“We can focus on the message all we want, the election doesn’t go to the candidate who’s the smartest or even the most experienced,” said Meyers, who has advised world leaders and politicians on how to use body language to influence their message. “It goes to the best communicator. Right now, in the White House, we’ve got a world class communicator. He is going to have to draw upon all of his skills, but he’d clock Rick Perry in a race.”

Wow.  This guy is made of sterner stuff than I to make such a call.  The nonverbals prove otherwise!

But, wait.  There’s more.

Who does Meyers thinks might be able to knock Obama from his oratory pedestal?  “Newt Gingrich comes across as the best communicator the Republicans have got,” he says, “It’s a shame he doesn’t get mentioned more. When Gingrich speaks you can hear the tone of both his intellect and his heart; it’s like listening to a sleigh ride — very pleasant.”

As the reigning Communication Expert on the Persuasion Blog, I’d like to agree and offer a Peitho Award Nomination, but you’re gonna have to show me the Science on this.  Sure, effective communication is better than ineffective communication, but Great versus Good Enough?  And, with something like this, you should be able to define and count the nonverbal behaviors that matter, which means you should be able to verify this claim simply looking at tapes of past candidates and seeing whether the one with the higher Nonverbal Mastery score always, usually, or sometimes wins.

If You Can’t Count It, You Can’t Change It.  But, remember, You Can’t Persuade a Falling Apple.  Think about it.

Yes, Peitho is the goddess of persuasion and also the handmaiden of Aphrodite, the goddess of love. You could say that Peitho was the first Wing Woman/Man/Person/Deity/Entity. See Peitho today.

Hoping to meet some prospects at a holiday party in December, Mr. Johnson enlisted Thomas Edwards, who runs a service called “The Professional Wingman.” For a fee of $125, Mr. Edwards accompanied Mr. Johnson to the event and posed as his good pal. As they negotiated the crowd, the wingman alerted his charge to flirtatious types and helped make seamless introductions.

Enterprising mavens are selling their persuasion services to contemporary lonely hearts and wall flowers showing that the fundamental things still apply. First, the mavens observe the Local.

Josh Mitchell, 27, started his Indianapolis wingwoman service, “Miss Pivot,” last year after attending an event for young entrepreneurs. Romance aside, there was something else that convinced him he had a winning concept. No one, he says, seems to know how to have a face-to-face conversation anymore. “A lot of social skills you used to pick up watching your parents, but now everyone is busy watching stuff online or playing videogames online,” he says.

And you thought Facebook was harmless! They also want mavens who know how to count because if you cannot count it, you cannot change it.

Not everyone is cut out for the matchmaking work . . . Another no-no: overly emotional types. “They tend to think love is very magical while we think there is a science behind it,” he says.

These maven Wingsters follow standard persuasion practice. They meet the client and make plans. In the Local, the maven then circulates the room identifying the Other Guys most suited to the client. The maven will make a preliminary recon of those Other Guys and qualify Them in a friendly way, of course, never letting on that They are setting up a Box and Play for their client. The Other Guy thinks it’s all about the maven when, of course, it isn’t. Later, the maven will bring the client over to the Other Guy and perform that most valuable pickup function: Make the introduction!

A kiss is just a kiss and a sigh is just a sigh, but as time goes by the fundamental things like persuasion always apply.

In a field study, we collected data in a restaurant and manipulated bite size by providing diners with small or large forks. We found that diners consumed more from smaller rather than larger forks. Utilizing motivation literature, which ties into the unique factors present in a restaurant consumption setting (e.g., diners have a well-defined goal of hunger satiation because they invest effort by visiting a specific restaurant, choose from a menu, and pay money for the meal), we present our rationale for the pattern of results.

Sounds pretty obvious, right. Small forks cue Big eating since each bite is Small. Big forks cue Small eating since each bite is Big. Easy-peesey. Here’s a graph to illustrate.

And, this is not a trivial effect.

We assessed the influence of fork size on the weight of the food left on the plate (less food on the plate indicated more consumption) while controlling for the weight of the initial food served, food price, meal occasion (lunch vs. dinner), appetizer (yes vs. no) and alcohol consumption (yes vs. no). This ANCOVA showed that the use of the larger fork resulted in more food left on the plate (i.e., less quantity consumed) than the smaller fork (Mlarge = 7.91 ounces vs. Msmall = 4.43 ounces; F(1, 98) = 7.80, p < .01, partial η2 = .07).

