences by which to reference your statements, critical thinking fires right up and aids in keeping the person in a Beta-state. The result is a LOW suggestibility state.
So let’s take a look at some examples in real life where this type of pattern can be used to help your own communication.
- You are attempting to get an acquaintance to go on vacation with you and you want the trip to sound as appealing as possible.
- a. “IT will be the most astounding thing you’ve done this year.”
- b. “THEY will be so jealous of you because THEY don’t get to go.”
- c. “When you get THERE you will be so happy you DID.”
- d. “IT will be the best move you’ve ever made.”
- Let’s say you are a sales person trying to get someone to purchase your product.
- a. “CUSTOMERS said that it was the best decision they ever made to buy this.”
- b. “THEY told me that after THEY got is home, THINGS were never the same for THEM.”
- c. “PEOPLE really aren’t supposed to be without this.”
- d. “HOMEOWNERS say their home wasn’t complete until THEY invested in something like this.”
A Conversational Postulate is a question that normally would be answered literally by a yes or no, but is either simply followed as a request/command or is understood to be asking for a more informative answer. Whereas the two previous examples (complex equivalence and lack of referential index) are ambiguity/confusion-based, the conversational postulate is a rules-based Hypnotic Language pattern. The best example of this is the phrase “Can you tell me the time please?” The literal answer to this question is ‘Yes’, but most people would actually tell you the time as this is the understood etiquette of this type of interaction. Let’s take a quick look at the rule that this takes advantage of.
We are neurologically programmed to enjoy complying to requests for help.
1. In this type of pattern, the natural rule that is being taken advantage of is “compliance to request”. The evolution of our social mechanisms as a species has left us with brains that are rewarded for sharing, generosity, compassion and charity. In other words, it feels good to help people (see my post on
The Neuroscience of “Help”). A conversational postulate places a command attractively into a question which is a natural softener. As you can imagine, a request is always much less threatening than a demand. The end result is a command that slips gently below critical thinking radar to elicit an automatic and specific behavior.
Here are a couple of examples where conversational postulates can be used in everyday life.
- Take for example a situation where you are in a bit of a heated argument with a co-worker and you want to cool things off so that you can take a more constructive route.
- a. “Can we take a quick walk while discuss things to cool off a bit?”
- b. “Can you tell me some ways that we might be able to make this work?”
- c. “Can you drive me to the lounge down the street so that we can discuss this in less formal setting?”
- d. “Can you please lower your voice a bit while we are talking?”
- As another example, imagine that you are in a bar asking a woman (or man) for their number so that you may take them out.
- a. “Can you write your number on this napkin for me?”
- b. “Can you give me your number so that I can put it in my phone?”
- c. “Is it easier for you to just give me your number now?”
- d. “Do you think you can write your number down on this card so that I can call you next week?”
That wraps it up for our Cognitive Dissonance / Certainty Milton-based examples. This is not to say that this is a complete list by any means. There are quite a few others that we haven’t mentioned and for a complete package you will have to wait for my book that will be out in fall of 2009.
So moving on we approach the Rapport Building / Pattern Milton-based examples. To illustrate them today we will be talking about Linkage and Utilization. Let’s begin with Linkage…
Linkage is the usage of predicate logic to link 2 or more subjects together in a phrase. From a hypnotic standpoint, when several “things” (these can be anything from an object to an experience to an event) are linked together in a sequence, a “rhythmic pattern” will be developed at a subconscious level. The result will be a trance-like response from the person listening to the communication. The reason for this is that the rhythm will create predictability and the “comfort/safety” that comes along with it at the subconscious level. When comfort/safety is achieved with the listener, again, a clearer and less obstructed pathway is created into the subconscious mind for suggestion and direction.
Simple conjunctions (AND), Implied Causitives (As You… You Will) and Cause/Effect (X will make you Y) are all linkage statements. When performed in sequence these are extremely effective at helping the person’s mind move into an Alpha and even possibly a Theta brain wave pattern. The beauty of these types of statements is that they don’t even really have to be entirely accurate, just plausible.
Our phonological loop, which basically stores incoming messages while they are processed can only store approximately 2 seconds of material. This means that as a phrase or utterance goes past 2 seconds, the initial information is dropped (or more accurately dissipates) and is refreshed with the new material. So linkage can effectively take you from something that is UNATTRACTIVE to the other person and turn it into something that is ATTRACTIVE via a series of gradually increasing (compounding), semi-plausible statements. As these are more “involved” pieces of language, I will only be giving a single pattern example for the sake of space.
