Dry Vodka Martini

• 1 shot, journalism
• 1 dash, persuasion
  
• 1 ice filled shaker
• stir in shaker, pour, then enjoy!

Lady Gaga’s Great and Insincere Persuasion

I lost my manufactured pop culture street cred when I stopped teaching my large lecture Mass Media course in 1998.  Til then I had a relentless focus on the hipster world because it connected my students to the course and functioned as a hook to grab their Reception, then as a WATTage switch to get them to Process communication theory and research.  Just as a man will do anything if he thinks it’s foreplay, students will listen to anything if they think it’s groovy, gear, and fab.

Now, as an aging FauxHipster, even I can see the pop success of Lady Gaga when the Wall Street Journal (!!!) gives her the star treatment.  If you want a great demonstration of the truth behind All Bad Persuasion Is Sincere, now hear this:  At the Simon Cowell standard of cruel honesty, Lady Gaga cannot sing, cannot dance, and cannot pose, but she can persuade the world to think her a Icon which means there’s nothing sincere about her.

She’s great!

But, will she last as long as the last one with Blonde Ambition who showed such Great Insincerity?

Mojo Times?

The Sunday New York Times today is one of the best editions of that paper since Pinch Sulzburger took over and nearly destroyed it.  The paper is readable from <p> to </p> for every page.  Perhaps they’ve recovered from their Bush Derangement?  Once nothing but Biased Processing and Sincere Persuasion, the Grey Lady is gorgeous.

Today.

Auteurism at Apple:  Sincerity?

Great feature on Steve Jobs at Apple and the Auteur of Innovation.  Here’s the key persuasion point:

Apple represents the “auteur model of innovation,” observes John Kao, a consultant to corporations and governments on innovation. In the auteur model, he said, there is a tight connection between the personality of the project leader and what is created. Movies created by powerful directors, he says, are clear examples, from Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo” to James Cameron’s “Avatar.”

I’m uncertain how to understand Apple.  Apple and Jobs attracts admiration from the Cool Table, but the Cool Table is rarely persuasive.  Magnetic, yes.  It attracts those who are attracted to it which is not nearly the same thing as persuasive which means you change the Other Guy rather than draw Other Guys who are Just Like You.

You see this in Apple’s market share.  They get the Sophisticate Slice, but nothing like the Microsoft Masses.  For example, if I wanted to win an election or a war, I wouldn’t ask Steve Jobs for advice (unless, of course, the election or the war only involved the Cool Table).  I would ask Bill Gates.  Look at Mr. Gates work with vaccine production and distribution.  This is a guy who really thinks big and important.

Apple and Jobs reek with Sincerity.  Granted they are cool, hip, beautiful, sleek, graceful, innovative, and on and on.  But sincere.

Obama’s Persuasion Crisis

The Chinese ideograph for Crisis contains both Danger and Opportunity and the NYT offers a great perspective piece that embraces the dynamic tension Obama faces here.

Mr. Obama rode into office on one of the most elegant narratives in recent campaign history: that he was the embodiment of hope and change. It caught the national mood, yet remained vague enough to mean pretty much whatever a voter wanted it to mean.

The Times writer then notes various challenges to this Image. Reverse Bush, but Surge Afghanistan; help the people, but bailout the banks; and so on.  The writer then unhelpfully quotes a White House perspective.

The White House largely dismisses the warnings. “The president has had a consistent political narrative since the day he stepped on the national stage in 2004,” said Dan Pfeiffer, the White House communications director. “The interpretation of it is cyclical.”

I noted that Mr. Obama lost his way on the Persuasion Path last summer and think he remains lost.

Forever Green, Forget the Price

You can recharge your cell phone with a solar panel device that uses Ms. Sunshine instead of Mr. Coal.  It only costs $99, but it comes with a bag so you can tote and charge on sunny days.  Pouty lipped model not included, although this technology may be a Chick Magnet.  Solar is sooo hot with Pouty Lipped women, isn’t it?

