Healthy Influence – Persuasion Blog

Seinfeld, the popular TV comedy, is one of my favorite entertainment sources.  Melanie and I watch it frequently and still laugh like we’ve been drinking even after repeated viewings of the same episodes.  Past the zany humor, one element that always attracts me is the accurate unfolding of one daunting persuasion concept:  dissonance.  The writers clearly read my early persuasion work, understood it better than I, then employed these concepts in every episode with every character.

Each main character is an admitted failure.  They can’t keep jobs.  They can’t keep steady intimate relationships.  They can’t execute elaborate or simple plans.  They can’t master their domains.  Everything they do leads to a negative consequence.  Yet instead of falling into a dyfunctional pit of psychosis in the face of failure, all the characters possess a high functional psychology.  They observe.  They reason.  They compare.  They test.  They communicate.  They live.

In high comic relief, Seinfeld shows the outcome from dissonance:  I’m okay.  Despite the unbroken chain of failures and clear awareness of those failures, the Seinfeld crew rolls on in peaceful psychological unity.  Their psyches, collective or individual, never break, never change, never grow.  They’re all okay.

The way they stay okay is through dissonance.  Each persists in the things that cause suffering, embarassment, and loss rather than changing.  All will fail in intimate relationships because each in their own way must find one ridiculous flaw – man hands, a bad name, long sideburns.  Jerry will enjoy a successful career that provides a lot of work and money, but his friends and family will always consider him as a prophet without honor in his own land always on the verge of failure.  Kramer will never have a paying job or even a job he does without pay because he is incompetent, but he will always see himself as the Renaissance man.  George revels in each failure.  Elaine sees herself as the pretty girl with ambition when she is just a roundheels with a bad temper.

So, the next time you watch Seinfeld, remember part of their success is through the accurate and artful deployment of dissonance in daily life.

Who says persuasion isn’t popular?