Quotes from Robert V. Levine

The best way to predict the future," observes magician Gregory Wilson, "is to influence it."17

Mustn't all significant action be preceded by an incubation period?...the waiting period is not just a delay to be endured in order to reach the right moment. It is... the very creator of that moment.

The same goes for authority: looking like the real thing may have more impact than actually being it.

One of my art teachers used to say that the frame is as important as the picture. In persuasion, it can be even more important-the triumph of form over content.

In 1930, for example, during the depths of the depression, economic visionary W. K. Kellogg (as in corn flakes), announced a revolutionary experiment: Nearly every employee in his huge Battle Creek plant would thereafter work a six-hour day. The reduction in hours was accompanied by only a minimal cut in pay, since Kellogg believed that hard work would replace long hours.

The most fundamental of context effects is the principle of contrast. The principle relies on the fact that human minds magnify differences: when two relatively similar stimuli are placed next to each other, they'll be perceived as more different from each other than they actually are. Contrast is not only the most basic of context effects but probably the easiest to achieve. "I don't paint things," Matisse said. "I only paint the difference between things.

And here lies the true value of the $499 espresso machine, which, for all I know, is still gathering dust on the shelf in that same store. Its critical function had less to do with selling itself than to provide contrast with the rest of the product line. How many of its more reasonably priced colleagues did that awkward $499 model help sell? A good decoy is a team player-it makes everything around it look better.

It's so effective, in fact, that we often embrace the further shortcut of assuming that people who simply display symbols of authority should be listened to. Studies show that Americans are particularly susceptible to three types of authority symbols: titles, clothing, and luxury cars.1

Tada yori takai mono wa nai [Nothing is more costly than something given free of charge]. -Popular Japanese saying

In other words, when the need for reciprocity was aroused, it didn't matter whether they liked him or not. They "owed," and so they paid. Reciprocity can be a dictatorial force, and it can come in many shapes and sizes.3

Gullibility can be thought of as a social psychological analog of anosognosia. The chronic patsy refuses to acknowledge his weakness. His denial is nourishing to his self-esteem. "Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge," Charles Darwin observed.24 But it also prevents you from avoiding the same mistake next time.

As the geneticist David Searls observed, "The tendency for an event to occur varies inversely with one's preparation for it.

Six days a week we seek to dominate the world, on the seventh we seek to dominate the self ... In the tempestuous ocean of time and toil there are islands of stillness where man may enter a harbor and reclaim his dignity. The island is the seventh day, the Sabbath, a day of detachment from things, instruments and practical affairs as well as of attachment to the spirit.

The human brain is wired to see relationships, not detached elements. The artist Heinz Kusel, who taught color theory for twenty years, explained: "Color by itself doesn't exist. All that we see as color is created by relationships-what the color is next to, what surrounds it. A name for a color is absurd, because its appearance is constantly changing as a result of its environment. There are no fixed colors. In a different context it's changed completely."2

This supports what advertisers have been saying for years: "The more facts you tell, the more you sell., ,7

and straightforward language. The researchers concluded that when the witness spoke simply the jurors could evaluate his argument on its merits. But when he was unintelligible, they had to resort to the mental shortcut of accepting his title and reputation in lieu of comprehensible facts. And so, another paradox: experts are sometimes most convincing when we don't understand what they're talking about.