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Ivy League professor shares one word that makes people 30 percent more likely to be persuaded

This word helps turn actions into identities, which is the key to persuading others.

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Jonah Berger explains how appealing to someone's identity makes them more likely to agree to a request.

Everybody wants to see themselves in a positive light. That’s the key to understanding Jonah Berger’s simple tactic that makes people 30% more likely to do what you ask. Berger is a marketing professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and the bestselling author of “Magic Words: What to Say to Get Your Way.”

Berger explained the technique using a Stanford University study involving preschoolers. The researchers messed up a classroom and made two similar requests to groups of 5-year-olds to help clean up.

One group was asked, "Can you help clean?" The other was asked, “Can you be a helper and clean up?" The kids who were asked if they wanted to be a “helper” were 30% more likely to want to clean the classroom. The children weren’t interested in cleaning but wanted to be known as “helpers.”

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Berger calls the reframing of the question as turning actions into identities.

"It comes down to the difference between actions and identities. We all want to see ourselves as smart and competent and intelligent in a variety of different things,” Berger told Big Think. “But rather than describing someone as hardworking, describing them as a hard worker will make that trait seem more persistent and more likely to last. Rather than asking people to lead more, tell them, 'Can you be a leader?' Rather than asking them to innovate, can you ask them to 'Be an innovator'? By turning actions into identities, you can make people a lot more likely to engage in those desired actions.”

Berger says that learning to reframe requests to appeal to people’s identities will make you more persuasive.

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“Framing actions as opportunities to claim desired identities will make people more likely to do them,” Berger tells CNBC Make It. “If voting becomes an opportunity to show myself and others that I am a voter, I’m more likely to do it.”

This technique doesn’t just work because people want to see themselves in a positive light. It also works for the opposite. People also want to avoid seeing themselves being portrayed negatively.

“Cheating is bad, but being a cheater is worse. Losing is bad, being a loser is worse,” Berger says.

The same tactic can also be used to persuade ourselves to change our self-concept. Saying you like to cook is one thing, but calling yourself a chef is an identity. “I’m a runner. I’m a straight-A student. We tell little kids, ‘You don’t just read, you’re a reader,’” Berger says. “You do these things because that’s the identity you hold.”

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

Berger’s work shows how important it is to hone our communication skills. By simply changing one word, we can get people to comply with our requests more effectively. But, as Berger says, words are magic and we have to use them skillfully. “We think individual words don’t really matter that much. That’s a mistake,” says Berger. “You could have excellent ideas, but excellent ideas aren’t necessarily going to get people to listen to you.”

This article originally appeared last year. It has since been updated.

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The effortless trick neuroscientists say will help you pick up any new skill a lot faster

It's a passive hack that works wonders.

via Andrea Piacquadio/Pexels

A woman learning how to play guitar

Learning a new skill, such as playing an instrument, gardening or picking up a new language, takes a lot of time and practice, whether that means scale training, learning about native plants or using flashcards to memorize new words.

To improve through practice, you have to perform the task repeatedly while also receiving feedback so you know whether you’re doing it correctly or not. Is my pitch correct? Did my geraniums bloom? Is my pronunciation understandable?

However, a new study by researchers at the Institute of Neuroscience at the University of Oregon shows that you can speed up the processes by adding a third element to practice and feedback: passive exposure. The good news is that passive exposure requires minimal effort and is enjoyable.

"Active learning of a... task requires both expending effort to perform the task and having access to feedback about task performance," the study authors explained. "Passive exposure to sensory stimuli, on the other hand, is relatively effortless and does not require feedback about performance."

listening to music, learning a skill, woman in bedA woman listening to music in bedvia Andrea Piacquadio/Pexels

So, if you’re learning to play the blues on guitar, listen to plenty of Howlin’ Wolf or Robert Johnson throughout the day. If you’re learning to cook, keep the Food Network on TV all day to absorb some great culinary advice. Learning to garden? Take the time to notice the flora and fauna in your neighborhood or make frequent trips to your local botanical garden.

If you’re learning a new language, watch plenty of TV and films in the tongue you are learning.

The scientists add that auditory learning is especially helpful, so listen to plenty of audiobooks or podcasts on the subject you’re learning about.

