I’m sure to spice up your home you have pictures scattered throughout different rooms. We usually display pictures that speak to us or make us feel good in some way. Those who are into art are very aware that the frame a picture sits in can make a huge difference. The right frame can really help a picture come to life.Framing doesn’t just apply to your favorite pictures. In psychology, framing has to do with the context that surrounds an issue or idea. In the same way the right frame can make a picture stand out, proper framing of your ideas can make them stand out and that’s important when you’re trying to persuade others. Not only is framing important, so is reframing. You see, sometimes we need to reframe issues that are presented to us in order to have the best opportunity to make the right decision. Allow me to explain.Not long ago I went to an event with my boss and good friend John. As we chatted he told me that he was invited to a play his niece was going to appear in. The relative who invited him said tickets were only $12 and could be purchased online. John went online to purchase his ticket and was confronted with additional fees that increased the ticket price from $12 to $21. He couldn’t get beyond the fact that just because he was buying it online the cost was 75% more than if he went to the theater and bought the ticket in person. Of course there would be some risk buying the ticket at the theater because the show could be sold out and he would have wasted time and gas money. Nonetheless, he was adamant that he wouldn’t pay an extra $9 (75%) for the ticket.As we discussed this I finally asked him, “If you were told the ticket was $21 would you have bought it?” He said he would because he wanted to see his niece but was just having a hard time with how much the extra fees came to. I suggested he just reframe the whole scenario and look at the price as $21, not $12 plus an additional $9. It’s natural for us to make comparisons like John was doing because seldom do we operate in a vacuum. It’s also natural to rail against the comparison when it’s so large. As I’ve shared before – There’s nothing high or low but comparing makes it so. Think about this – If I offered you $800,000 would you be willing to accept it? I bet you would and I bet you’d be incredibly happy. However, if I give you $2.1 million and you only got to keep $800,000 because of taxes, you might not feel the same as getting $800,000 with no strings attached. In both cases, at the end of the day you’d have $800,000 but in one scenario you’ll have a hard time enjoying your new wealth to the same degree because you’re thinking, “But it was originally $2.1 million.”We face these situations all the time. I travel a lot and spend a good bit of time in airports. Most airlines now charge $25 per bag each way, which means most people pay an extra $50 on top of the ticket price. People detest that because it raises to the surface the pain of paying. Airlines might be wise to either incorporate a smaller fee for all passengers or allow you to pay for bags at the time you purchase your ticket. That way you don’t feel the pain of paying when you get to the ticket counter and the extra fee is an afterthought.On the flip side, if you want people to feel the pain of paying in order to bring about change then you might want to separate the fees so they can clearly see them. An example would be gasoline taxes. Did you know in 2012 the average fuel tax for Americans was 49.5 cents per gallon, for state and national taxes? Sometimes there’s a sign at the pump mentioning the additional taxes but people really just pay attention to the price per gallon. If gas were $3.19 per gallon in your area it would be under $2.70 per gallon without the tax. If you really want to highlight the issue of taxation, tell them they’re paying $2.70 a gallon, but let them see the meter add on 49.5 cents for every gallon; this just might just catch their attention. After all, most stores advertise pre-tax prices.How you frame your presentation depends on what you want to accomplish. By the same token you have the power to reframe anything and sometimes doing so will allow you to feel better about the situation you find yourself in. For John it would be acknowledging the fact he would gladly pay $21 or more to see his niece perform instead of focusing on the $9 fee that increased his ticket price by 75%. In the end he’ll enjoy the play a little more and his niece will be happy that her uncle came to see her perform.
Brian Ahearn, CMCT® Chief Influence Officer influencePEOPLE Helping You Learn to Hear “Yes”.Cialdini “Influence” Series! Would you like to learn more about influence from the experts? Check out the Cialdini “Influence” Series featuring Cialdini Method Certified Trainers from around the world.
Taste that Expression
Courtesy of StockVault
We are all familiar with the notion that our facial muscles relax and contract with the emotions that we display on it, which are more often than not involuntary, depending on how we feel. Researchers in Tokyo have identified a similar link between taste and its involuntary display of certain facial expressions based on the different tastes we experience.
Red Orbit reports on this new research which lends itself to the researchers past trials that noted changes in the skin blood flow in the eyelid and nose in response to basic sweet, umami (pleasant savory) and bitter tastes. Now the researchers have extended the study to identify a correlation between changes in circulation in specific parts of the face and the subjective palatability of different complex tastes such as the sweet and sour taste of orange juice.
Hideaki Kashima, Yuka Hamada and Naoyuki Hayashi from the Prefectural University of Hiroshima, Kyushu University and Tokyo Institute of Technology studied 15 test subjects with flavors ranging from sweet chili, orange juice, bitter tea, soup and a water control. All of the various tastes were kept at room temperature and a conductance index (CI) was calculated from the measured skin blood flow as a ration of the mean arterial pressure.
