Once upon a time,
in the Wild Wild West, when thirsty cowboys would finally find a well
where they could draw water for themselves, their horses and their cattle, they
would find a flask or bottle of water next to the pump. In those days, the hose
which was supposed to transport the water up from the bottom of the well, was
often made of leather or a similar type of material, that would get dry and
brittle over time, if it was not used frequently. You could work the pump as
much as you liked, but it would not draw up any water for you, as long as the
hose was dry and brittle. So
you needed to gently pour the water from the bottle provided into the dry hose,
which would become moist and more supple in the process. And with that, the
cowboys could draw up as much water as they wanted.
This process was
called priming the pump.
Thus as a thirsty
cowboy, you had to first make a key decision when you got to the well:
Would you quench
your thirst immediately, with the water provided in the bottle?
Or would you
invest the water into priming the pump, deferring the
possible immediate gratification of quenching your thirst, but with the
realistic expectation of gaining much more of the precious water in return?
Using Psychological Priming Techniques In Negotiations
Psychological
priming techniques essentially leverage a tendency of our minds to take
shortcuts when faced with complex decision-making situations. It seems that our
mind can consciously juggle only four to nine bits of information at a time. If
we are faced with a vast amount of information and variables we need to take
into account when making a decision, we reduce the complex rush of input we
receive from the world in and around us into a shorthand version of reality.
Cognitive biases
are mental shortcuts we use to solve such data-overload situations. They speed
up the processing in our brain, but sometimes these shortcuts lead us to drawing
conclusions so fast, that we miss what is really important. We tend to look for
information that confirms our beliefs and ignore information that challenges
them. When pattern recognition fails, we create patterns of our own – the mind
fills in the gaps.
Every person,
experience and object we encounter triggers an avalanche of associations in our
mind, and most of the resulting thoughts, feelings and impressions are biased,
based on the shortcuts and mental maps of the world we have created in the past.
Psychological priming
takes advantage of these mental shortcuts, which works best if the person being
primed is not aware of it. Let us look at a
number of priming techniques which are frequently used by expert negotiators to
influence the subconscious decision making patterns of the people they find themselves
negotiating with:
- Affect heuristic:
First
impressions focus your thinking and directly affect any decisions you may take
-
Recency
bias :
We
link what we think and believe to the most recent credible data we have
received concerning a topic
- Status & authority bias :
Data
and information provided or supported by a credible authority figure is
believed more readily
- Conformity bias :
Conformity
is a strong, subconscious survival instinct, e.g. conforming to norms,
majorities, statistics on best practise, market intelligence, what competitors
are doing, etc.
- Availability heuristic :
We
believe something to be normal, if we can find an example or a physical
representation of it, but don’t believe something exists (or that it is
possible), if we have never seen or heard it before. The more available,
concrete and credible a piece of information is, the faster you process it and
the more you will believe it.
- Confirmation
bias :
We
like to be told what we think we somehow already knew – this satisfies our need
to right
-
Hindsight
bias :
Even
when presented with sensational new information, if it is presented in a
credible manner, we asume we really already knew what we just learned, and call
it common sense
- Introspection illusion :
We
like to believe that we really do understand our true motives, needs and
desires, and we like people who help us to maintain this illusion
- Choice supportive bias :
The
more expensive a purchase, the greater our loyalty becomes for it. An emotional
connection is created to something we view as being precious. Once they have
bought something expensive, people will fight very hard to defend their choice
and avoid purchaser’s remorse.
At first sight, each
one of these priming techniques may seem to be all too obvious, and easy to
detect.
As expert negotiators know, the real power of priming comes into play
when you start stacking them, by using five, six or more of the techniques
simultaneously, swiftly and precisely, so that the conscious thinking processes
of the counterpart become overwhelmed.
As a result, the priming messages slip
right past the conscious filtering process and speak directly to the
subconscious mind, where the real decision-making happens.
These techniques
are so powerful, that even if you happen to detect several of the priming messages
your counterpart may be applying during a negotiation, as long as he or she
stacks enough of them, one on top of the other, fast enough, and with
precision, your subconscious patterns will still be triggered.
So, whenever you
are involved in negotiations, ask yourself :
« Am I still
driving, or am I being driven ? »