It costs about a penny to recharge the bad way (look it up).  That’s 9900 solar charges which equals over 27 years of coal charges.  Purple faced advocates:  Yes, this is too simple.  Yes, you are complex.  You are smart.  Yes, you are right.  But, of course, It’s about the Other Guy, so who cares about you?

Go long on Green when you can put it in a box and make profit for yourself.

Money, Politics, and Attitudes

Fun report on an interesting money study.  Researchers looked at how people handled their investments depending upon whether their political party was in or out of power.  You invest differently if Your Team is running things compared to when the Other Team is running things.

One of the primary findings concerned the relationship between investors’ political optimism and their propensity to hold domestic stocks. When their preferred political party came to power, investors tended to become much more upbeat about the economy and the domestic stock market.

Now, of course, there’s no good economic reason to do this.  It’s a matter of your political power perception making you feel differently about the stock market.

For Patrick

My nephew, Patrick, is a talented musician who plays the sax and wants to pursue a career in music.  We often discuss the paucity of sax pieces in the classical music repertoire.  Well, Patrick, here’s a nice Times story about Prism and how they’ve handled the problem.

Keep on moving, folks.  No persuasion here.  Just sax, but no violins.

Race and Persuasion

“I KNOW there is nothing a white person can say to a black person about race which is not both incorrect and offensive,” James Spader’s hard-driving lawyer says in the new David Mamet play, “Race.” “I know that. Race is the most incendiary topic in our history. And the moment it comes out, you cannot close the lid on that box. That may change. But not for a long long while.”

Makes it tough to write a review which, of course, is an exercise in applied persuasion.

Osama ‘Bama Wanna-be

Omar Hammami had every right to flash his magnetic smile. He had just been elected president of his sophomore class. He was dating a luminous blonde, one of the most sought-after girls in school. He was a star in the gifted-student program, with visions of becoming a surgeon. For a 15-year-old, he had remarkable charisma.

Great personality profile on an American boy, Alabama boy to boot, who’s now in Somalia leading Al Qaeda boys in jihad.

632,500

Read all about it.

The persuasion world never stops and neither do I!  The magic of the Internet permits constant rewriting, repair, and restoration and so I’ve gussied up the Reinforcement Page, thusly.

Good Taste in Terminology

Many people are idiots about Reinforcement Theory and say more than they know:  FauxItAlls.  The mark of the beast occurs with two words, “positive” and “negative.”  If you wish to remain a person with class, sophistication, and darn it, just plain good taste, let me show you to the Cool Table.  This information will probably have no impact on how Those People misuse Reinforcement lingo, but at least you and I will have the smug pleasure of knowing the difference between those heathens and us sophisticates.  Let me hold your cape.  On to the opera!

You can easily find confident writers scribbling the terms “positive reinforcement” and “negative reinforcement” as synonyms for “reward” and “punishment,” respectively.  Thus, a “positive reinforcer” is a rewarding consequence while a “negative reinforcer” is a punishing consequence.  These heathen FauxItAlls have confounded two different elements of the theory into a hopeless mashup of mismeaning.  Heathens are free to say and do what they please – that’s what makes them heathens after all – but they cannot call themselves knowledgeable, competent, learned, I-passed-the-true-false-test purveyors of Reinforcement Theory.  Anyone who uses this lingo is post hoc, ergo ipso facto, dipsy-doodle dumb, but unfortunately neither speechless nor dysgraphic.

People properly punished, oops, I mean educated, in Reinforcement Theory lingo know that the modifiers “positive” and “negative” are closer in meaning to the street parlance meaning of “on” and “off.”  Thus, when a Proper Persuader says or writes “positive reinforcer” it can mean either a rewarding or a punishing consequence was “turned on” or “made available” or “activated” or just simply, “there.”  By contrast, with a “negative reinforcer” it means either a rewarding or a punishing consequence was “turned off” or “made unavailable” or “deactivated” or just simply, “not there.”  The key point to discipline here is the on-off usage of the positive-negative terms and not the reward-punishment connection wired by discombobulated heathens.

