How to Subtly Persuade Others to Tip You More
We obliviously use this all the time
I had so much fun tonight. It was the best night I’ve ever had in my life.
You had fun tonight?
Yes, I went to the art museum and saw paintings that I’ve only seen online.
You went to the art museum and saw paintings?
That’s right, it felt very surreal. Each physical painting manifests unique auras you can’t experience anywhere else.
Oh, surreal?
I could see why each painting would cost that much. Even though the price is astronomical, it sure does provide that much value.
Have you felt anything slightly different about this conversation? Although it’s a normal conversation, it surely felt a lot smoother and more natural. Perhaps for most people, it felt a lot more friendlier and solicitous. And there’s a special reason for that:
If you look at how the listener respond, you’ll notice that he or she phrases the question in an intriguing manner. All of the questions include a word or two from the sentence expressed by the speaker in this conversation. Essentially, the listener responded by repeating back what the speaker had said and changed the tone to make it sound like a question. Although its a subtle technique, it has great effect on the speaker. And this technique is called Mirroring.
The effectiveness of mirroring
Mirroring is basically imitation. It’s a behaviour we possess to follow and copy what another person is doing to strengthen bonding and remove and hostility between the two. Mirroring can be done with speech, body language, word choice, tone, and even thought. It’s an unconscious behaviour that indicates that these two people have tight, trustful relationship. Because we naturally are afraid of what is different from us but love what is similar, mirroring indirectly conveys the message that we are the same, and that I am not a threat.
If you are attentive to detail, you’ll probably see this phenomenon in close relationships: close friends walking in synchronous harmony, two siblings unconsciously copying each other’s behaviour, and affectionate couples using similar tone of voice and words.
It’s essentially everywhere in relationships that involves a close bonding. And this is exactly why mirroring is so effective — by mirroring someone, we unconsciously make them think that we are closer and that I am a friend, not a foe. It’s almost a Jedi mind trick: just by repeating their last three words and subtly copying their gestures and tone, we can pretty much make them think that we’re a lot friendlier.
Psychologist Richard Wiseman created a study using waiters to figure our what was the more effective method for creating a bond with the customers. One group of waiters had to use positive reinforcement such as “great”, “no problem”, “that sounds awesome”, and “amazing” to respond to the customers when catering them while another group of waiters had to use mirroring to communicate with their customers by repeating what they said.
The result was quite stunning — the group of waiters who used mirroring as their main technique for communicating with their customers received 70 percent more in tips on average than the other group who merely used positive reinforcement. This shows how powerful mirroring is and proves that it can be used as an effective technique in situations that favour close bondings and good relationships.
So next time when you need to ask for a raise, ask someone out for dinner, or persuade someone to do something for you, just remember this — copy what they’re doing, subtly of course.