Often, in order to get what we want

Often, in order to get what we want or need, we need to persuade others to help and co operate with us. In his recent book 59 Seconds: Think a Little, Change a Lot, Professor Richard Wiseman, a well known television psychologist, describes the latest research on what could be called "the art of persuasion".Some interesting facts emerge. For example, you would think that if you want someone to perform a task that they don't enjoy, they will enjoy the task more if you give them a big reward. In fact, the opposite is true. Wiseman performed an experiment in which two people were asked to spend an afternoon picking up rubbish in a London park. One group was paid well, while the other was only given a small amount of cash. Afterwards, it was found that the second group enjoyed themselves a lot more than the first group. It seems that people think that if they are paid for something, it's because they don't enjoy it! Psychologists find that the way to encourage people to do something they don't enjoy is to give them a realistic reward at the start, followed by praise as they do the activity.To persuade people to do things for us, it helps if they like us. Research shows that we like modest, generous people who are interested in us, seem to like us and who give sincere compliments. This is true even in interviews! It seems that a person's qualifications and work experience is less important than whether the interviewer finds them pleasant.