When you are considered an expert in your field, does it undermine your authority when you admit uncertainty in your opinion?
Absolutely not, according to new research from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. In fact, this might be a good strategy for increasing your persuasive abilities. Surprisingly, the study found that the opposite was true for non-experts: they can better persuade an audience by expressing a higher degree of certainty.
“We find that when the regular, everyday person is extremely certain, that’s surprising to readers,” said Zakary L. Tormala, an associate professor of marketing at Stanford who conducted the research. “Conversely, when the expert is not so certain, that’s surprising.”
So how does the element of surprise lead to the ability to better persuade your audience?
As Tormala explained in a Stanford press release, “The inconsistency is surprising. It draws people in. And as long as the arguments in a message are reasonably strong, being drawn in leads to more persuasion.”
However, there are a couple of caveats. First, this finding only applies to subjective information, when there is no clear cut right answer. So an insurance salesperson vying for your business would not increase her powers of persuasion by telling you she’s uncertain whether or not she’s procured the best rate for you. However, an expert restaurant critic (the premise the research experiments were based upon) can increase the strength of his argument by expressing minor doubts about the all-encompassing validity of his judgments.
Also, a strong argument is essential to increasing your persuasive abilities. In Tormala’s experiments, both of the expert and non-expert restaurant reviews that based their opinions on factors such as the color of the restaurant or the quality of their meal companion failed to convince readers.
“Increasing consumers’ involvement and processing of your message is a good thing as long as your message is strong. If your message is weak, increasing others’ involvement or interest has no effect, or can even backfire,” said Tormala.
Image courtesy of Flickr user petesimon, CC 2.0.
