[MUSIC] We’re in the middle of talking about social influences on people’s behavior and specifically about people’s prescriptive norm perceptions. What they think other people think they should do. And the persuasive challenge here is represented by situations in which the persuadee already has the attitudes you want. But they have a negative prescriptive norm. They think that other people think they should not do it. And because they're giving a lot of weight to what those other people think. Because they are emphasizing the prescriptive norm more than their own attitudes, the person isn't doing what you want. We talked about one possible strategy for addressing that situation. Namely, trying to get people to de-emphasize the prescriptive norm. To place more weight on their own attitude than on what other people want them to do. But there's a second possible strategy you might consider. And this second strategy is to enlarge your persuasive focus to include those other people, those third parties. To think about influencing those other people. To bring them on board. To get them to see, that it's a good idea for the person to do what you're suggesting. Think about a situation like this. You've got this employee, this subordinate. And they're perfect for this one particular work assignment, but the assignment will cause some personal disruption. Maybe it involves a lot of travel or a longer commute, or a short-term or long-term move or different work hours, whatever. Still, it'd be great for your operation if this person took this on. They're perfect for it. And it'd be great for the person in terms of experience, career development, whatever. And, from what you can tell, the person seems to find the assignment appealing, but the person's spouse is opposed to it. The spouse doesn't think they should take on the assignment. And your subordinate, quite reasonably, is being influenced by that. That might be a situation in which it be useful to talk to the spouse. Not going behind the employees back of course. But you could imagine circumstances in which you might say something to the employee like, could the three of us have a conversation? Maybe I could take you two to lunch. We could see what the concerns are. We could talk through the issues. To express the relevant idea here more generally. Persuaders naturally think about communicating with the person they're trying to persuade. As they should. But it can sometimes be useful for persuaders to stop and ask themselves Is there someone else I should also be talking to? Someone whose views will influence the person I'm trying to persuade? Someone who is an opinion leader for them? Someone whose views matter to them? As one example of that, United States Army recruiting. The US Army is an all volunteer force, which means that the Army needs to attract recruits. And so naturally, a lot of the Army's marketing is aimed at potential recruits, telling them about the advantages of volunteering and so getting potential recruits to have positive attitudes about signing up. But, some potential recruits who personally are inclined to volunteer, don't. And they don't because their parents are keen on the idea. It's not a person's own attitude that's the problem, it's the person's perceptions of what their parents think they should do. And so part of the Army's marketing and advertising efforts have been directed specifically at parents. They're trying to get parents to see their way clear to let their child volunteer. And the reason that's a smart strategy is precisely because this is a circumstance in which the person who is the eventual target of persuasion, the potential recruit can be influenced by what they think other people think they should do. Specifically what they think their parents think they should do. This is just the sort of situation in which prescriptive norms can influence behavior and so its just the sort of situation in which persuaders might think about expanding their persuasive efforts. So, the bigger picture here. Sometimes the challenge the persuader faces isn't that the persuadee has negative attitudes, it's that the persuadee has negative prescriptive norms. They think that other people think they shouldn't do what the persuader is advocating. Well, when these prescriptive norm perceptions, what other people think I should or shouldn't do. When these are playing a role in people's decision making, there are two general strategies you might consider as a persuader and correspondingly, two questions to ask yourself. First, is there a way I could perhaps get the person to emphasize their own attitudes more than what other people think they should do? And second, is there someone else I might talk to? Someone around the person I'm trying to influence? People in their network, somebody whose opinions they value. Because talking with those other people may be a useful avenue to influence the persuadee. As I mentioned earlier, changing prescriptive norm perceptions can be difficult. But if you're in a persuasive situation where the prescriptive norm seems to be the challenge, keeping those two strategies in mind could potentially be helpful. [MUSIC]
