Jonah Berger is a marketing professor in the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and the internationally best-selling author Contagious and Invisible Influence. He consults with some of the largest corporations in the world and derives great insights from his interactions with business leaders wrestling with strategic issues.
In this episode, we caught up with Jonah to discuss his most recent book called The Catalyst. His book takes a counter-intuitive view on persuasion by focusing on reducing barriers to change rather than learning just the right lines, information, or coercive measures to use. Jonah advocates for first understanding why people are doing what they’re doing before we try to get them to do something else.
He shared his REDUCE model with us - Reactance, Endowment, Distance, Uncertainty, and Corroborating Evidence – and we dove into Reactance as a major component of how we resist change. The harder you push on someone to change, the more likely they are to push back. It’s natural for us to push back and to illustrate, just try this little experiment with someone in your household (another adult).
Ask your adult counterpart to hold up their hand at shoulder level and have your palms meet. Tell them you’re going to push on their hand, then do it with some force. Do they push back to slow the advance of your hand or do they just go limp and let you push their hand as far as you can? It’s likely that they’ll push back. The same is true of any behavior change.
And that’s okay. Our natural tendencies serve us well in many situations, but not all. Jonah’s perspective on how catalysts change behavior will open your mind to new ideas. We hope you enjoy it and, this week, find your groove.
© 2021 Behavioral Grooves
LinksJonah Berger, PhD: https://jonahberger.com/author-bio/
Jonah Berger Additional Resources: https://jonahberger.com/resources/
Lee Ross, PhD: https://profiles.stanford.edu/lee-ross
Mark Lepper, PhD: https://psychology.stanford.edu/people/mark-lepper
Kurt Lewin, PhD “Force Field Analysis”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Lewin
Musical Links
Whitney Houston “I Will Always Love You”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ardglr9MVVQ
Queen “We Will Rock You”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvKkIttJLcc
Tim Houlihan “Thinking About You”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xS-PsjRktUk
Dolly Parton “I Will Always Love You”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0bEZH6ZqG4
Why Random Rewards Feel So Much Better Than Earned Ones with Richard Shotton
Want Marketing That’s Effective? Use a Behavioral Science Perspective | Nancy Harhut
Can Psychology Tell Us What Makes A Good Life? With Paul Bloom, Part 2
Psychology: Should Freud Still Be On The Syllabus? Paul Bloom, Part 1
What Do You Really Want? Understand The Desires We All Share | Charlotte Fox Weber
How One Small Word Can Transform Our Motivation, Success And Relationships | Jonah Berger
A Guide To The Ambitious Future of Behavioral Science with Michael Hallsworth PhD
Surprising Ways To End Poverty and Solve Climate Change with Erik Angner PhD
Why You Don‘t Need to be Powerful to be Influential | Vanessa Bohns [Republish]
You Work. You Parent. But Can You Also Thrive? | Yael Schonbrun PhD
The Tools You Need To Embrace Uncertainty | Nathan Furr and Susannah Harmon Furr
How To Frame Incentives To Drive The Desired Behavior | James Castello
The Myth of the “Relationship Spark” with Logan Ury, featuring guest appearance by Christina Gravert, PhD [Republish]
Why Resilience Is More Than Just Bouncing Back | Gabriella Rosen Kellerman MD
Why Human Connection Is The Key To Effective Branding | Matt Johnson
Why The Best Choice Can Sometimes Be An Imperfect Choice | Michelle Segar PhD
Top 2 Tips on How to Read a Book Quickly
How Behavioral Science Can Tackle Misinformation And Obesity | Evelyn Gosnell
The 3 Steps To Getting Your Groove Back In The New Year
Make It Scale: How To Drive Behavior Change Initiatives | Neela Saldanha PhD
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
The Poetry of Science
Hidden Brain
Choiceology with Katy Milkman
The Science of Happiness
The Psychology Podcast