The Pull of Positivity
When it comes to your persuasion style: will you choose positive or negative?
Anytime a person tries to win someone over by evoking fear, hated, disgust, or anxiety, they are engaging in negative persuasion. Sadly, in todays world, you don’t need to look far to see these tactics in action.
In 1964, Lyndon B. Johnson debuted his famous “Daisy” ad where a young girl is in a sunny field picking daisies when a nuclear bomb detonates. “These are the stakes” we hear Johnson say. He makes the audience contemplate: “I better vote for this guy or I might die in a nuclear war”. This is successful fear-based persuasion.
Today, Donald Trump goes well beyond facts and imaginative attack ads and goes straight to playground-bully tactics. Condescending names delivered simply and consistently, like “crooked” Hillary and “lyin’” Ted Cruz, unfortunately, work well to persuade.
Here’s another example: Would you rather be told: “You don’t call your mother enough, so pick up the damn phone once in a while!” Or “Your Mom loves it when you call - it would mean so much to her if you have her a ring and brightened her day” - one is positive, one is negative.
Understanding the pull of positivity: Positivity is contagious. After 20+ years in advertising, I’ve learned that is always more effective to pull your audience towards your goal with positivity (love, attraction, beauty, cultural meaning), rather than force them into a position using negativity (fear, pressure, threats). Not only will your mission (or campaign) be more effective, but it will reflect much more positively on you as a person or brand. Positivity will pull in everything you need.
(click the video above to see Lewis Howes and I speak in depth about "The Pull of Positivity")
At the end of the day when choosing who to trust in your life, or even in elected office, you’re going to lean toward the person you have the most positive connotation with. Would you hang out with this person outside of work? Would you let this person into your home for a beer? That’s the person who you trust, want to work with, and who has won you over. Not the person who has checked every box of a hypothetical list of qualities or skills you want. It’s just like dating. You initially have a long list of qualities you seek, but when you start spending time with someone your judgements it quickly switch to “I don’t really feel it”, or the opposite “I love to spend time with this person”.
If you take one thing from this article: let it be this. There are many ways to get to your goal using persuasion. But it is up to you to choose how you will get there.
Recap: Maintaining a positive disposition carries a wide range of benefits that taken together can make you far more persuasive and successful. It’s not hard to understand: people surround themselves with people who reflect who they want to be and how they want to feel.
Positivity breeds influence.
Good luck in your choice.
This article contains topics and excerpts from the fifthd chapter of my bestselling book, The Soulful Art of Persuasion, available most places books are sold including Amazon and Audible. For more info, visit www.thesoulfulart.com
Questions? Tweet me @Jason_Harris