How To Influence Behavior by Labeling

Photo: Sunshine! by Joy Coffman

Once upon a time, there were 2 kids. They were twin sisters with similar personalities. They were both mischievous and hate to study. The only difference between them is the time spent with their parents. One spend more time with dad, and the other one spend more time with mum.

The one who spent more time with dad got a lot more scolding that goes something like this: If you don’t do your homework while I go to work, I’m going to teach you a lesson.

The other one, got encouragement from her mum, that normally goes like this: You look like the kind of kid who will do their homework. So I don’t have to worry about it right?

Which kid is more likely to do her homework?

In his book, Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive, Robert Cialdini talked about a study that might just answer that question.

You see, the study showed that students who were told they look like the type who care about their handwriting spent more of their free time practicing their handwriting… even if they thought no one was watching.

It’s too bad that study’s result comes about 10 years late or I would have tried it out myself.

If you’ve ever been a parent, you would know how damn difficult it is to get your kid to practice writing… let alone write legibly. Disciplining helps little… if it even helps. I’ve even tried the carrot approach.

So why does telling kids that they look like the type that cares about handwriting makes them practice writing willingly?

The technique is called Labeling

Labeling happens when you tell someone what you think of them.

“You look like the kind of person who would be loyal to your friends.” is a kind of labeling.

“You look like a creep who would follow a girl he likes.” is also a kind of labeling.

Chances are, the labels you put on someone do come true. Because you see, contrary to popular belief, other people’s opinion DO affect our actions. How does it affect us?

You guessed it. We tend to become more like what people expects us to be. Sad right? But it’s true. So if you have a lot of supportive people around you, you tend to be have more success in what you do. If someone has a negative spouse, the guy tend to live in misery for the rest of his life.

Now, there’s a lot of explanations of why that is. This is just one of them.

If you’ve read my older posts, you would know of something called “cognitive dissonance“.

When someone labels you, it puts a thought into your mind. Let’s say, “you’re loyal to your friend”. For you to act against that thought, would create a dissonance to your self-image.

Here’s an example. Let’s say you’re widely known as “the playboy”. Is it likely that you would settle down with the love of your life? Heck no… even if you really thought about doing it. You’re afraid of losing your self-image.

Like it or not, we have an innate need to not let people around us down.

What has this got to do with making money?

The application of this technique is extremely easy. I’m pretty sure you know it already. All you have to do is say something like this: “I know you’re a sensible person. You know this things work, so buy them right now!” in your sales letter.

Pretty easy.

If you pay careful attention to top sales letters, you’ll always see this kind of sentences near the order button where the copywriter is doing his call to action. Add one of these into your call to action and track the results. You’ll be amazed.

Naturally, don’t use this to scam… But of course, I know you’ll never do that. After All, you look like the kind of person who provides true value.