How we can use neuroscience and psychology to be more influential

In my last post “Why it’s so hard to break habits, and what you can do about it.” we learned how language can be used to induce emotions.

This has very powerful implications for anyone who needs to use influential. Salespeople, advertisers, or anyone in general. Maybe you have a friend you care about that has a bad habit and you’d like to talk to them in a more influential way so they can better their lives and stop hurting themselves. Maybe you have a friend in a bad relationship and you want to be able to convince him/her that it’s not in their best interests to keep putting themselves through that.

So as we learned in the last post, it seems as though words represent and trigger emotions.

So for example the work “Terrorist” gives you a bad feeling, and the word “cake” gives you a good feeling. All of those good and bad feelings are actually neurochemicals being released in the brain in response to stimuli, and in this case, representations of stimuli. The word is linked to the picture which is linked to the emotion.

You say the word “cake” the mind imagines cake briefly and a neurochemical is released in response to that imagined image.

Self Help books often claim the brain “you can’t tell an imagined experience from a real one”? This is only partially true. In brain scans we notice that the same regions are activated, but not with the same intensity. Neurochemicals are released, but also, not as intensely.

So how can we use this to our advantage? Well, all mammals learn through experience. Humans have the unique advantage of being able to transmit experiences through words. All learning is based off repetition or emotion, but emotion fuses it quicker. The rat pushes the lever and gets food, which is essential for his survival. His neurochemicals reward him when it sees/smells/tastes the pellet which fuses a neural pathway so he’ll know for later. For early humans, they may fuse neural pathways telling them where a certain berry bush is, so that they remember where food is next time. Remembering how to attain food was absolutely essential for early humans, and equally important for modern ones.

Now how does this relate to influence. Well, language evolved as a way to stimulate neurochemicals.

Now when I say the word “dog” the same activity occurs in the brain as if you saw a dog, just not as intensely.

So if I tell you “Johns dog bites people” you don’t have to

In that moment 3 images/emotions quickly flashed through your head.

1) an image of Jon’s dog

2) an image of him biting

3) him biting people (which could be you).

The same exact neurochemicals would be released, and the same regions of the brain would light up as if you were actually bitten by the dog. Being bitten by the dog would be significantly more intense, but the brain activity of someone telling you “John’s dog bites people” is usually sufficient enough for people to be careful around Johns dog.

If a caveman were talking to another caveman if Zog told Bog “fire hurt bad!” on a physical level it would create new neural pathways in the same way as if he touched the fire himself. He would learn without having to have that experience like other mammals.

The way the brain releases neurochemicals in response to words is why books and stories are so exciting. Every word generates a different emotion which paints a picture of what’s happening and activates the same region of the brain as if it were really happening.

So humans use this to transmit information. Unlike mice, humans can say “Push the lever and get the treat,” which releases neurochemicals at the word “treat” and makes a connection in the same way it did for the rat. Now we know the humans move toward pleasure and away from pain, so if we can structure sentences in ways that let’s people know what action to take to gain what reward, the more you can reprogram them.

And the more desirable you can make that reward sound and the more rewards you can stack one on top of the other, it’s going to be impossible to get them resist taking action. If I tell someone that eating healthy is gonna lead them to feeling great and they’re gonna look great and I can point out the benefits making that action sufficiently rewarding, they’re gonna need to use willpower to NOT take that action. Then all of a sudden pain is linked with junk food, and pleasure with healthy food. And I think the more they can really feel those benefits and imagine what the feeling of having money would be like, while telling them what to do to attain that, the more you can invoke change.

In other words, if you can use words to tell a story than causes people to feel certain emotions, you can use language to light up the same brain regions as if they were having an experience creating the same neural pathways as if they actually that took action and created that action -> reward loop. You can use words to activate the same brain regions as a mouse learning to push a lever and receive food. To give you a practical example, if you tell someone to “eat healthy,” it’s unlikely they’ll do it unless you tell them that “Eating healthy leads to [insert reward here].” Or it may be even better to tell a story illustrating the benefits of said action. The pathways formed may be stronger than. but no matter what, people don’t take actions when there’s no reward. And the reward has to be relevant to them. It has to be something they want. If they’re not thinking about diabeties, it’s unlikely that using that as a motivator will work. But if they’re interested in looking good, that’s a great way to present the argument. Something that’s rewarding to one person may not be rewarding to another.