Reason Respecting Tendency -How To Ask For A Favor
Reason Respecting Tendency (RRT) states that you have a better chance of persuading people to do something if you'll give them a reason. It doesn't matter what reason you give or how sound your reason is, what matters is that you should give them a reason. It seems strange, but it isn't.
In the 1970s Harvard psychologist, Ellen Langer conducted an experiment. She went to the library where a long queue had formed in front of the photocopier. She went ahead and asked the people in the queue "‘Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine?’". Her success rate was 60% in this case.
In the next part of the experiment, she included a reason: ‘Excuse me. I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I’m in a rush?’. This time almost all the people obliged her request. Her success rate was 94% in this case. This seems obvious also because people might have thought that her reason was genuine and thus obliged her request.
But things get interesting from here onwards. In the next part of the experiment, she again went into the library and this time she reasoned: ‘Excuse me. I have five pages. May I go before you because I have to make some copies?’.
Now, this is interesting. She asked them to let her go first because she had to make some copies. Well, everybody who's standing in a queue in front of the photocopies is there to make copies. Her excuse was lame. Most of the people should have seen through her excuse and should not have let her go ahead of them. But the results were shocking. Her success rate 93% this time. Same as the case in which she gave a genuine reason.
What this shows is that people don’t really care what reason you give, as long as you are giving them a reason.
As Peter Bevelin writes in the book 'Seeking Wisdom from Darwin to Munger'
When people ask us for a favor, we are more likely to comply if they give us a reason - even if we don't understand the reason or it is wrong. Often it isn't the reason itself that is important, but the way the reason is phrased. Sometimes the word "because," without a sensible reason, is all that matters. We want explanations and the word "because" imply an explanation.
Rolf Dobelli also captures this beautifully in his book Art of Thinking Clearly, –
It seems people are addicted to the word ‘because’ – so much so that we use it even when it’s not necessary. If you’re a leader, undoubtedly you have witnessed this. If you provide no rallying call, employee motivation dwindles. It simply doesn’t make the grade to say that the purpose of your shoe company is to manufacture footwear. No: today, higher purposes and the story behind the story is all-important; for example: ‘We want our shoes to revolutionize the market’ (whatever that means) …
So, as we have seen, the most important part is 'because' and not the exact reason that comes after it.
Now, that was the theory part. Let's see how it plays out in real life and how can we use it to our advantage to persuade people to do what we want them to do.
When you think of the excuse 'May I go before you because I have to make some copies?’, you must be thinking what a lame excuse this is and how could people allow her to go ahead of them. But this is not an isolated instance, it happens all the time.
For example, take the example of politicians. They always come with all kinds of schemes and claims 'We have brought this because it will increase the farmers’ income / generate the employment/ reduce the poverty etc.' These reasons are quite obvious because nobody will come up with a scheme that will reduce the farmers’ income/ destroy employment/ increase poverty.
We almost never ask how this scheme will achieve what it said to achieve. I can give more concrete examples from the political arena but if you will think through, you will find out by yourself that almost always, politicians give nonsensical reasons and we believe them because we never try to think through those reasons. Ok, enough with politics. Let's move on.
Another example is from the advertisement industry. Famous brands always associate a tagline with their brand. I agree that their taglines are catchy and creative. But most of the time these taglines don't make any sense. For example, take the example of Mountain Dew, 'Darr ke aagey jeet hai'. This Tagline is a hit, but overall if you see, it doesn't make any sense. This is the case with most of the taglines.
Now, let's see how we can use RRT to our advantage. We have learned that people will often oblige to our requests if we include a reason for it. Always include a 'because' in your requests.
For example, if you want a favor from your colleague, instead of asking 'can you help me?', ask 'can you help me because ....'.
We can also use it to persuade our children to do something that we want them to do. Suppose you want your daughter not to overeat chocolates. In that case, instead of telling her not to eat chocolates, tell her that she should not eat chocolates because that will ruin her teeth. Whenever you decide to teach something to your child, always include a reason.
Your sentence structure should be like 'You should not do that because...' or 'You should do this daily because...'. Always include 'because'. Give them a reason.
Now, the most important part. We can use RRT to increase our understanding of something.
As Peter Bevelin writes in the book 'Seeking Wisdom from Darwin to Munger'
Understanding reasons is an important factor in learning. To learn, remember, organize, and use ideas, we must understand the "why" and "how." There's no use memorizing what we don't understand. If we don't understand the meaning of an idea, we don't use it. What we don't use, we forget. We also need to be motivated to learn. And we can't be motivated if we don't understand why we need to learn something. We need to see its practical use.
Whenever you undertake a project, always tell yourself 'I am doing this because...'. It will not only increase your understanding of the project but will also enhance your commitment to it.
In the end, I want to say that learning about something will only help us if we try to apply that learning in our life. As Aristotle said
"For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them."
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