LOWBALLING: SOME IOWA ENERGY USERS, AND HOW MY DAD TRICKED ME INTO GETTING "As".



How can you influence and persuade others into doing the things that you want? This is a question pertinent to everyone – from politicians, to marketers, to managers, to students, to even parents raising a child. Here is one important overarching lesson I have learnt from my book of the month, “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion” by Robert Cialdini: we commit better to our responsibilities in the absence – or in some cases, in just an iota – of extraneous strong pressures.

The book stated an impressive study carried out by some psychologists in 1980:

At the beginning of a winter season, a group of energy users in Iowa were trained on energy saving techniques; persuaded to save energy; and they all agreed to save energy. However, the researchers found that at the end of the winter, they failed to save energy.

The same study was carried out on a similar group, except for the addition of a public recognition reward for any household with substantial energy savings. As you might have presumed, there was a surge in energy savings. After the compliance, the reward was then intentionally withdrew by the researchers. Then, one will expect a drop in energy savings, on the contrary, they did not only maintained their present energy savings but it actually increased. So, what happened? In short terms, psychologists will say “their commitment grew their own legs”

 Here is the book:
 "...These people has been lowballed into a conservation commitment through a promise of newspaper publicity. Once made, that commitment started generating its own support: The homeowners began acquiring new energy habits, began feeling good about their public spirited efforts...began appreciating money saved on utility bills... with all these it is no wonder that the commitment remained firm even after...newspaper publicity  was kicked out"


As I was reading through this study, a similar personal experience came to memory.

Here is my story: My change was not over the winter, and has nothing to do with energy saving, it was during my transition from primary school to high school. In the earliest days of my primary school my academic performance was abysmal, but it got pretty good after my transition to high school and continue to soar ever since.
 
Just before the ‘transition’ I remembered my Dad promised me several gifts – most notable - a N1,000 note, only if I assume the first position in my class (it used to be a lot of money in those days. haha!) While I remembered achieving the feat on several occasions, I failed remembering my Dad giving me the N1,000 note (wittingly or otherwise, however, I will list towards the latter). Did that negatively affected my subsequent performances? NO! Why? Just like in the case of the energy users, my commitment grew its own legs.

How? I began to see myself as being ‘book smart’; friends began hailing me for my academic intelligence. This metamorphosed my self-image, and the consistency pressure began to form. The Yoruba proverb “Akin yago fun elesin ana” [One does not pave the way for the horse rider of yesterday] has definitely lured me into maintaining my performance, not the N1000 note which I did not receive in the first place.  
Social Psychologist called this compliance tactic – lowballing. In summary: One, make a promise to ensure compliance; two, the compliance may generate personal commitments; three, retract the promise; and four, observe the results.

Just like several other tactics, lowballing is not a panacea for compliance. An obvious pre-requisite for the success of this tactic would be that the compliant must have a propensity for the compliance task. The ‘trick’ wouldn’t have worked on me if the N1,000 note was promised and retracted for doing well in, uhmmm... say, a drama competition. Nah!

LESSONS FROM A NAVY SEAL: WHY YOU SHOULD STOP WORRYING.




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 Worry (n): to feel or show fear and concern because you think that something bad has happened or could happen. Verily, all of us have engaged in this recalcitrant proclivity. Last year I came across the statistics that 90% of what we worry about never happens. If that is anything to go by, then we have successfully inundated our lives with time-wasting activities, talkless of plausible impairment of our health [Think about it!] Why I believe it is insurmountable to completely jettison worry, a substantial reduction could be a life changer.

Among several other lessons, I was reminded of worry today as I read through the book “No heroes” by Mark Owen. Mark Owen was one of the Navy SEALS who participated in the Osama Bin Laden raid. In a rock climbing drill he relayed in the book, he said after he ran out of camming devices, he got frozen at some 300 foot, up on the rock! [Almost a 100m dash length!!!]  Loss his front sight focus, became nervous, anything that could plausibly define worry.

One of the instructors came around and gave him a quick coaching.... “Just stay in your 3-foot world” he said...“Focus on what you can affect. You keep looking around, and none of that shit can help you right now, can it?...”

Are you focused on what you can affect? Or completely out of your 3-foot world? My advice – better stay in your 3-foot world! Monitor your thoughts, keep busy, and count your blessings. These are simple [simple but not easy] strategies that can be very salutary. In Dale Carnegie’s how to stop worrying and start living [one of my favorite books], he posited a tactic for handling worries – Mentally accept the worst, and peacefully do your best to improve the worst case scenario.

...

Final Sentence: STAY IN YOUR 3-FOOT WORLD! 

SUCCESS AND YOUR ENVIRONMENT

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KENYAN’S PRE-EMINENCE IN DISTANCE RUNNING AND WHY YOU SHOULD VET YOUR MILIEU.

...56 medals at the Olympics games, despite boycotting the 1976 and 1980 games. Kenyans continue to astound the world with their sublime performances in distance running. What galvanizes intense curiosity in this Kenyan phenomenon was the fact that about 90% of the top athletes are from a single enclosed area in Kenya – Nandi hills.  

