Gaze at How Eye Contact Shows Charisma

Charismatic speeches by workplace leaders –compared to standard speeches or performance-contingent financial rewards – increased workers’ output by 17%. Researchers from University of Liechtenstein, University of Innsbruck, and Free University of Bozen-Bolzano report this compelling finding from a prior study in order to highlight the importance of charisma as a persuasion tool.
     The researchers also point out a gap in that and many similar prior studies: The studies fail to tell leaders what specific behaviors produce charisma impressions. Aiming to remedy this problem, their own studies find that one behavior is gazing at the eyes of the audience members. Leaders exhibiting more pronounced eye-directed gaze were rated as more charismatic in ways which inspired audiences to exceed workplace performance expectations.
     The surprise in the studies was not that charisma was associated with persuasiveness. Three of the survey items that raters used to measure charisma were “Has the ability to influence people,” “Has a presence in a room,” and “Knows how to lead a group.” What is more surprising is that a technique seemingly as simple as an eye gaze is closely associated with those three characteristics, which themselves have shown a statistical and conceptual association with each other.
     When you gaze at someone, you capture their attention and you verify their importance to you. You’ve considered them worth focusing on. Moreover, eye contact facilitates a synchronization of brain waves between two people, which is associated with synchronization in their opinions.
     These were correlational studies, so we can’t confidently conclude that all you need to do to impress as charismatic is to simply start gazing at the eyes of your audience members. The more defensible conclusion is that eye-gazing is part of a set of behaviors which hold promise for signaling to audiences your leadership skills and thereby for improving your persuasiveness. The nature of those behaviors is suggested by the wording of the other three survey items used in the rating of charisma: “Can get along with anyone,” “Makes people feel comfortable,” and “Smiles at people often.”
     The researchers argue that the significance of eye gaze arises from it not being simple to do correctly. Maintaining the gaze requires attention. Yet for the gaze to achieve desired results, the leader must also maintain attention to the message intended for delivery. The researchers also caution that their studies haven’t identified how to avoid irritating others with contrived or confrontational eye contact.

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Twin the Shopper Subtly to Double Rapport 

Dwarf Giant Smiles So You Won’t Look Dopey 

Flirt with Deep Acting 

Look Out for Where They’re Gazing

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Weigh Disposal Over Depletion for Less Waste

People use three justifications for purchasing products manufactured in wasteful ways: 

• Finances. “Especially now, when money is so tight, I want to get the most for what funds I have. If a product is manufactured or packaged in a way which produces waste, but gives me more value for my money, I deserve to be able to purchase it.” 
• Institutional dependency. “The government and the industry leaders should be setting the standards that will minimize waste. If I go it alone, my individual actions won’t make any noticeable difference.” 
• Cynicism. “To succeed in the competitive marketplace, every business has to engage in wasteful practices at least occasionally.”

     These justifications often lead shoppers to show willful ignorance of waste in manufacture of their purchases. Still, because shoppers generally do want to consider themselves as socially conscious, include waste minimization as a selling point. For best impact, feature that information prominently in ads the prospect sees before shopping with you.
     Also, emphasize announcement of the type of waste avoidance which is most important to consumers. Studies at University of Kentucky and Pennsylvania State University concluded that this is reduction in discharge into the environment of scrap after the manufacturing process. Of relatively less importance is reduction in use of raw materials taken from the environment. In the study, participants were presented a Facebook ad with the message “Outland Denim. We use up to 50% less water. We consume up to 50% less energy” or with the message “Outland Denim. We discard up to 50% less wastewater. We generate up to 40% less energy emissions.”
     The clickthrough rate was significantly higher for participants receiving the second message.
     Both types of waste are destructive, however. In a survey conducted by the researchers, a group of sustainability experts said that production waste arising from excess resource use is as important as waste arising from excess disposal, if not even more important.
     Results from the researchers’ further studies indicate that marketers can boost relative consumer attention to decreases in raw material usage by adding a resource scarcity or a long-term orientation prompt. The resource scarcity message was, “The Earth’s natural resources are finite and increasingly scarce. For example, water and other resource shortages are growing around the world.” The long-term orientation message was, “The future of the Earth is under threat. For example, our actions now will create growing environmental problems around the world for future generations.”

