ByFrank OBrien

Properly applied, behavioral science can play a compelling role strengthening the persuasiveness of our messages. Today let’s discuss specific concepts drawn from books by two of my favorite writers on the science of persuasion.

And since the authors deal primarily with commercial marketing, I’ve included specific examples of how each notion might be applied to our nonprofit messaging.

Word Choice, Framing and Concreteness

In his book, Richard Shotton delves into the significant impact of word choice. He describes a research study in which participants were shown a video of a car accident and asked to guess how fast the cars were going.

But there was variation in one word – the verb used to describe the situation. Here are the five verbs and the average MPH speed that participants guessed.

Those who were asked the “smashed” question thought the cars were travelling 27% faster than those who were asked the “contacted” version. Why? Because the language helped frame the participants’ mental picture of the accident.

Bonus Insight: In his book, Shotton also presents research showing that concrete phrases (fast car, skinny jeans, cashew nut, money in the bank) are ten times more likely to be retained than abstract phrases (innovative quality, trusted provenance, central purpose, ethical vision.)

  • Use concrete, emotion-generating adjectives to boost the power of the nouns they modify. “A stunning breakthrough” usually beats a “significant” one. A “life-saving impact” communicates more than a “substantial impact.” And  a “real, punch in the gut” development motivates more than a “truly disappointing” one.
  • Use adjectives that fit your organization’s voice and stance. Warm, tender and loving words are great for the World Wildlife Fund, but tough, determined language fits the ACLU better. The ASPCA and PETA both express love for animals. But PETA’s tone is naturally more angry and edgy.
  • Don’t get carried away. It would be a big, bad, ghastly, unforgivable mistake to pile on the adjectives too heavily. Use them judiciously to highlight and add energy to the most critical parts of your message.


Neuroscience and Surprising the Brain

Surprise is an emotion whose power we invoke less frequently than we should. As Dooley notes, neuroscientists are learning more and more about how our brains react to unexpected events. 

One key dynamic is that our brains work hard to predict what will happen next.  

Dooley cites a wonderful spoken word illustration of this process by Scientific American’s Steve Mirsky:

“While I’m talking, you’re not just passively listening. Your brain is also busy at work guessing the next word that I will sa . . .vor before I actually speak it. You thought I was going to say “say,” didn’t you? Our brains actually consider many possible words – and their meanings – before we’ve heard the final word in quest . . . of being understood.”

  • Don’t be Predictable: What’s new and exciting about the message you just wrote, edited or reviewed? Could you have sent it a month ago or a month from now? Does it make clear what’s next? If the recipient of your message tried to, could they pretty much predict the content?
  • Find ways to surprise people in both language choice and content. There’s real value in upending people’s expectations. Think through whether there’s a new, more interesting way to phrase something. Deliver surprising, fresh and new insights and present them in a way that could only come from you and would only make sense at this moment in time.
  • Even in dire times, lean in to surprise and delight. When was the last time you really surprised your audiences? If we want to capture peoples’ attention and make an emotional connection, we should try our best to surprise and even delight our audiences. Perhaps it seems odd to be talking about these fun, positive emotions in a year so fraught with drama.  But that’s exactly the point. 

    We can’t ignore the dire circumstances facing many of the causes we care about. But, we can’t engage and persuade our audiences on a steady diet of crisis and alarm.
  • Answer the “what’s next?” question. It’s great to report back on work your audiences helped move forward and progress they helped achieve. But, if you stop there, you have a cultivation message, not a response-generating one. Make sure you’re conveying future-facing details about “can’t wait” work that lies just ahead.

As I hope these examples make clear, if properly used, behavioral science can powerfully contribute to the persuasiveness of our nonprofit communications. In future memos, I will explore additional behavioral science concepts and how to apply them in our space.

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