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november 04, 2003
Sammanträffanden - ur en annan vinkel
Mer från Cialdinis bok Influence - Science and practice.
I kapitlet "Liking", avsnittet "Similarity", sid 150f, står det följande om likheter (emfas i originalet):
We like people who are similar to us. ... This fact seems to hold true whether the similarity is in the area of opinions, personality traits, background, or lifestyle. Consequently, those who want us to like them so that we will comply with then can accomplish that purpose by appearing similiar to us in a wide variety of ways.
...
Another way requesters can manipulate similarity to increase liking and compliance is to claim that they have backgrounds and interests similar to us. Car salespeople, for example, are trained to look for evidence of such things while examine a customer's trade-in. If there is camping gear in the trunk, the salespeople might mention, later on, how they love to get away from the city whenever they can; if there are golf balls on the back seat, they might rmark that they hope the rain will hold off until they can play the eighteen holes they scheduled for later in the day; if they notice that the car was purchased out of state, they might ask where a customer is from and report - with surprise - that they (or their spouse) were born there, too.
As trivial as there similiarities may seem, the appear to work. One researcher who examined the sales records of insurance companies found that customers where more likely to buy insurance when a salesperson was like them in age, religion, politics, and cigarette-smoking habits. Another researcher was able to significantly increase the percentage of people who responded to a mailed survey by changing one small feature of the request: On a cover letter, he modified tha name of the survey-taker to be similar to that of the survey recipient. Thus, Robert Greer received the survey from a survey center official named Bob Gregar, while Cynthia Johnston received hers from a survey center official named Cindy Johanson. In two separate studies, adding this little bit of similarity to the exchange nearly doubled survey complicance.
Detta är en (annan) förklaring till varför vi är så fascinerade av "märkliga sammanträffanden", t.ex. med någon man sitter bredvid på planet: här träffar man - överraskande - på en person som är så lik en själv! Det behöver inte vara att man anser det är något övernaturligt på gång, utan kan ha enklare orsaker: Att man helt enkelt känner sig vänligt stämd mot personen och, förhoppningsvis, även vice versa. En bra ice-breaker, helt enkelt.
Det kan också vara ett knep från en bondfångare...
Tidigare anteckningar om sammanträffanden finns samlade i kategorin Sammanträffanden. Andra undersökningar om hur olika typer av likheter påverkar oss skrevs om i Socialt avstånd - och semantiskt. I Skrivande som påverkan refererades ett annat avsnitt från Cialdinis bok.
Posted by hakank at november 4, 2003 12:02 FM Posted to Sammanträffanden