The Proper usage of positive-negative as on-off makes certain reinforcement situations more understandable than the uncouth reward-punishment misprison.  Consider this situation.  In a known situation (When), you perform a behavior (Do), and receive a reward (Get).  Later, I change the contingency by taking away the rewarding Get.  This is now punishment.  And I created a punishment by taking away the previously rewarding consequence.  I didn’t add anything new, I just took away something rewarding from the old.  This is negative reinforcement.

Kids growing up learn this by the street name of Grounded rather than the hoity-toity Negative Reinforcement.  This rose is all thorn and arises from what you lose rather than what you gain.  The FauxItAll nomenclature clearly cannot cope with an example even juvenile delinquents understand.

Thus Spake The Maestro:  Positive means On; Negative means Off.  Let’s us now scoff at the FauxItAlls who drop their unLearned Drawers in public with their positive-reward and negative-punishment miswiring.  Tah!

Now, we’re off to Tosca.  Scarpia knows the difference between the positive and the negative and how to apply them with rewards and punishments . . . until the end, of course, when Tosca proves that love is greater than operant conditioning!

More Good Taste:  Taking a Beating for a Rosy Glow

While we sit entr’acte, consider now another conceptual and linguistic faux pas from the FauxItAlls:  Killing a behavior.  We’re talking about, my good man, ending it, it never happens again, it falls out of the behavioral repertoire.  She stops nagging.  He stops drinking.  They live happily ever after.

To end, stop, finito, quito, void, nullify, endeth any behavior the FauxItAll goes to the whip early and often, believing like Mrs. Reinforcer in a crazed conception that never has, was, or will be found in Righteous Reinforcement.  Mrs. Reinforcer believes in a Constant Consequence that conditions for all faces and places.  FauxItAlls believe Punishment terminates a behavior.  Both are wrong.  There are no Constant Consequences and Punishment does not terminate a behavior.

What, then, sir, you say, what then terminates a behavior if not punishment?

Nothing, my good man.  Why, nothing at all extinguishes a behavior.  Now, pass me the mustache wax, if you please.  As you splutter, let me wax on . . .

. . . recall that Consequences of Reward INcrease a behavior, that Consequences of Punishment DEcrease a behavior, and that the Consequence of Nothing stops a behavior.  Nagging does not stop because the Nag fears Punishment, but because Nothing desirable follows the Nagging.  Silence while the Nag waits for the Punisher to leave the Scene is not the same thing as the Silence that arises from a new point of view.  FauxItAlls and Mrs. Reinforcer (in the Lecture Hall with the Whip) fail to distinguish these different states of inaction.  Sometimes, inaction is a ploy.  Other times, it is the sign of an extinguished action.

Of course, FauxItAlls know that the Consequence of Nothing is an idiocy because everyone knows that nothing comes from nothing, so Nothing cannot possibly work!  And the Fauxs point to numerous examples wherein someone like Mrs. Reinforcer clearly did Nothing with Bad Bill, yet Bad Bill’s behavior persisted.

The missing trick is that there are a google of Consequences and it is a conceit of the foolish to believe that only their Consequences count.  When Mrs. Reinforcer does Nothing with Bad Bill, she believes that the only source of Consequence for Bill is her.  Sigh.  It is difficult to extinguish a behavior because it is impossible or at least illegal for any one source to control all the Consequences for another human being.  Thus, even while you are properly doing Nothing, Bad Bill finds Consequences from other sources in the room, not infrequently from Sally Goodchild who finds herself blushing when Bill gets Bad with Mrs. Reinforcer.  Bill fancies a girl with a pinkish hue, a rosy glow, and will gladly pull Mrs. Reinforcer’s chain to put a blush on Sally’s cheeks.

Do not confuse the petty details of reality with the eternal truth of theory:  The Consequence of Nothing ends it all.