- You are arguing with your spouse over which channel to watch before going to sleep and they are becoming agitated. Let’s take “watching your show” from unpalatable to palatable…
- a. “I realize that my shows are boring AND this is becoming a pain in the butt for you AND the we can’t come to an agreement on which channel to watch AND THE MORE we argue THE MORE sleepy we will become BECAUSE of that arguing AND THE MORE you are going to realize that AS WE watch the shows I want to watch AND just let them naturally lull you to sleep YOU WILL be glad that you didn’t get involved with another one of your shows that will MAKE you stay awake for longer than you should AND leave you groggy again at word AS A RESULT I think you will be happy that we did change to my channel…”
Utilization is simply the process of incorporating all of the events that are naturally occurring around the communication recipient and linking them together with the person’s internal state. Utilization is not quite as sterile as some of the other Milton-based patterns as it is actually defined more by its structure rather than the verbiage used. In other words, the process of Utilization basically uses some of the other hypnotic patterns (such as Linkage, Mind Reading, Lack of Referential Index, etc…) to create/draw correlation between the things that are happening around the recipient and the “resulting” internal states that are occurring.
For example: “As you sit there and hear the humming of your computer it can only make you realize even more soundly how much you really need to get out and go for a walk…” In this statement, the communicator is basically blaming the person’s “need” to go for a walk on the humming of the computer.
Now, from an evolutionary standpoint, our brains are ever-so-ready to find and/or create cause/effect and correlation between events and/or mental states. Due to this predisposition, the mind, unless it is in a very strong Beta pattern will readily accept these correlations as being “correct” or “factual”. The result is compliance and or acceptance at a subconscious level. Following is an example:
- Your coworker is dead set on going to the happy hour after work. You happen to know that his ex-girlfriend will be there (so does he) and you know it is a bad idea…
- a. “While you sit in that chair and you feel the strength of its back holding you upright it can only continue to remind you that the feeling you have in your chest is your stomach telling you that this is a bad idea.”
- b. “While you are listening to the beeping of the traffic outside the window, continue to let it remind you of all of the hustle bustle and rigmarole that you would have experienced had you actually gone to that bar AND as it becomes louder and more frequent AND the feeling inside you becomes more noticeable you are beginning really pay attention to what you already know AND that is that going to that bar is just a bad idea…”
So, there you have it. Although these are great examples, remember that there are just a ton of other hypnotic patterns that a Communication Expert can use. To get all of them, you will have to wait for my book later this fall.
To learn more about Hypnotic Language and other forms of communication that can help you refine your own effective communication skills, please explore the rest of my blog The Communication Expert.
The Communication Expert | David J. Parnell
The Communication Expert Blog
Categories: Cognitive Psychology, Communication Strategy, Effective Communication, Evolutionary Psychology, Hypnotic Language, NLP (Neurolinguistic Programming), Persuasion, Quantum Linguistics / Directionality, Social Psychology
Tags: Ambiguity, Business Communication Skills, Busy Mind, cognitive dissonance, Communication Coach, Communication Skills Training, Confusion, Conversational Postulates, Critical Thinking, effective communication skills, Equivalence, Everyday Life, Familiarity, Fundamental Categories, Good Communication Skills, Grease, Hypnotic Language, interpersonal communication, Interpersonal Communication Skills, Language Patterns, Parnell, Phonology, predictability, Professional Series, Rapport Building, Subconscious Mind
March 25th, 2009
From a functionality standpoint, Hypnotic Language can be broken up into two overlying categories based on exactly how each is working with your brain’s natural function. Traditionally hypnotic language has been solely grouped into and classified as what is termed the “Milton Model”.
Although hypnosis dates back to the 1700’s with Franz Mesmer drawing people into a trance through the rhythmic movement of objects such as his hands, its practical usage was really developed by Milton Erickson. Milton was an American psychiatrist and developed the language patterns, unknowingly, while working with his own patients. Milton is actually a pretty fascinating guy and his history is amazing to read about. Having been dyslexic, color blind and overcoming polio are a few of the adversities that contributed to his success with, and understanding of the subconscious mind and how it works.
In dissecting and understanding how each formally classified hypnotic pattern works, it has become evident in the recent past that there are a number of other “patterns” that fit the mold of hypnotic language. Some of which we have covered in other posts. Fallacies, cognitive biases and evolutionarily developed attentional biases are some of the others. Today though, we will only talk about the Milton Model…
The two major categories that each pattern Milton-based pattern can be placed into are:
1. Cognitive Dissonance / Certainty. In this category, the language patterns are working within and/or taking advantage of the neurologically/psychologically predetermined rules that our mind sets up either naturally or developmentally. We generously discussed this yesterday while describing exactly how the brain works.