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See Through Anti-Waste Consumers 

Acknowledge Customers’ Willful Ignorance 

Talk About Social Consciousness Early 

Chimp Away Sales Resistances Using Scarcity 

Give Customers Long-Range Perspectives

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Embrace the Prosocial with the Embarrassed

Overcoming a prospect’s sales resistance is easier when you’re able to discern what the prospect wants next. Sometimes that’s perfectly straightforward. If it’s raining outside and the shopper asks where you stock the umbrellas, you can safely conclude that the shopper wants an umbrella.
     Sometimes it’s not so straightforward. Researchers at O.P Jindal Global University, University of Southampton, and Indian Institute of Management say that when a shopper is embarrassed, their interest in environment-friendly and sustainable products grows.
     The researchers’ explanation for the effect is that embarrassment leads us to want to re-establish our social standing in the opinions of others. Showing a commitment to the welfare of the environment can serve as an effort to do that. This does mean that the embarrassment motivating the purchase of prosocial products depends on the preference being expressed publicly.
     The wrinkle here is in you discerning that your shopper is indeed embarrassed. In the research studies, a state of embarrassment was activated by asking study participants to write about an incident from their past life in which they felt very embarrassed. The consumption preferences of these participants were compared with those from a group who had been asked instead to write about how they spend a typical day.
     For some of the research, the preferences measured were between two T-shirts, one described as manufactured with no harm to soil or water and the other described as manufactured to enhance softness and comfort for users.
     In your selling, you could encounter shoppers who start talking about being embarrassed. This is a signal for you to describe in front of others the prosocial benefits of items you offer the shoppers. It’s more likely the reason to suspect embarrassment will appear in another way. It might be in the type of product chosen. Buying foot fungus medication or incontinence pads probably carries some degree of embarrassment. Embarrassment also arises when a shopper uses discount coupons or witnesses another shopper committing a significant faux pas.
     A promising confirmation of embarrassment is the shopper’s body language. In a study where University of Texas-Austin students were assigned to purchase a present for someone who wanted an item carrying the logo of UT archrival Texas A&M, the shoppers fidgeted, chewed on their lips, and averted their eyes. They crossed their arms, as if to distance themselves from what they were doing.

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Bare Asinine Oversights That Embarrass 

Help Store Shoppers Positively Interact 

Improve Sales Using Guilty Self-Improvement 

Sell Identity Affirmation to People

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Elevate Hope When Income Inequality

Bright copper kettles? Warm woolen mittens? Are those among your prized possessions? If not, “My Favorite Things” from “The Sound of Music” offers you a bunch of alternatives. And study results from City, University of London and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology could be summarized with the lyric from that song, “When I'm feeling sad, I simply remember my favorite things, and then I don't feel so bad.”
     In cultures with high income inequality, having consumers think about their favorite possessions improves their sense of well-being. Income inequality is defined as the extent to which income is unevenly distributed within a population. An example is that U.S. chief executive officers receive about 350 times the annual average salary of production workers in the same company.
     In their studies, the researchers showed the effectiveness of consumers thinking about favorite possessions on improving subjective well-being with both actual income inequality in the culture and with consumers’ perceptions of income inequality. The explanation is that prized belongings have such incommensurable value to a consumer that they forgo comparing their acquisitions to others', and it is such comparisons which reduce the sense of well-being.
     An implication from these findings is for influencers in cultures with power disparities to encourage people to appreciate their prized belongings. This tactic might seem to be an unethical sop because by increasing the sense of well-being, we’re diluting the sense of outrage necessary to combat income inequality. However, for change to occur, citizens need not just outrage, but also hope. Darren Walker, interviewed by Time magazine as he was leaving his post as Ford Foundation president, said, “Hope is the oxygen of democracy, but inequality is the enemy of hope. How do we imagine a flourishing democracy when we have increasing numbers of people who feel left out and left behind, disaffected and disillusioned and therefore hopeless?”
     The favorite-things tactic could buttress hope sufficiently to effect positive change. In the language of ditties from musicals, the spirit of “My Favorite Things” from “The Sound of Music” produces the spirit of “You Can Fly” from “Peter Pan.”
     Encouraging consumers to spend on experiences rather than surplus material possessions also helps maintain subjective well-being in the face of societal inequities. People usually get greater happiness from experiences they purchase. Happiness derives from distinctiveness, and experiences differ among themselves more than do material items. Again, the result is less comparison by the consumer with others’ acquisitions.