All is fair in love and advertising and those who pursue either by the Rules command my respect, if not my wariness.  Recall with me a simpler time when you could be romantic and smoke your brains out.

Exhale with me now.

Did you notice those warning labels?

Probably not.  But they’re there.  And for awhile they worked . . . meaning people were romantic and smoking their brains out even with the label.  The best warning label is the one hiding in plain sight.  Then the Tobacco Police wised up and realized the Rules of love and advertising and . . . you know.

Consider, now, this icon.  You’ll be seeing it on your romantic Internet adventures as advertisers warn you that they are following you on your surfin’ safari over the waves of the dubby-dub-dub.  Every click you take, every page you make, they’ll be watching you.

And you’ll know it with that EuroHipster Tourist Icon.

Baby, hand me that pack of Lucky’s and my Zippo.  I’ll watch you through the smoke . . .

Remember.

All Bad Persuasion Is Sincere.

There’s a Difference between Persuasion, and Smoke and Mirrors; with Persuasion, the Illusion Lingers.

Remember the Clinton Triangulation Persuasion Tactic?

Clinton would pick an issue and a position on that issue that tended to drive key audiences away from their normal allies and toward Mr. Clinton.  School uniforms to instill discipline in students, for example, is an outstanding example of Triangulation Persuasion.  The idea sounds kind of conservative, but only in a symbolic way; however, if you’re not thinking too carefully, the idea appeals to a conservative.  They move closer to Mr. Clinton and farther away from Republicans.  Triangulation.  (It’s based on Balance Theory by Fritz Heider and someday I’ll explain that.)

Now, what’s the Persuasion Triangulation here?

Bin Laden Rebukes U.S. on Climate Change

By JACK HEALY
Published: January 29, 2010

Osama bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda, blamed the United States and developed countries for not halting climate change and said that the global economy should immediately abandon its reliance on the American dollar, according to an audiotape released Friday by the broadcaster Al Jazeera.

1.  He’s running for office as the One World Green Party candidate.

2. He’s no longer receiving Oil Money for his financing and is now free to criticize the former hand that fed?

3. He’s never heard of China?

4. He’s holding Gold Stocks and expects a return to the Gold Standard?  (Is he in combination with arbitrage traders like George Soros?)

5. He’s trying to make President Obama look like President Bush?

I can’t decide whether this is smart or the desperate play of someone living too long in caves.

Consider this problem.  You are perceived as a doofus, but in this particular case you actually know what you are talking about it and if people would just listen to you, they would make the Right Choice.

Now, let’s turn it around.  You are a World Class Expert, the Master of The Domain, but everyone knows that so they don’t listen – “There she goes again!”

In each instance, you have the strong Argument, the knowledge that would benefit other people, but because of your Credibility, people tune out your Arguments.  How can you use your Credibility, High or Low to motivate High WATT processing when you’ve got strong Arguments?

Certainty.

Or unCertainty.

Turns out that the combination of Credibility and Certainty generates WATTage.  If you are the Master of the Domain, add a little bit of unCertainty to your pronouncements.  Hedge, qualify, maybe, kinda, sorta, could be.  If you are the Doofus, stand tall, speak strong, be confident.  That crossed combination creates a violation of expectation in the receiver that provokes high WATT processing of Argument quality, which is exactly what you want IF YOU’VE GOT STRONG ARGUMENTS.

Here’s the research setup.  You’re reading restaurant reviews of joints in your neighborhood.  We’ve secretly (heh-heh-heh) created different combinations of Argument quality (strong or weak) Source Credibility (high or low) and Source Certainty (high or low), a total of 8 different conditions.  You are randomly assigned to one of the conditions, read the review, then provide your attitude and intentions toward the reviewed restaurant.  Here’s the description of the three variables, torn from the pages of the journal!

Argument Quality. In the strong arguments condition, the review contained several cogent arguments directly relevant to the core merits of the target restaurant (e.g., wonderful ambience, delicious food, excellent service). In the weak arguments condition, the review contained more specious and idiosyncratic arguments that had little to do with the quality of the restaurant itself (e.g., colorful menu, fun dish names, excellent conversation during the meal). Of importance, both sets of arguments were unambiguously favorable toward the restaurant, but they differed in perceived quality.