These patterns will do two things. They will either take advantage of these rules by reinforcing them to a polarized degree or they will use the inherent ambiguity of these rules to enforce something that otherwise would not be enforceable. They will take advantage of the rules by placing desired information into them and thus make it more acceptable to the recipient. Ambiguity will give the recipient’s mind a ton of leeway to either more easily accept the information you are communicating or cause temporary confusion which actually places the mind into a suggestible state.
- AMBIGUOUS INFORMATION: When ambiguous information is given to someone, their mind performs what is known as a “transderivational search”. This is their brain’s attention turning inward briefly to find past experiences so as to make sense of what is being said. This process does two very important things:
- It allows us a much broader basis on which to connect with people.
- It gives us short frames of time in which the people we communicate with are more susceptible to our suggestions.
Some specific examples of Milton-based hypnotic patterns that take advantage of ambiguity are:
- Comparative Deletions – These are statements that do not specifically state what or how a comparison is being made to. Ex. “Working with us is just so much better for your career… just wait and see.” The question here is “Better than what”? Their mind will fill this in for us. If we are too specific, we may use information that they don’t care about or cannot relate to. The result of this is that the statement will fire off their “pattern interrupt” detectors and engage their critical thinking… This breaks trance.
- Nominalizations – The process of nominalizing something occurs when a process or a verb is being spoken about as if it were a thing, an object or a static event. Ex. “But you know that I would never do that to you because we have that kind of RELATIONSHIP where those things don’t happen…” The ambiguity here is that “Relationship” can mean a million different things; their mind will fill in all of the positive things associated with the term relationship on its own though. This aids us in our communication endeavors.
- RULES BASED INFORMATION: When someone uses hypnotic language to take advantage of mental rules, they will simply weave the information that they want the communication recipient to “accept” neatly into the preexisting rule’s structure. So in effect, the preexisting rule acts as a “Trojan Horse” if you will and transports the information directly into the subconscious mind of the recipient. Since the rules are already hardwired into the person’s brain, the rules acts as a safe transportation vessel for the information and will generally be readily absorbed. Some examples of Milton-based hypnotic language that take advantage of our mental rules are:
- Single Binds – A single bind is a statement that links one cause to one effect, inextricably. Cause and effect is a powerful rule that our brain follows religiously. Ex. “The more you practice your hypnotic language patterns the better you’ll get”. (The more – The better). This pattern causes the mind to simply accept, without critique, that practicing the patterns will be good for you…
- Negative Statements – Our brains are not capable, literally, of representing the lack of an object without representing it first. The classic example is “don’t think of a blue polar bear”. Your mind MUST first think of the blue polar bear and THEN erase it or cover it with something else. By saying “don’t” or “I’m not going to tell you”, the critical mind will accept this for what it is, however the actual REPRESENTATION that is occurring in their mind is the very thing you are telling them “not” to do… Ex. “Now I’m not telling you that your girlfriend is cheating on you with Chuck, but…” This guy is going to now have the thought of her cheating in his head without laying any blame or ill will on the speaker.
Cognitive Dissonance / Confusion based patterns are far and beyond the largest and most often used group of patterns. Many of these actually happen in one way, shape or form during regular communication without cognitive thought. It is the direct and volitional application of them at the right times that makes them so powerful.
Hypnotic Language is a wonderful tool to induce comfort, wamrth and safety into a conversation to help build rapport.
2.
Rapport building / Pattern. Neurologically speaking, we are naturally walking around in “Beta mode” (Remember we talked about brain wave patterns in our first post on Hypnotic Language) because as we move from one environment to another our brain needs to be able to search for and find “predictability”… To do this it needs to be alert.
While communicating with someone in a solid Beta mode, their critical thinking is very strong… Like trying to speak with someone who is angry, they are not easily persuaded. In order to get out of that Beta mode and move toward the Theta mode (which is more suggestible), it is necessary to create a calming atmosphere… one that offers pattern and predictability and safety. Hypnotic language patterns can do this…
In this case, what is happening is that you are utilizing pattern and establishment of predictability to create inherent safety which will thereby create rapport. This process will coax their brain waves into leaving Beta level and into reaching Beta-Theta levels which will thus relax them. In some cases you may even reach Theta level which is complete relaxation. When in this state, the person’s critical thinking really is taken down a few notches and the result is a much more suggestible person. Specific examples of this type of Milton-based hypnotic language patterns are:
- Linkage – This is the grouping of statements or concepts with a conjunction (and), and/or an implied causative (as you… you will) and/or a simple cause/effect statement (X will make you Y). What this does is causes a continuous rhythmic flow of information. Ex. “And as you listen to my story you will begin to realize that all of the anxiety that you once had just fell right out of your body because the relaxing tone will make cause you to slow everything down and as you continue to do this your breathing will become softer and softer and your smiling face will grow more and more as you finally begin to understand…”
- Pacing current experience – These are statements that describe the current and ongoing experience of the communication recipient while conveying your message in a way that links directly to the ongoing events around them.
