Niro Sivanathan: The counterintuitive way to be more persuasive | TED

Niro Sivanathan: The counterintuitive way to be more persuasive | TED

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Descriptions:

What’s the best way to make a good point? Organizational psychologist Niro Sivanathan offers a fascinating lesson on the “dilution effect,” a cognitive quirk that weakens our strongest cases — and reveals why brevity is the true soul of persuasion.

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30 Comments

  1. Niro insinuates that pharma ads mention minor side-effects deliberately in order to manipulate the viewers. That's not correct. Pharma companies are required by law to disclose all side-effects, major as well as minor.

    Isn't it obvious that people reach different conclusions if you give them incomplete, censored information rather than complete, uncensored information? Niro and his Ph.D. student had to do an experiment to prove that? In his dissertation, did the Ph.D. student, advised by Niro, exclude the "minor" details of the experiment in order to appear more persuasive to the examiners? No wonder these behavioral "scientists" have no credibility left.

    Oh, and he's also wrong about politicians being persuaded by arguments. They're persuaded by self-interest–money, power, and votes—not public good. As are your fellow voters. So if you want to influence votes a certain way, you appeal to emotion, prejudices, and self-interest. Even the ancient Greeks and Romans knew that, as did Shakespeare and Trump.

  2. Five persuasive techniques for you to become successful in life:

    Establish trust and develop credibility.
    Understand the reader's purpose and align your own.
    Pay attention to language.
    Consider tone.
    Use rhetoric and repetition.

    Cheers.

  3. this and many other psychological techniques are used against the populus by corporations and politicians to influence our thoughts, biases, and decisions without our even being aware of it.

  4. Basically, he is trying to convey the message of speaking less and get to the point. but he spent more than 2 minutes and a half talking about the plates. I almost lost my patience. Although I like his main point, unfortunately, his talk showed me more "the counterproductive way to be more persuasive" ?

  5. i didn't understand the last part related to pharmaceutical ads. including the minor problems diluted the severity and made it seem it was less harmful? is that what he meant?

  6. If you've ever been in an argument on the internet you've seen this. If you start with one fantastic counterpoint and include a few weaker counterpoints — whoever you're talking to will find the weakest one and attack it. They won't even remember the strong one.

  7. He lost me a few minutes in when he stated that the numbers were “strictly irrational”. No, he just disagrees with other possible trains of reasoning, and narcissistically assumes that the almighty dollar should be the first and only thing people value, which itself is irrational. Personally, I often intentionally spend a bit extra to avoid wastage and environmental cost. If I only want the small set, in general I’m only going to buy the small set.

  8. People are so weird! I would pay the same for both dinner sets and would have said that if I had to choose who had the bigger GPA I would have guessed Tom as he is more rounded as a person. The drug advert one is just crazy. It helps explain why our democracies are so dreadful. Sound bites are preferred to nuanced arguments.

  9. Nice talk with a good message. However, in the study example, "dilution," made a stronger case for buying the drug. So, the concept is situational. True, but situational.