Source Expertise. According to random assignment, the author of the restaurant review (Daniel Christiansen) was either high or low in expertise. In the high expertise condition, he was described as a nationally renowned food critic and regular contributor to the food and dining section of a major area newspaper. Moreover, the opening line of his review indicated that he was highly familiar with local Italian restaurants. In contrast, in the low expertise condition, the author was described as a networks administrator at a nearby community college who kept a personal Web journal. The opening line of this review indicated that he normally ate fast food.

Source Certainty. Participants were also randomly assigned to source certainty conditions. In the high certainty condition, the title of the review was “La Scarola—a confident 4 out of 5,” and the author expressed certainty about his evaluation of the food and the restaurant at two points in the review (e.g., “Having eaten there for dinner, I can confidently give La Scarola a rating of 4 [out of 5] stars.”). In the low certainty condition, the title of the review was “La Scarola—a tentative 4 out of 5,” and the author expressed uncertainty at these same points (e.g., “Having eaten there only once, I don’t have complete confidence in my opinion, but I suppose I would give La Scarola a rating of 4 [out of 5] stars.”).

Here are 2 examples of the 8 possible combinations.

Now, the results are going to be a little complicated because we have a 3 variable experiment, 2 X 2 X 2, which means we’ve got to display triple interaction which sounds like a threeway which could be fun under the right circumstances, but this isn’t one of them.  Stay with me.  Look at the line charts of the results (I modified the publication bar charts to line charts because it’s just the way I’ve been trained).

First, notice the fan effects of the means.  The fan opens for Low Credibility and closes for High Credibility which is exactly what ELM theory predicts when WATTage moves from Low to High (or vice versa depending upon the experiment).  The closed end of the fan demonstrates that receivers are not carefully reading the Arguments, because each group, strong and weak, shows the same attitude score.  The open end of the fan shows that receivers are now carefully reading the Arguments because the group means for strong and weak diverge.  For the Low Credible source, Argument scrutiny increases as Certainty moves from low to high.  For the High Credible source, the effect reverses so that Argument scrutiny decreases as Certainty moves from low to high.  And, this interaction is statistically significant and more importantly is probably a medium-ish or Windowpane of 35/65 effect size (I’m kludging this from various statistics in the paper since the authors did not report an exact effect size.)

This is a gorgeous effect and something that is rare to see in any experimental research result.  Triple interactions move like the hand of God over the data, making me believe in the theory even more strongly.  You just cannot make this happen easily and you are either extremely dumb lucky or else you’ve got a pretty good theory.  This is like finding the Mate of Your Dreams, winning the Lottery, and getting a parking space by your building on a rainy day all on the same day!

Now, past all the geek I’m showing, what’s the practical persuasion play?

If you have strong Arguments and you are a high Credible source:  Relax the biblical prophecy, master of the universe style, and offer uncertainty in your presentation.  Offer the strong Arguments clearly and directly, but hedge your conclusions, honestly suggest you could be wrong, there’s probably more to the story than I know and on and on.

If you have strong Arguments and you’re are a low Credible source: Bring confidence and certainty to your conclusions.  Assert that you really looked hard at this and know it’s the right thing.  Then hit them with the strong Arguments and let them go after it.

The whole point of this play is to get your receivers High WATT about your strong Arguments, so you’d better have strong Arguments or else you’re killing yourself.

Hey, this is a fabulous research study and if you’re in the game, you should read it.  It’s a three study package and I’m just sharing the main points.  And if you’re just interested you might contact the authors and ask for more details.  Here’s the title they chose:

Believe Me, I Have No Idea What I’m Talking About: The Effects of Source Certainty on Consumer Involvement and Persuasion

Uma R. Karmarkar and Zakary L. Tormala are pretty good at this.