Basically, by verbalizing both the surroundings and/or their internal thought you create pattern, connection and comfort to their mind. Ex. “As you are sitting hear, listening to the traffic outside go by and feeling the strength of the chair supporting your weight, I am able to realize that you are feeling a bit confused as to why we are here talking… And that is alright because that is just your mind telling you that you want to learn and understand and feel better about taking in all of the information I am about to give you…” What this is doing is basically telling the mind that everything is as it should be…
Now, it is important to understand that this is just a sampling of the vast amount of hypnotic patterns available to us. Again, as I stated earlier the real magic happens when these are used at the right time and ESPECIALLY when they are used in conjunction with one another. How to properly do this takes some skill but is a HIGHLY ACHIEVABLE task. With some practice, pattern usage is easy… In our last post I will review some specific Hypnotic Language patterns more acutely and give specific examples of where they can be used in real life.
To learn more about Hypnotic Language and other forms of communication that can help you refine your own effective communication skills, please explore the rest of my blog The Communication Expert.
The Communication Expert | David J. Parnell
The Communication Expert Blog
Categories: Cognitive Biases, Cognitive Psychology, Communication Strategy, Effective Communication, Evolutionary Psychology, Fallacies / Logic, Hypnotic Language, Neurology / Neurolinguistics, Persuasion, Quantum Linguistics / Directionality
Tags: Ambiguity, American Psychiatrist, Categorization, Cognitive Biases, cognitive dissonance, Communicate, communication, Communication Expert, Communication Problems, Communication Strategies, David J Parnell, Effective Communication, effective communication skills, hypnosis, Hypnotic Language, Hypnotic Pattern, Language Patterns, Language Tutorial, Milton Erickson, Milton Model, Persuasion, Professional Series, Quantum Linguistics, Sleight Of Mouth, Subconscious, Subconscious Mind
March 23rd, 2009
I want to make something very clear at the outset… When I talk about hypnotic language, I am referring to the process of utilizing verbiage and phraseology that simply bypasses our critical thinking to gently and smoothly float right into the subconscious workings of our communication recipient’s brain. This is PRACTICAL, REAL LIFE USAGE OF HYPNOTIC LANGUAGE.
If we are going to create the skill set of a Communication Expert, we really need to let go of the urban legend-esque stories and look at the psychology and science of this to truly understand the unbelievable power behind it. The most successful sales people use this. The most successful politicians use this. The mega marketing firms use this… I don’t care what you do or what you are engaged in… This is useful in all areas of your life…
But before you get into the nitty gritty, it is necessary for you to understand some specific areas of the inner-workings of the human mind works in order to comprehend how exactly hypnotic language is effective.
There are three major processes that I want to talk about that pertain to our brain’s readiness to accept and respond to hypnotic language. Our evolved brain is set up to do a few things really well that can leave the mind vulnerable to the trappings of hypnotic language. The fields of evolutionary and cognitive psychology do a great job of explaining these things further…
1. Prediction – The quicker that a brain was able to size up an environment and/or different scenarios for the purpose of prediction, the better that brain’s chances were for survival and the propagation it’s genes.
As a result of this, we have brains that are naturally coded to instantly, constantly and vigilantly seek out predictability and pattern, subconsciously. And when I say subconsciously, I mean that our conscious minds really have no idea that this is going on.
Take for example a study performed by Pawel Lewicki, Thomas Hill and Elizabeth Bizot. In this, participants had to watch a computer screen that was divided into 4 quadrants. Each time an X showed up in a quadrant, they had to hit it… Where the X was going to show up was actually laid out in a complex 12 step pattern unbeknown to the participants… Now as time went on, the participants grew increasingly efficient at predicting the arrival of the X.
The interesting part was that they had no idea how or why they were becoming good at it, they “just were”. Their cognitive mind didn’t even realize that a pattern existed… Their subconscious mind had done a pretty good job of figuring it out. To test this proctors then decided to interrupt the pattern to see what would happen. Just as they suspected, the performance “magically” went back to zero predictability…
This incessant drive to establish the ability to predict causes our brain to establish huge quantities of heuristics (rules of thumb), cognitive biases, attentional biases, etc… so that we can “size up” a new environment immediately. This very phenomena makes pattern and predictability in language very attractive and “digestible” to the mind. We talk about this further below…
Our ability to vizualize and imagine can leave us vulnerable to the effects of hypnotic language.
