GIVE THEM A REASON

 In his book Influence, author Robert Cialdini relates an anecdote about a Harvard social psychologist who ran a little experiment at a much-used library copier. In a variety of ways, she would ask permission to cut in line to make her copies and then record the success rate for each approach.

So when she said, "Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine?", she was allowed to cut in line 60% of the time. 

When she switched her request to "Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I'm in a rush?", her success rate climbed to an astonishing 94%. 

The truly surprising thing, though, was that the increased success was not dependent on people's sympathy for someone "in a rush". Rather, the increase seemed to be spurred simply by the word "because". 

How did the researcher come to this conclusion? 

She did one more trial. This time she worded her request like this: "Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I have to make some copies?" 

Kind of absurd, right? EVERYBODY in line is there "to make some copies". When I related this experiment to my 8th graders, many predicted the researcher's success rate would drop with this third version of her request. The people in line would probably feel insulted, right?

Wrong. Her success rate with this final revision still got her ahead in line 93% of the time!

It seems that "because" is a magic word. 

If you ask a favor, your audience wants a reason ... and it doesn't even have to be a good one to win them over. 

So now my students will occasionally raise a hand and ask, "Can I go to the bathroom, because I need to go to the bathroom", knowing that 93% of the time I will give them permission to leave the room.