Argument: A series of statements typically used to persuade someone of something or to present reasons for accepting a conclusion.
Do you know how to win an argument? LifeDaily is about to share with you 9 Science Based Tactics To Win An Argument: We hope they work for you…
1. Be civil
No matter what you must remain civil. Respect the other person’s beliefs, no matter how ridiculous they sound to you. In doing this, you will gain your opponent’s respect, which will make them more likely to listen to your point of view. There is no argument to be had in the first place, if you do not remain civil. Just like political psychologist Peter Ditto says: “When people have their self-worth validated in some way, they tend to be more receptive to information that challenges their beliefs.”
2. Practice extreme agreement
Extreme agreement is showing people the logical conclusion to their beliefs. This basically means to explain to people their own worldview- not the opposing one that conflicts with their beliefs. If you show them the opposing view, the parts of their brain that handle reason and logic go dormant, and the parts of their brain that handle hostility lights up.
3. Be confident
A 2013 study found that people don’t actually listen to the smartest person in the room, they listen to the person who acts as if they know what is right. Even management Professor Bryan Bonner says people unconsciously look for “messy proxies for expertise like extroversion, gender, race, or confidence level instead of paying attention to what people are actually saying. We’d hope that facts would be the currency of influence, but often, we guess at who’s the expert- and we’re wrong.”
4. Ask open ended questions
Ask open ended questions only. Do not ask questions that require only a yes or no response. If you’re in a spat with your spouse for example, couples psychologist John Gottman advises to ask questions to encourage him/her to open up. Some examples: What has made you feel this way? Is there anything that I can do to help?
5. Don’t ask why, ask how
In a study by psychologist Philip M. Fernbach, people with extreme political views were separated into two groups- people who had to explain why their opinions were right, and those who were asked to explain how their ideals could be turned into actual policy. The result was that people who gave their reasons for being right (the whys) were just as confident in their views as they were before the experiment, whereas people who had to explain how their ideals could be turned into actual policy, had softer and somewhat changed views.
6. I know it seems contradictory, but don’t try to win the argument
If you become so focused on winning the argument your persuasion kicks in and once that happens, it’s no longer an exercise in logic and reasoning- it’s just a fight. Once it’s war, you’re no longer focused on what’s right, and it becomes winning by any means necessary. It can get ugly, it can get dirty, and it will go nowhere fast. Take your partner’s views, and advance them to their logical, maybe slightly absurd conclusion.
7. Use graphs
Researchers Aner Tal and Brian Wansink conducted a study at Cornell University which demonstrates how much people trust scientists, so by using a graph, you appear very trustworthy, and you have scientific facts to back up your views. Most people will shut up, when you show them a graph, and “the prestige of science appears to grant persuasive power even to such trivial science-related elements as graphs,” says Tal and Wansink.
8. Demonstrate that other people agree
In Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, author Robert Cialdini says “social proof” is one of the best tactics for getting people to see things your way because “it exploits the well-documented tendency for people to conform to others’ opinions, even if they’re strange.” According to social proof, we assume what other people are doing is the correct behavior in a situation. This is the reason sold out items are so much more appealing to us, as well as really long lines, and fully booked reservations in restaurants.
9. Go for consensus
Many often use consensus as the ultimate argument-winner, and for good reason. As Jacquelyn Gill writes on Contemplative Mammoth: “Scientific consensus is the collected opinions of all scientists, and not just the one you’re arguing with. There can be one or two scientists who disagree (just like there are a handful of people who don’t believe the Holocaust happened), but if the vast majority of scientists have reached consensus, it means that there is so much evidence in support of an idea that it’s basically a guaranteed thing, based on state-of-the-art knowledge.”
We hope these 9 Science Based Tactics To Win An Argument were helpful to you. If you have any ‘arguments’ on the subject, please leave them in the comments below.
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9 Science Based Tactics To Win An Argument is a post from: LifeDaily