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Do you have such moments where you feel lost against the publicities? Do you find yourself buying junk food, fancy t-shirts, or books again and again, even though you try to limit consumption? If so, it’s not all your fault. This is a common marketing strategy that marketers create links between their products and a preferable feeling like happiness. So, you become tended to buy those when you feel sad. This strategy which is used by marketers to create an impact on your feelings is called pre-suasion. This is not for only the marketers; anyone can apply it. Let’s see how we can get benefit by using the same tactic and how possible to notice what’s going on inside you. Chapter 1 - Since they benefit from the inclinations of human beings, some questions provoke preferable reactions and manipulate decisions. When someone you don’t know wants to know whether you feel happy or not, be careful because it could be a question that has some other purposes. For example, trendy employers are known for asking this type of question. Having a role in a plan which is called a positive test, these kinds of questions are raised to get benefit from human’s inclination to concentrate on the current situation instead of considering the missing parts. To put it differently: we search for success, not failures. So, when someone asks about how we’re doing, It’ll provoke us to seek out the existence of sadness, rather than the absence of it. Together with those trendy employers, many other professionals try to take advantage of this human condition- such as telemarketers, investigators, and salesmen. Mostly seeming honest, innocent questions, they are also called one-way questions, which have the power to influence our decisions on the topics related to their aims. Research made in 1993 explicitly demonstrates this rule. In this study, two separate groups consisted of usual Canadian university students were asked to answer different but alike questions. “Do you feel unhappy about your social lives?” was the question that the researchers asked the first group, while “Do you feel happy about your social lives?” was the question of the other group. Notably, the results have shown that the students in the first group were 375% more tended to express their discontentment than the students in the other group. Usually, the reason for asking these kinds of questions is manipulating how the people receive their current situations before demanding them to make a decision. That’s why those questions are known as “pre-suasive.” So, such questions are effective means for marketing, as they have the power to cleverly manipulate the customers’ decisions on whether they’ll buy or not. San Bolkan and Peter Andersen, two communication specialists, made an experiment with the assistance of some marketers. Accordingly, the marketers would try to make the test-takers taste new drinks and learn their email addresses. Firstly, the researchers asked some samplers whether they consider themselves as courageous people who are willing to try brand new products- and 75.7% of these people tried new drinks and got convinced to give their e-mails. Whereas the other people who weren’t asked such a pre-suasive question were less tended to deal with the marketers, only 33% of them sampled the new products and got convinced to give their contact information. Chapter 2 - If something can grasp our attention, it seems significant to us. So, watch over the purposely alluring things. Another question you might encounter is that “Do you have to seriously worry about the menace coming from the right-wing fanatism?” Now, to answer this question, your brain will skim all the records which were recently provided by the media, and all show the violence and risks. So, even though those images are irrelevant, they will produce an influence on our answer. Because only the things that can grasp our attention seem important to us. Besides, this inclination means that your decisions can change according to the happenings around you at the moment. For example, researchers ask the same question to people three separate times: “ What have been the most significant incident in the last 70 years?” When people were asked just fourteen days before the centenary of 9/11, people named that event solely 30 % of the time. This percentage rose to 65% when they were asked two-three days before the anniversary, and it again came back to 30% two weeks after the anniversary. The major factor that caused this difference is the great appearance of the event on media a few days before the anniversary. So, be well prepared for this. It would be wise if you asked yourself the reason for your attention on a subject. For example, let’s say a stranger approach you and talk about the countless dangers on the planet before want you to decide on something important, then he must be desiring to talk about something else. Undeniably, catching your attention on an irrelevant subject is a common strategy of a good pre-suader. Sometimes, they don’t mention a danger, then it could be anything else that would transform their services more alluring and effective in the eyes of the customers. For instance, an alarm seller would introduce the product by mentioning the crime statistics. So, if you notice a radical group or any sensational event get considerable attention from the media, don’t forget that it’ll lose its allure in the following month. Because as time passes, it won’t seem as important as before. Chapter 3 - We’re tended to overemphasize the effects of the obvious things, on the other hand, we underrate the possible power of less obvious things. What are the motives of people’s current actions? This question has particular importance for the ones who desire to instruct you in a way. And, all the good pre-suader could agree that the true triggers of our actions do not usually show up as clearly as we guess. Mainstream economical theories claim that the main motive of human behavior lies behind financial desires. Felix Oberholzer-Gee, an economist, made an experiment to test this theory. Accordingly, he tried to convince people to permit him to jump the queue by offering them money. Sure thing, as he rose the amount of the money that he offered, he could convince more people to let him. But do humans’ minds work as simply as such? Probably, there should be some obscure reasons that we need to take into account when searching for the actions and motivations. Money is one of the most obvious factors, however, that doesn’t mean that it is the most significant reason. Similarly, there is no direct parallel between being visible and the importance of the influence. Sometimes, invisible things can influence us and not less than other visible things. Keep in mind that in the previous experiment, money wasn’t exchanged physically, so it means that not only the money but also a kind of social responsibility influenced our decision-making processes.