That η2 (eta squared) of .07 translates into a Small+ Windowpane, about 40/60 which would probably be obvious to an observant observer who was looking for an effect. Thus, if you were a dishwasher for this restaurant, you could probably see the difference on the amount of food left on plates between the Small and Big fork conditions. Hey, 4 ounces versus 8 ounces is a lot of spagetti and meatballs.

So the Small fork causes people to eat more because each bite is too small and so they take more bites and more food. The Big fork actually has the effect of reducing caloric consumption. Cue up the Food Police! If we can put calorie counts on menus why not fork size specifications!

Except.

Moreover, in a controlled lab study we demonstrate that when these factors are absent, the pattern of results is reversed.

What? Reversed? Yes. And practical, too.

Using ANCOVA, we assessed the influence of fork size on the weight of pasta left on the plate while controlling for the initial weight of the pasta served. The results showed that those assigned to the large fork condition left less pasta in the bowl (i.e., consumed more pasta) than those in the smaller fork condition (Mlarge = 4.09 ounces vs. Msmall = 5.19 ounces; F(1, 78) = 4.73, p < .03, partial η2 = .05).

This eta squared is another Small+ Windowpane, about a 40/60 difference. And again, someone who was really looking could probably see the practical difference here as in our sweaty dishwasher cleaning up the plates.

Small forks cue Small eating? Didn’t the first study report Big forks cue Small eating? What the hell is going on here? Which is it? A fork is a fork, right? The Food Police are not happy. Cancel that march on the White House.

This is a cross over interaction where a relationship is positive under one condition then negative under another condition.  Stated another way, it depends.  Stated under persuasion labels, the play depends upon the box or what’s the Local?

The trick here is the motivational set of the eater. In the first study with Small Fork, Big Eats:

In our consumption context, we observe that diners visit the restaurant with a well-defined goal of satiating their hunger, and, because of this well-defined goal, they are willing to invest effort and resources to satiate their hunger. Since research has shown that free choice captures realistic behavior more accurately than forced choice situations (Dhar and Simonson 2003), a restaurant offers diners several methods to exercise free choice in satiating their hunger. For instance, diners select a restaurant of their choice, choose an entrée (or entrées) from the menu of offerings, pay for their food, and have the option to take home leftovers. Therefore, people invest effort in order to satiate their hunger.

When the Other Guy has the goal of Satisfying Hunger, then we get Small Forks, Big Eats. But, in the second study with Small Fork, Small Eats:

Eighty-one participants took part in this study for partial course credit. They were told that this was a food consumption study, and each participant was taken to a separate table. They were then offered a preweighted bowl of pasta salad with either a small or a large fork and a bottle of water. The same forks from the restaurant study were used. A pasta salad was served, since several bites are required for consumption rather than a single forkful. Participants were left alone and allowed to consume as much as they wanted.

When the Other Guy has the goal of fulfilling the requirements of a study, we get Small Forks, Small Eats. The effect of fork size depends upon why the Other Guy is using the fork. For Hungry Other Guys fork size means something different than for UnHungry Other Guys doing a marketing study.

Mavens, understand persuasion by the function of a variable, not its structure, content, or appearance. How, not What. You can always spot the amateur on this play. Understand the function or how the thing does what it does, not what it is. See the difference between Doing and Being.

Wow. Philosophical Persuasion Theory!

More entertaining is the Cool Table media comment on this article. You can read the NYT, WSJ, Huffington Post, and Time for their details, but here’s the main point: They missed the main point! Each media comment on this study catches only the first study with Small Forks and Big Eats and completely misses the functional truth of the cross over interaction.  Those Cool Table players drop their maven masks to reveal muggle mugs underneath.  They each and all think Small Forks, Big Eats, so buy a Bigger Fork to lose weight!

Want to join the Cool Table? Carry a Big Fork and Eat Softly.

Want to Change the Other Guys eating? Determine Their goal, then fork them appropriately.

It Depends!

All Persuasion Is Local.

Arul Mishra, Himanshu Mishra and Tamara M. Masters. (2012). The Influence of Bite Size on Quantity of Food Consumed: A Field Study. Journal of Consumer Research , Vol. 38, No. 5, pp. 791-795

DOI: 10.1086/660838

And yet . . . to misquote the immortal Clara Peller, Where’s the Domination?