2.
Creation of Mental Imagery – We also have an amazing ability to create scenarios in our mind to help us create, sort through and predict the outcome of an event based on past experience. One of these processes is our ability to visualize, with great clarity and reality, possible or remembered events.
As an example of this, take a study involving piano players… Three groups were formed. One group was to play a piano randomly for a predetermined amount of time per day for a few weeks. Another group was to play a particular piece of music for the same amount of time. The last group was to IMAGINE that they were playing the same piece of music, without actually playing with their fingers, for the same period of time…
They then took all of participants and ran them through an FMRI (brain scan…) to check the outcome. The first group had no change in their neural makeup. The second group had produced a relatively strong and functional neural net that corresponded with the playing of the piano. The third group… They too had developed a neural net that was literally almost as strong and the second group’s… They did this simply through focused attention. Amazing… the more “real” an imagined event becomes the greater the effects on the mind and body are. Our mind’s ability to create “real” images and visualizations is powerful and astounding and their effects on our physiology and thought processes in turn are astounding.
3. Expansive filing and recall capacity of language – Unlike all other animals on the planet, we have the amazing ability to label visions, feeling, events, etc… with a single sound. This process is so powerful that it is difficult to understand the scope of how much it affects our lives. As an example, we can combine strategy, violence, death, hatred, murder, dissonance, pillaging, pain, sadness along with a million other concepts and sum it all up as “WAR”. One simple, easy to find and use sound…
Language gives us the ability to act on our drive to establish predictability and encode the predictable patterns we see. Based on the comparison of other experiences through our mental imagery, we establish these patterns as “rules” that can then later be instantly accessed to “predict” how things will likely play out in any circumstance. These rules show up in our thinking in a number of different ways including:
- Cognitive Biases – These are patterns of deviation in judgment that occurs in particular situations.
- Heuristics – Rules of thumb… Basically informal rules used in solving problems.
- Frequency Representations – Decisions based on how many times B occurred as a result of A.
- Ecological Rationality – The observance of statistical regularity in outside occurrences.
So, to sum that big mess above up in an elevator pitch… Our brain searches for pattern and predictability and when it finds it, it will process this internally and either categorize it into an existing rule or create a new one in order to use in the future for the purpose of quickly sizing up and predicting the outcome of a situation or environment. Once recalled, these rules will use mental “re-animation/visualization” to create a hormonal cocktail that creates an actual feeling (kinesthetic)… This feeling dictates our decision in any and all instances…
So, in understanding all of this, the natural next question is “how does hypnotic language work within this structure?” Well I am glad you asked…
From a persuasion stand point, we are not looking to hypnotize someone in the clinical sense. What we want to do is use language that will bypass their critical thinking so that we can either:
- Place information into their mind without resistance, or
- Create visualizations, sounds, feelings, etc… to direct their mood or state.
For the most part, bypassing critical thinking can happen in one of two ways. You can create cognitive dissonance through confusion or utilize intense pacification by creating extreme subconscious comfort. This is the usage of language and rapport to create complete comfort and acceptance at the subconscious level so that their mind will more readily accept the information we are feeding it.
Cognitive Dissonance and confusion are fodder for another post. This generally involves usage of presuppositions… Here we are sticking squarely with basic Milton Erickson-level hypnotic language patterns.
The patterns that I am talking about work so well because they create subconscious patterns, mental imagery, rapport, develop internal sensations, etc… and they do this by leveraging all of the mental rules that our brains have naturally set up for our survival over the millennium.
In my next post I will introduce some actual hypnotic language rules and put them under a microscope for immediate usage in your own endeavors.
To learn more about Hypnotic Language and other forms of communication that can help you refine your own effective communication skills, please explore the rest of my blog The Communication Expert.
The Communication Expert | David J. Parnell
The Communication Expert Blog
Categories: Cognitive Biases, Cognitive Psychology, Evolutionary Psychology, Hypnotic Language, NLP (Neurolinguistic Programming), Neurology / Neurolinguistics, Persuasion, Quantum Linguistics / Directionality, Social Psychology
Tags: Categorization, Cognitive Psychology, Communication Expert, Communication Strategies, Conscious Minds, Critical Thinking, David J Parnell, Effective Communication, effective communication skills, hypnosis, Hypnotic Language, Language Tutorial, Metaphor, Persuasion, Phraseology, predictability, Professional Series, Psychological Immune System, Subconscious, Verbiage