So, what miracle might have happened on the Nandi Hills? Geneticists concluded that although genes cannot be ruled out completely, there is a stronger force in action. In the Book, “Bounce: Mozart, Federer, Picasso, Beckham and the Science of Success”, Matthew Syed gathered that Nandi Hills are areas of high altitude; and the altitudinal training the inhabitants are subjected to unequivocally boost endurance. But clearly that wasn’t enough, here is a text from the book

“...when you also factor in the remarkable fact that many Kenya’s top runners ran extraordinarily long distances to school, sometimes in excess of 20km per day (because of the non-existence of public transportation)...gives a persuasive explanation of this running phenomenon” 

Clearly the structure of their environment played the major role in this huge success.

Vet your Milieu!

So here is the point: check your environment. Your milieu – social and physical environment – just like in the case of Kenyan athletes, will always determine your success. While you might not bother to run on hills or jog up to 20km every day, you might want to think about your company. Jim Rohn said “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” I have found this statement to be of utmost veracity. Again, is your physical environment riddled with distractions? Drifting you gradually away from your goals, or are you constructing your own ‘Nandi Hill’?  

HOW YOUR BRAIN CAN CHEAT ON YOU

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DOPAMINE AND THE SCIENCE OF ADDICTION

Have you ever thought of why you had to check your email inbox all day long in anticipation of a message you ain’t expecting? Or why about 315 million adults are addicted to illicit drug?

Well, for the most part, there is a great deal of congruency in the aforementioned questions - from behavioral addiction to drug addiction, neuroscientists and psychologists have nailed it down to a pleasure chemical called dopamine.

History first: 1954. James Olds and Peter Milner discovered that the stimulation – by electrical voltage – of certain region of a mice brain engendered a ‘strange’ pleasure that galvanized an experimental mice to repeat the same action for hours – pressing the lever that actuates the stimulation. Further experiments with humans lead to the discovery of the reward system and dopamine.

What the heck does this mean? The reward pathway works like this: 1. Receive a signal 2.Take an action (e.g food/internet/video game....) 3. Achieve your goal and get rewarded for it. And guess what? The cycle continues – creating a ‘compulsive loop’. The reward often come in the form of dopamine release into the brain’s pleasure center, making the action pleasurable, and increasing the probability of behavioral alterations in the future.

Now you can guess while illicit drugs can be more addictive than normal actions like eating – the latter can release as much as 10 times dopamine compared to the former.

But does taking these actions really rewards us? This was one of the theme in the book – will power instinct by Kelly McGonigal, a professor at Stanford University. She opined that the reward dopamine promises or gives is a false one, because after engaging in such actions, we do not really feel better about ourselves. In fact, in most cases its the contrary especially if it’s a habit we battling.

This natural process messes with our will power and explains while most of us struggle with will power challenges. This reminds me of the fact that humans are not naturally wired to be successful and explains while only about 1% of the entire population really ‘stand tall’.

Battling with a bad habits? difficult? Quite understandable. Fathoming the simple science of addiction can help increase our awareness – that our brain is about to ‘cheat’ on us – and maybe that will desist us from taking repetitive unsatisfying actions. Creation of ‘physical walls’ between ourselves and our will power challenges also happen to be a helpful tactic.

WHY AN AVERAGE PERSON WILL LOSE



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MUHAMMED ALI, WILLIAM SISTERS, AND THE NEWTON'S THIRD LAW OF MOTION

I was listening to a talk by Arnold Schwarzenegger few days ago on YouTube, and he mentioned of a question Muhammad Ali answered in an interview at the acme of his career.

Interviewer: Muhammad, can you please tell us: how many sit-ups do you in a day?

Muhammad Ali: Hmm...I don’t know exactly, I can’t really say because I only start counting when I start feeling the pain, when its start hurting.

I bet he answered it the apt way. Legends like Ali wouldn’t be counting sit-ups of course. But why does the pain have to trigger the counting...

At the mention of names like Muhammad Ali, William sisters, and Tiger Woods. Praises of talent and genius fills the air. Little do we hear about the humongous practices they engaged in ‘backstage’. Beware of the media bias and remember Newton's third law of motion – To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction.

In a book called Bounce by the two time Olympian, Matthew Syed, he relayed an abridged history of the William sisters: because of the love of tennis that engulfs their Dad, he taught himself and his wife how to play tennis so that they would be able train their kids. And for the training lessons, Venus started at four, Serena at three. Surprised? By the time they are twelve and eleven, they got invited by a teaching pro to study at the Florida Academy. They were able to reach ten thousand hour of practice at an early age – the number of hours psychologists believe is required for mastery in any field. No wonder they excelled extraordinarily.

                                                                                                                                  

And for Muhammed Ali, he had to count only at the mercy of pain because it is only then does it count – in order to separate himself from the average. While practice and hard work are just one of the several recipe for success, it is something we can never refute. It is like pure math! John Maxwell put its best – “To win you have to ‘suffer’: if you have suffered and you didn’t win, be rest assured someone will win when you are gone, on the other hand, if have you won and never suffered, know that someone has suffered before you”