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Power Up People Before Selling Experiences 

Hover Within the Shopper’s Power Level

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Transform Betrayal from Brand Transgressions

A company’s best response following a brand transgression depends on whether the transgressing company is headquartered in the same country as the target market of consumers or in a different country. Brand transgressions include product recalls, news of unethical behavior, and similar evidence of betraying public trust.
     According to the University of Leeds researchers who issued this advice, if the transgressing company is in the same country as the target market, the most effective remedy to reestablish trust is to financially compensate this domestic target market in a way showing respect for national values. The example used in the studies, where the transgression was said to be sexual harassment, was, “The company announced that they will be giving a sum of £100,000 for the purpose of founding a non-profit organization called 'Harassment-free UK'. The mission of this organization will be to support the mental health and physical wellbeing of victims of sexual harassment across the UK.”
     On the other hand, if the transgressing company is a foreigner, the better response is to explain the transgression as necessary to fully protect against a threat to the company’s continued existence. The example used in the studies, where the transgression was said to be pay discrimination against women, was, “The company has issued a press release apologizing for the event and attributing it to the increased competition it faces from its key competitor…. The CEO added that they found themselves with no other option than to do so, in order to lower their production costs, given the large percentage of female workforce in the company.”
     The set of studies collected data from consumers in the United Kingdom, the U.S., and Germany. People are generally more favorably disposed to brands associated with their own country than with another country. Consumers consider merchandise to be better when it comes from domestic sources.
     At first glance, this favoring of the domestic seems contradicted by another finding of the University of Leeds study: Consumers were less forgiving of a transgression by a domestic company than of an equivalent transgression by a foreign company.
     But it’s not a contradiction. It’s consistent. The reason for greater upset is precisely because consumers had greater trust in the domestic company and therefore feel a greater sense of betrayal. There’s also the matter of the nation’s reputation. Study participants considered domestic brand transgressors as traitors to their home country, deserving punishment.

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Sell Domestic for the Health of It 

Compensate Group Service Failure Collectively 

Greet Ways to Disappear Greed

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Speed Procrastinators with Completion Times

Some Erasmus University researchers asked online study participants why they delay doing tasks they’re asked to complete. The responses were sorted into 13 general categories. Concerns about how long the task would take ranked as tenth in frequency among the 13. But then when another group of participants was asked to rate the degree of importance of each of the 13 in their decision to delay a task, consideration of task duration was ranked as the fourth most important reason.
     This apparent contradiction led the researchers to suspect that people will take task duration into account, but only if it’s specifically brought to their attention. A corollary is that including an estimate of task duration in a request to complete a task might reduce requestees’ procrastination.
     Subsequent studies by the researchers supported this conclusion, with completion times ranging from three minutes to one hour for a variety of tasks—submitting a form, making a health care appointment, writing an email. Based on their data analyses, the researchers’ explanation for the effect is that a statement of task duration moves thoughts from deliberating about whether to undertake the task toward contemplating how to complete the task.
     In reporting their results, the researchers take note of other tactics which have been identified for overcoming procrastination, such as setting deadlines, fostering prioritization, issuing reminders, and monitoring progress. They point out that specifying the completion time is simpler to implement than those others.
     A likely difficulty in using this tactic, though, is in calculating a completion time which will hold for a spectrum of potential respondents. You might handle this with a lesson from a whole other area of consumer behavior research called tensile pricing of discounts.
     Tensile pricing presents a range such as, “Save 20% to 45%.” Consumers are, by and large, an optimistic lot. If they see a 45%, they’ll tend to think that the item they’re wanting will be one of those tagged for the maximum discount. Applying this idea to the estimate of task completion time, if you say, “This will take about 15 to 20 minutes,” in order to increase your odds of being accurate, prospective respondents will tend to figure they’ll be among those who will take only 15 minutes. An even lower estimate could come in the minds of those sorts of drivers who consider the navigation app arrival time estimate as a benchmark to beat.

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Estimate Participative Consumption Durations 

Promote Procrastination Protocols 

Advertise Tensile Pricing Selectively

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