Fear of dogs can be a debilitating phobia to deal with. Dogs are popular and in some countries stray dogs are around. In a fascinating experiment the power of the Persuasion Principle of Social Proof proved again to be a powerful motivator to encourage behaviour. Many children had their fear of dogs subside and were wanting to play with dogs relatively very quickly.
What is the persuasion Principle of Social Proof?
Social Proof teaches us that people look to the actions of others, to judge what is appropriate to do in situations. People follow the crowd essentially. In business, social proof can be used to guide people to popular products and decisions. In case of unwanted behaviours, like a fear of dogs, it also showed to be a powerful motivator.
How social proof fixed the fear of dogs in kids
A psychologist, Albert Bandora, led the way in eliminating unwanted behaviours. They demonstrated how many people with phobias, can get rid of those phobias in an easy way.
In an early study with nursery school children who were scared of dogs, they simply led the kids watch another child play happily with a dog for just 20min a day. After only 4 days, 67% of the children were willing to go into a play pen with a dog and stay there patting and scratching the dag whilst everyone else left the area.
It was even established that when they assessed the children’s fear levels a month later, they had not increased again. Kids actually were more motivated to interact with dogs.
In another study it was discovered that they didn’t even need a life demonstration with a dog… a video clip was similarly effective. In fact, videos of multiple kids playing with dogs was more effective.
In wider psychology circles this type of learning is referred to as Observational Learning. In ethical persuasion it is labelled under the Principle of Social Proof.
Fear of dogs, phobias or your clients behaviour
The actions of others can in a genuine way help to guide others in their behaviours. It is a shortcut for the mind. A person or child might subconsciously think: ‘If this action is deemed appropriate for others that are similar to me, this action is likely also appropriate for me‘.
This explains the power of testimonials. In ethical persuasion in business, you would therefor be wasting an opportunity, to not tell people what actions others have take in relation to your product or service.
There is a lot more to Social Proof and the other ethical principles of persuasion and their implementation.
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