Facebook is fully forth emerged and I can’t spot Orwell 2.0 or even Engulf and Devour 2.0.  Facebook is good for wasting time, PostMod musings, and angel investors, but the civic and commercial doomsday has yet to arise much less even rear its sleepy head.  On the few case studies I’ve done of Facebook Unleashed (like Al Gore and Climate Change or George W. Bush and book sales or Occupy Wall Street and whatever) show me that Facebook is selling sand to Sauds, but the rest of us are just lying on the beach working on our tans.

My concerns with Web 2.0 privacy remain:  It is a disaster waiting to happen.  Yet that disaster will say more about the Evil Maven who creates it rather than the technology He uses to perpetrate it.  Moglen and I misplay our worries when we shout about Facebook.  Hitler didn’t need no stinkin’ Web 2.0 to turn an enlightened, educated democracy into a totalitarian nightmare.  The Arab dictators had Web 2.0 and either they didn’t know how to use it or perhaps it really doesn’t matter that much after all.

Consider the Persuasion Rule:

Great Persuaders Don’t Need Rich Uncles, Kindness from Strangers, or Third Party Vote Splitters.

The power of persuasion is in the maven not in the magic.

Consider the strategy inherent to these questions.

1. Does Israel have the ability to cause severe damage to Iran’s nuclear sites and bring about a major delay in the Iranian nuclear project? And can the military and the Israeli people withstand the inevitable counterattack?

2. Does Israel have overt or tacit support, particularly from America, for carrying out an attack?

3. Have all other possibilities for the containment of Iran’s nuclear threat been exhausted, bringing Israel to the point of last resort? If so, is this the last opportunity for an attack?

This, according to a published article based on face to face interviews with key Israeli leaders is how they are thinking about responding when and if they believe Iran will possess nuclear weapons. The long article develops their strategic planning over the past ten years and the following tactics. In many ways, the article is a blueprint for thinking and acting, strategically and tactically. I highly recommend that anyone who pretends to persuasion maven status read it.

I observe and approve of the clear-eyed or hard-headed focus on concrete outcomes. The strategy produces observable, countable, physical changes. There’s no flowery self-persuasion as if you need to justify the strategy to yourself. It directly aims at doing explicit activities at an explicit group of Other Guys. A persuasion plan falls naturally out of the strategy behind these three key points.

The three key points also provide a great hierarchy of concerns. The first concerns sheer ability and enhancing that. The second concerns allies and public opinion. The third seeks alternatives to the first point. You know how to prioritize with this hierarchy and you also understand you need to address all three simultaneously.

The article then develops how this strategy has played out and is playing out in tactics, some of which I consider as persuasion plays rather than power plays. Even events that involve killing people function more persuasively than just the removal of a key Other Guy. Such violent acts frighten some Other Guys who remove participation or support for the Iranian project – that’s delay and damage. These acts also encourage internal dissenters and opposition. Finally, these acts force potential allies to think about the Iranian project.

It’s also interesting to note how talkative these Israeli leaders are right now. Normally you associate silence with Israel on issues like this. They do or don’t do what they do and always refuse public comment on everything. The fact of their public talk demonstrates a more clear communication application of persuasion than the persuasive effects of killing lead scientists. Consider this quote from Ehud Barak, the defense minister of Israel.

At various points in our conversation, Barak underscored that if Israel or the rest of the world waits too long, the moment will arrive — sometime in the coming year, he says — beyond which it will no longer be possible to act. “It will not be possible to use any surgical means to bring about a significant delay,” he said. “Not for us, not for Europe and not for the United States. After that, the question will remain very important, but it will become purely theoretical and pass out of our hands — the statesmen and decision-makers — and into yours — the journalists and historians.”

Here the Israelis are using fairly traditional persuasion – interviews with journalists – as a persuasive tactic in the service of the three key points. This interview and in particular this quote speaks directly to the second key point regarding allies. We see an Argument from Barak regarding the Iranian nuclear project and what should be done and that Argument is aimed squarely at allies, especially the US.

Regardless of your opinion on this issue, please see the persuasion planning and execution in it. Focus on the three key points that express the strategy and their implications for persuasion. Learn how to devise strategy that is this clear, behavioral, measurable, and operational.