Leveraging the Psychology of the Salesperson: A Conversation with Psychologist and Anthropologist G. Clotaire Rapaille

Leveraging the Psychology of the Salesperson: A Conversation with Psychologist and Anthropologist G. Clotaire Rapaille: "Typically, archetypes are so deeply embedded in a culture that people are unaware of them. Just as we can speak a language without understanding its grammar, so too we can function in a culture without a conscious awareness of its prevailing archetypes."

"Each culture has a pool of shared archetypes that guide the behaviors of its members—a collective unconscious, if you will. Companies consult me in an attempt to decipher the collective unconscious of their customers, employees, and stakeholders."
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"Salespeople are Happy Losers. Whether they know it or not, they are like addicted gamblers; they are after the thrill. On some level, addicted gamblers know that they are going to lose most of the time, but they are excited by the outside chance of winning. Salespeople share that temperament. They are pros at losing. They are rejected at least 90% of the time, I’d say. Why would anyone choose that job? For the chase."
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"The mental imprint is the result of a learning process that takes place early in life and establishes an unconscious behavior pattern."

"Beyond a certain time period, it is difficult to imprint. First experiences are very powerful. Each one creates a mental highway in the nervous system, and afterward, we use this pathway or chain of neurons in the brain. The more we learn about trauma, for example, the more we see this pattern. People can’t forget a terrible experience; there is a compulsion to repeat it. The same is true for early experiences generally. On some level, what we learn in our early days stays with us forever."
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"It’s not just an impressive clientele that substantiates my work, and it’s not biologically based research. When I get a laugh, I know I’m onto something. I’ll often comment about salespeople as Happy Losers, and everyone chuckles spontaneously, reacting with gut feeling."

Trust You? What's in It for Me? - New York Times

Trust You? What's in It for Me? - New York Times: "Why does one person trust another? One reason may be that the two do good things for each other — the 'I'll scratch your back, you scratch mine' idea.

But often the reciprocity is not as direct. We trust people even though they have never done anything specifically for us. And people do good things even if they get no direct benefit.

There is a two-part explanation for this, scientists say. One is that we 'keep score' when we watch people, and if we see them acting in a cooperative way we are more likely to cooperate with them. The other is that we modify our behavior in response to being observed. If we think others are watching who may eventually cooperate with us, we are more likely to be cooperative ourselves."

A First Hand Account of Interrogation

The Journalist and the Murderer: "First of all, as a novelist I’ve written about what it’s like to be interrogated. I understood that it’s a psychologically daunting experience, but you really can’t have any conception of what it’s like to be strongly interrogated until you undergo it. It’s a humiliating experience. You have no power. And it’s especially difficult in a foreign language. In order to speak well and to be convincing you have to have tremendous command of the language. And when you don’t you sound like a liar even when you’re not. I remember in this interrogation thinking, “My God, I sound like a liar. If I were Mignini, I wouldn’t believe me, stumbling, stuttering, and sweating, and using the wrong words, and backtracking, and saying things two or three times, and trying to explain what I meant.” I was thinking, “They’re going to take me from this room and put me in jail, and I’m not going to see my wife and kids again, or at least for a while.” I was terrified that I was not going to see the outside world again. Because of course the crimes they were accusing me of were very serious."

Douglas Gordan - Poetry out of Randomness?

I went to the Museum of Modern Art in NYC this week. There is a retrospective exhibition of the work of Douglas Gordan. He is a conceptual artist who explores time-based medium, mostly film. For example, his 24 Hour Psycho is the Alfred Hitchcock movie Psycho projected onto a screen so slowly that it takes 24 hours to see the whole thing. I thought that particular piece was more interesting when I read about it in the NYT's review than when I saw it in person.

I did really like his Between Darkness and Light (After William Blake). In this piece Gordan has The exorcist projected on one side of a screen and The Song of Bernadette projected on the other side. The screen is transparent enough that you can see both films on either side. One film showing through in the shadows of the other. The soundtracks are also played together.

I sat and watched the two films for a while and really enjoyed the experience. There were some really interesting moments when the two films seemed to come together in meaningful ways. And I guess by meaningful I mean poetic.

But whose meaning was it? You see, the films aren't the same lengths and so they never sync up the same way. So perhaps this is just an example of the viewer's mind finding meaning where there is really just randomness. I'm not denigrating the art. I think it is brilliant to create such an environment.

It reminds me of dreams. I don't think that dreams have any intrinsic meaning, but they can catalyze us to find meaning within their randomness.

Re-framing Roles for Decision-making

The NYT's reports on new research that shows people make risk/benefit decisions differently depending on the role they are asked to assume.

The research was published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine. According to the Journal's abstract:

Survey participants imagined themselves in 1 of 4 roles: patient, physician treating a single patient, medical director creating treatment guidelines, or parent deciding for a child.

Preferences for risk-reducing active treatments were significantly stronger for participants imagining themselves as medical professionals than for those imagining themselves as patients.

CONCLUSIONS: Treatment preferences may be substantially influenced by a decision-making role. As certain roles appear to reinforce "big picture" thinking about difficult risk tradeoffs, physicians and patients should consider re-framing treatment decisions to gain new, and hopefully beneficial, perspectives.

Libertarian Paternalism and Motorcycle Helmets

Writer John Tierney uses Pittsburgh Steelers' quarterback Ben Roethlisberger's career threatening motorcycle accident as a springboard to discuss libertarian paternalism in his June 16, 2006 NYT's column.

Libertarian paternalism, also known as soft paternalism, brings behavioral economics to policy issues. It says that people should be able to make their own decisions (such as whether to wear a motorcycle helmet), but that government regulation can be used to present options in a way that encourages the better choice.

Law professor Cass Sunstein and economist Richard Thaler at the University of Chicago coined the term. Edward Glaeser, a Harvard economist, is mentioned as being skeptical of the concept.

According to the column, this presentation of options should be informative of the risks and cost/benefits involved in the choice, and it may involve some incentives or disinsentives as well. For example, someone wishing to ride a motorcycle without a helmet would be required to attend a one-time class about the choice and could also be required to prove that he or she had a set amount of insurance.

Ben Roethlisberger's helmetless accident is cited to illustrate what is wrong with human decision making. Roethlisberger risked tens of millions of dollars by putting himself in a position where he could have a career ending accident.

Tierney's column provides the following general problems with decision making:

1) decisions are made haphazardly

2) we are overly influenced by a recent horror story

3) we ignore statistics

4) we ignore unlikely and far-off events

5) we make decisions based not on facts, but on how they are presented