and what didn't you give me to be needing needing me to be needing it okay full disclosure today's title is an overstatement but only a little those of us with a bad habit have probably heard all the guilt pleading and logic for change a million times we're prepared to resist and combat every logical or emotional attack especially smokers more than most any addiction they've seen the anti-smoking ads horrific images of cancerous lungs everybody's told them a hundred times to just stop into the work of course not so let's look for BS you can use alright first let's find some smokers and a couple of Confederates in the control condition we'll have coal and Josh try the traditional lecture approach excuse me hey you know smokings rescue yeah would you like to know where you can get some help if you wanna quit hardly any takers okay 90% of the smokers responded resentfully just under half even took the paper when it was forced into their hand so reminding people of something they already know but don't want to think about didn't work now here comes the BS you can use this time we'll have our intrepid Confederates try something different we'll replace a tired lecture with an influential question this time : the subject to meet with a big cigarette hall and asks for a light have our light why not why didn't you go fast this is fascinating deema to the adults are now telling the boy why he shouldn't smoke just even better now that the smoker is making the anti-smoking argument the kids turn it back to the smoker with an influential question ok care about us that's why right you just look at the body language this time as compared to the control condition you don't see defensive masseuse think ultimately in this condition close to 90% of subjects not only lectured the boys about the evils of smoking but committed to trying to quit themselves it gets even better one of them saw the boys later and came back to continue the ramp take it from me every time somebody brings it to you or in tears or they see somebody smoking your number my work but I will acquit for to act otherwise they were dying and now the skeptical scientist in me wants to ask so with that motivation just temporary sure they pocket the paper but do they actually do anything good question when Olga V & mather conducted the experiment in Bangkok calls to the quit line actually went up 40% on the day of the experiment we don't know if they actually quit but we do know that their motivation lasted past the interaction yeah so let's let's talk about this why did that work I see a few things going on here but let's focus on one of them when you're trying to include people who need motivation and not information don't offer more information your only hope is to avoid provoking what psychologists call reactance the best way to do that is not with speeches but with questions give them a safe environment to explore motivations they already have exactly the kids approach allowed the smoker to feel emotionally safe which allowed them to acknowledge their own ambivalence about their habit so I have to reintroduce them to values they already believe in by tricking them with a cute kid or a close stop forcing them to take the wrong side of the argument by lecturing them instead used questions to help them explore their own motivations at their own pace and it works - go ahead try it at home I'm Joseph Brady and I'm David Maxfield and that's all the BS for today sharpen your behavioral science skills by subscribing to our channel for our latest videos and updates click here to subscribe where we always promise to share some BS you can use you're not trying to win an argument get an exhaustive list of all the positives and then turn to the negative and once they make a list of all those positives validate validate validate agree with acknowledged support them as soon as they realize that it's ok with you that there's benefits in this bad habit then they'll feel okay about acknowledging that there's outside you're trying to get the truth out because you believe the truth will motivate healthy behavior