Researchers learned the tremendous benefits of passive exposure after conducting a study with a group of mice. They trained them to find water, using various sounds to give either positive or negative feedback, like playing a game of “hot or cold.” Some mice were passively exposed to these sounds when they weren't looking for water. Those who experienced this additional passive exposure and their active training learned to find the water reward faster.

gardening, learning a skill, nueroscienceA woman reading a book about house plants.via cottonbro studio/Pexels

“Our results suggest that, in mice and in humans, a given performance threshold can be achieved with relatively less effort by combining low-effort passive exposure with active training,” James Murray, a neuroscientist who led the study, told University of Oregon News. “This insight could be helpful for humans learning an instrument or a second language, though more work will be needed to better understand how this applies to more complex tasks and how to optimize training schedules that combine passive exposure with active training.”

The great news about the story is that in addition to giving people a new way to approach learning, it’s an excuse for us to enjoy the things we love even more. If you enjoy listening to blues music so much that you decided to learn for yourself, it’s another reason to make it an even more significant part of your life.


This article originally appeared last year.

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People's wrong answers to this 'easy' LSAT question are why public discourse is so hard

The basic reading comprehension and critical thinking question almost feels like a litmus test.

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LSAT questions start easy and get harder as the test progresses.

Public discourse can be great when it's done well, when everyone brings thoughtful, well-informed opinions to the table and puts forth cogent arguments backed up by evidence. We don't all have to agree on everything—differences in perspectives and priorities are important ingredients in a democratic society—but the quality of the actual arguments themselves matter.

Since the advent of social media, public discourse has not been so great, especially on the internet. The written nature of online discussions seems like it would lend itself to fewer misconceptions and better understanding, but it doesn't. People draw erroneous and illogical conclusions all the time, and it often feels like reading comprehension and critical thinking skills are hard to come by. According to an unintentional social experiment on X, there may be some truth to that.

An X user (@sarahpatt08) shared a photo of a question from the LSAT, the test people have to pass in order to be admitted to law school, and asked if people found the question easy or difficult. The instructions are partially cut off but appear to indicate that you are to choose the best answer based only on the information given, avoiding assumptions that are not directly supported by the passage.

The question reads:

"Physical education should teach people to pursue healthy, active lifestyles as they grow older. But the focus on competitive sports in most schools causes most of the less competitive students to turn away from sports. Having learned to think of themselves as unathletic, they do not exercise enough to stay healthy.

Which of one of the following is most strongly supported by the statements above, if they are true?

(A) Physical education should include noncompetitive activities.

(B) Competition causes most students to turn away from sports.

(C) People who are talented at competitive physical endeavors exercise regularly.

(D) The mental aspects of exercise are as important as the physical ones.

(E) Children should be taught the dangers of a sedentary lifestyle."

These kinds of reading comprehension and reasoning questions are common to tests like the LSAT and the SAT. One way to tackle them is to start eliminating the answers that are not directly supported by the text. Starting from the bottom:

(E) is not supported because the text doesn't say anything about a sedentary lifestyle actually being dangerous, and this answer doesn't include anything the passage is focused on (competitive sports turning kids who aren't competitive away from exercise).

(D) is not supported because while competitiveness could be considered a mental aspect of exercise, it's not always. And there's nothing in the text to support the idea that mental and physical aspects of exercise are equally important.

(C) is not supported because the text doesn't say anything about talent. Someone could be competitive and enjoy competitive sports but be totally untalented, and being talented at something doesn't necessarily mean you do it regularly.

(B) is not supported because there is no indication from the passage that most students (in general) aren't competitive, only that most of the less competitive students turn away from sports.

(A) is the answer most supported by the passage because the crux of the argument in the passage is that noncompetitive students are often turned off of physical education by the emphasis on sports in most schools. Therefore, the most logical conclusion is that having more noncompetitive activities would get more kids involved in physical education.

For some people, the correct answer was simple and obvious. For others, not so much. Some people made what they thought were strong arguments for (D). Others insisted it was (E). Not many said (C) but there were a handful on the (B) train. And those who knew the answer to be (A) were taken aback by how many people came to different conclusions.

