It's no secret that people don't like to
be told what to do, and I'm as guilty of
this as anybody. I know that for me, the
more someone tells me that I cannot have
fast food,
I only want to have fast food all the
more. Right? If someone tells me that I
can't do something,
what I want to do? Exactly that thing. I
think that's a fairly common experience.
In psychology,
this idea is called "reactance," which
means that people don't like to feel
like their freedom of choice is being
threatened.
If I feel like you're making me do
something--you're trying to control me--
I react really poorly to it. And a lot of
times what happens is that people go
ahead and do the opposite.
They'll do something that completely
counters the thing that they feel like
they're being made to do. This is a
problem for persuaders because what is
persuasion and influence but trying to
get people to do the things you want
them to do? So you need to be careful and
know that people aren't going to be
super open to the fact that you want to
guide their behaviors and opinions.
So what do we do? How do we counter
reactance?
Well there's a very cool principle in
psychology called "But You Are Free" -- or at
least that's what I call the principle.
The idea is that you want to assure
people that you're not trying to
threaten their freedom to choose and
they completely have freedom of choice
in this instance. And then ask them to do
something for you.
Basically, the idea is: reassure people
that you're not trying to control them,
and they become more influenced by what
it is that you have to say.
Consider a study that was conducted in
France a few years ago.
Their goal was to get people to take a
simple survey, and they just go up to
people and say, "Hey, we're doing a survey
around town. We're looking for people to
help us out and complete this 5 - 8 minute questionnaire.
Would you please do that for us? And the
question is: how many times do people say
"Yes, I'll take your survey for you"?
Well, when they went in cold and they
just asked like that,
it turns out that about 75% of people
did say "yes."
After all, it's only a 5 - 8
minute survey. People are happy to do
something like that. But in some
instances, they added the "But You Are
Free" tactic and opened up their request
by saying, "Hello."
"We have something to ask of you, but you 
are of course free to accept or refuse."
And then they asked them to take the
survey.
Well in this case, compliance rates shot
up to 90%.
Even though 75% was a
pretty good figure, adding just this one
little sentence made people more likely
to say "yes" to the thing that they were
asking them to do. And all it took was
telling people that they were free to
say "no," and ironically, that made them
more likely to say "yes." In 2013, a meta-
analysis was conducted, which just means
they took a whole bunch of different
studies and lumped them all together to
see if they were reliable across
multiple studies. And they found that
across 42 different studies, the "But You
Are Free" technique is a reliable and
effective strategy. They did find that it
was more influential when in person -- if
you're talking to someone in person and
using the"But You Are Free" technique.
It's less effective over email.
But overall, this is an effective
strategy because it reminds people that
they're free to say "no."
It assures them that they continue to
have autonomy. They can say "yes," they can
say "no"...
ultimately it's their choice. And it's so
strange to me that reminding people that
they can say "no"
makes them more likely to say "yes." So the
next time you have a favor to ask, simply
add these simple words: "but you are free
to say 'no,'" and you might find that people
become more likely to say "yes."