Skin blood flow data from the test subjects’ forehead, eyelid, nose and cheek was additionally measured using laser speckle flowgraphy. The data was recorded 5 s before stimulation and 20s after stimulation. In addition the skin blood flow in the right index finger was measured by laser Doppler flowmetry.
The test subjects retained the taste sample fluids in their mouths for 30s before swallowing and then rinsed their mouths with pure water at 40 °C until the taste had gone. They rated the tastes on six, eleven-point visual analog scales, one for palatability and one for the intensity with respect to each of the five tastes sweet, sour, salty, bitter and spicy. The ratings scaled from +5 (the most pleasant) through 0 (no change) to -5 (the most unpleasant).
Tastes deemed ‘pleasant’ increased blood flow in the eyelid. Chili was found to increase blood flow in all measured areas irrespective of the palatability rating given by the subjects. However, when changes induced by chili sauce were excluded there was a significant correlation between the palatability ratings the test subjects gave and the conductance index values in their eyelids.
“These results suggest that the facial circulatory response reflects the degree of palatability of a foodstuff,” purport the researchers. CI (conductance index) in the eyelid increased significantly in response to chili sauce, orange juice and soup, while CIs in the forehead, nose and cheek decreased in response to bitter tea.
The conductance index in the nose was not found to be related to palatability scores, however bitter tea caused vasoconstriction in the nose. Similar vasoconstriction in the nose has been observed in response to the discomfort of electrical stimulation of a finger or teeth. Temperature decreases have also been noted around the noses of rhesus monkeys in response to negative emotions, and are likely the cause of the observed vasoconstriction in the nose in response to bitter tea.
What are your taste buds telling you?
Separating the Liars from the Truth Tellers
Courtesy of StockVault
People tend to measure dishonesty by a person’s physical tells such as fidgeting, breathing rate, etc. Often times these tells coupled with the baseline of the individual and intuition leads us to be correct in our analysis when it is someone we know well. However, these techniques including measuring blood pressure and pulse as in a polygraph, are not admissible as hard evidence of deception in any legal form.
It is for a good reason that these signs of anxiety are not reliable indicators of a person’s honesty. They can be a representation of nervousness or just how a person normally behaves. Science has long tried to accurately map out lies from truths using technology and with the exponential growth of technology today, researchers can now delve into our brains.
Today researchers studying the brain and deception use a full body scanner that employs functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) technology to determine whether someone is fibbing by tracing blood flow to certain areas of the brain, which indicates changes in neuronal activity at the synapses (gaps between the neurons). “If you’re using fMRI, the scanner is detecting a change in the magnetic properties in the blood,“ says Sean Spence, a professor of general adult psychiatry at the University of Sheffield in England.
Scientific American notes in their article about this research that hemoglobin molecules in red blood cells exhibit different magnetic properties depending on the amount of oxygen they contain. The most active brain regions use—and thereby contain—the most oxygen.
Spence goes on to note, “When you know the answer to a question, the answer is automatic; but to avoid telling me the true answer requires something more.“ Polygraph, or lie detector, tests are the most well-known method of discerning fact from fiction, but researchers say they are not reliable because they measure anxiety based on a subject’s pulse or breathing rate, which can easily be misread. “They’re not detecting deception but rather the anxiety of being…[accused of deception],“ Spence says. “It’s known that psychopaths have a reduced level of anxiety,“ that would allow them to fool a polygraph. The fMRI, he says, images the actual processes involved in deception.
The researchers had a unique opportunity to study a woman convicted of poisoning a child in her care. This provided a stage for Spence and his colleagues to extend their, which until then had only been conducted on young, healthy university students as many studies of this sort do.
The team used an fMRI on Susan Hamilton of Edinburgh, Scotland, who was convicted of poisoning with salt a girl diagnosed with a terminal metabolic condition. Hamilton, who was in charge of feeding the child via a feeding tube that led directly into her stomach, was arrested after the girl was admitted to the hospital with massive blood sodium levels. The police testified that a syringe full of salt was found in Hamilton’s kitchen, but she denies any knowledge of it. The woman was released from prison last year and has continued to search for ways to publicly prove her professed innocence.
The researchers scanned Hamilton four times; during each scan they grilled her about the poisoning. With the fMRI, Spence was able to see that she activated extensive regions of her frontal brain lobes and also took significantly longer to respond when agreeing with the cops’ account. The results did not prove her innocent, Spence says, but suggested that her brain was responding as if she were innocent.
Spence and his team acknowledge that the results might have been more accurate if he had first done a baseline study that included asking her more general questions unrelated to the charges. Unfortunately, TV is show biz and his time with her was limited.
“Being able to study this lady pointed out problems with the technique,“ the researchers note, “There are a number of control studies we want to do.“
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