And therein lies one answer to why our public discourse often feels like it can't get anywhere. Answering a reading comprehension and reasoning question like this correctly is easy for some people. Some think it's easy but then get the wrong answer, and some see multiple answers as equal contenders for "best." Everyone believes they're the ones thinking critically and using logic, but many people fail to recognize the assumptions they make when reading and the biases and unsupported ideas that slip into their reasoning.

The most supported answer based on the text is (A). Is that what you got?

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Former teacher gets blunt about the 'denial' some parents have about their kids education

"They're more concerned about the optics…than about taking care of the child's needs."

@bodacious.bobo/TikTok

A former teacher breaks down the "denial" some parents have about their kid's academic performance

Many kids are seriously struggling in school. According to US News, an estimated 49% of public school students started off the 2022-2023 school year behind in at least one subject compared to the previous year, which saw 50% of students behind. While that's an improvement of 1%, it's not enough to show that kids are getting back on the right track.

While there are several factors contributing to this issue—the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, a lack of resources for many public schools, a teacher shortage—several educators feel that a majorly overlooked aspect is parents involvement, or lack thereof, in their child’s education.

Recently, one former teacher bluntly stated that it was parents' “denial” that’s to blame. Odion, who now works as a flight attendant, made her case in response to another teacher's TikTok asking parents why they're unaware that their children are underperforming for their grade level.

In the original video, user @qbthedon laments that his 7th grade students still perform at a 4th grade level, and, despite his efforts, those kids still move onto the next grade even though they're not ready. The worst part is that the parents don’t seem to be aware that their kids are extremely behind.

@qbthedon Lets chat!! #fyp #viral #teachertok ♬ original sound - QBSkiiii

This lack of awareness and engagement dates back further than the pandemic years, says Odion, who taught Pre-K and Kindergarten in 2013.

Case in point: parent-teacher conference nights, where virtually no parent would show up. Odion then recalled one father who did attend with his daughter, called Tia for the story, but would not believe that Tia did not know the full alphabet.

"In kindergarten, you have to at least know, I think it was 80% of the 52 letters, as in uppercase and lowercase, and you have to be able to identify at random. So, I'm telling the dad that she barely knows 10 letters. And he's in denial. 'Nah, you know, she knows her letters,'" Odion says.

She then acts out that night, using a makeshift flashcard like she did to test Tia.

"I literally said, 'What letter is this?'” Odion says while holding up the letter “M.” “She said something that's not it. Put another one down. 'What letter is this?' She don't know it."

screenshot of woman in glasses speaking to camera

"I literally said, 'What letter is this?'”

@bodacious.bobo/TikTok

Still, the dad insisted that Tia knew her letters. Eventually, he blamed Tia’s older brother, who, despite only being a sixth grader himself, was “supposed to teach her.”

“It is not up to a child in elementary school, or middle school, or really any of your older kids, as someone who's an older child... It is not up to the kids to teach younger kids,” Odion says in the clip.

Using another example, Odion states that a fifth grader in her class was reading at a kindergarten level and could only process basic sentences like “I see you” and “I like to see.”

In this instance, the students should be held back in order to fully learn the year’s curriculum. But Odion argues that parents fight against it because "they are more concerned about the optics of a child being held back than actually taking care of the child's needs."

"I see you" and "I like to see" written on white paper.

"Parents, y'all can't be backseat drivers about your child's learning."

@bodacious.bobo/TikTok

In this instance, the students should be held back in order to fully learn the year’s curriculum. But Odion argues that parents fight against it “because they are more concerned about the optics of a child being held back than actually taking care of the child's needs."

While the research shows that holding kids back a grade does improve their academic performance by granting them more time, there are still significant pros and cons to consider. In other words, being held back might not be the best solution for every struggling child. The biggest point Odion seems to be trying to make is that in addition to teachers and administrators, parents need to be more proactive in their child’s education.

@bodacious_bobo #stitch with @QBSkiiii ♬ original sound - Odion • $OdionE

"Parents, y'all can't be backseat drivers about your child's learning. You have to help reinforce it at home. You put a kid in front of that phone or iPad whenever they come home, it better be on YouTube, and it better be learning about letters and sight words. You can't tell me you can't read to the kid. It takes 10 minutes to read to the kid. No one is that busy,” she concludes.

This article originally appeared in January.

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