
Robert Zajonc (1923 - 2008) was a Polish-born American social psychologist who is known for work on social and cognitive processes. He discovered and demonstrated experimentally the mere exposure effect. Because of this effect, repeated exposure to a given stimulus leads to a change of attitude about the stimulus. Photo credit ucsd.edu.
Some workplace discussions fail to converge because participants cannot agree that particular facts are indeed facts. This can happen even when the facts in question are objectively unquestionable: sales are increasing, or voluntary terminations spiked in Q2, or one of the technologies underlying some of our products is about to become obsolete. Debates about issues that aren't actually debatable are more harmful than merely wasting time. They can lead to the spread of misinformation on a scale that can prevent the organization from taking necessary steps that can avert organizational disaster.
In Part I of this exploration, we examined two barriers to accepting truth that are unfortunate, but which trace to cultural causes difficult to avoid. In this Part II, we sketch three additional barriers that trace to more individual frailties. And this leads to an important insight about persuasion in workplace debate.
We begin with sketches of three more barriers to accepting truth.
- Boredom
- For some people, in some life situations, energetic and passionate workplace debate provides welcome respite from intellectual boredom. They find irresistible the challenge of crafting arguments and chains of reasoning that are unexpected by their debate partners and which "win the day" for the side of the argument they're advocating.
- The intellectually bored generally aren't evil people. Their behavior usually returns to more acceptable patterns if we can find something for them to do that's both constructive and sufficiently challenging intellectually. A contributing cause of this problem, perhaps, is the failure of the supervisor of the bored person to first notice the boredom and then to take steps to address it effectively.
- Malevolence
- Malevolence is the desire to cause harm. In the context of workplace debate, malevolence can take many forms. Examples include taking steps to prevent debate from reaching closure; intentionally offending one or more debate participants; preventing a particular participant from attaining a goal; or causing all participants to be late for lunch.
- Straightforward Organizational power can bias our
judgment as we assess the
ideas or proposals of othersmotives for malevolence can include compulsion, revenge for perceived wrongs, or a desire to sabotage a rival's efforts. But more subtle motives can also occur. For example, the perpetrator might be acting at the behest of a person not participating in the debate, in exchange for a favor that person might deliver — or might already have delivered — in another context. - Power bias
- Organizational power can bias our judgment as we assess the ideas or proposals of others. People who possess organizational power can be reluctant to consider proposals that they believe might erode the power they do have; people who lack organizational power or who seek additional power can be reluctant to consider proposals that they believe might hinder their acquisition of power they don't have. So either way, power introduces a bias that can affect judgment and motivation.
- If power bias presents a significant barrier to people accepting truth, offering more truth or different truth is unlikely to bring the discussion to closure. In such situations, the pursuit or retention of power is the fundamental issue. Addressing that issue, or any issues that might be causing people to focus on their organizational power, is likely a more fruitful approach.
Certainly there are dozens more factors that lead us to be reluctant to accept truth. Fear is probably among the more important. Fear causes us to stay with what is, instead of what could be better. Virginia Satir expressed this idea by saying that people tend to prefer the familiar to the comfortable. The phenomenon that familiarity enhances preference, sometimes called the mere exposure effect, has since been demonstrated experimentally. [Fang 2007] Perhaps the most persuasive evidence for the existence of a mere exposure effect is the choice by advertisers to present identical advertisements repeatedly in multiple media.
Participants in workplace debates can also exploit the mere exposure effect, but to do so, they might need to adopt a long view. To expect that presenting unfamiliar facts for the first time can be persuasive in the moment might be expecting too much. The mere exposure effect suggests that presenting those same facts or similar facts repeatedly over the course of several debates might be more likely to achieve the intended result. First issue in this series
Top
Next Issue
Is every other day a tense, anxious, angry misery as you watch people around you, who couldn't even think their way through a game of Jacks, win at workplace politics and steal the credit and glory for just about everyone's best work including yours? Read 303 Secrets of Workplace Politics, filled with tips and techniques for succeeding in workplace politics. More info
Footnotes
Your comments are welcome
Would you like to see your comments posted here? rbrenaXXxGCwVgbgLZDuRner@ChacDjdMAATPdDNJnrSwoCanyon.comSend me your comments by email, or by Web form.About Point Lookout
Thank you for reading this article. I hope you enjoyed it and
found it useful, and that you'll consider recommending it to a friend.
This article in its entirety was written by a human being. No machine intelligence was involved in any way.
Point Lookout is a free weekly email newsletter. Browse the archive of past issues. Subscribe for free.
Support Point Lookout by joining the Friends of Point Lookout, as an individual or as an organization.
Do you face a complex interpersonal situation? Send it in, anonymously if you like, and I'll give you my two cents.
Related articles
More articles on Effective Communication at Work:
Saying No
- When we have to say "no" to customers or to people in power, we're often tempted to placate
with a "yes." There's a better way: learn how to say "no" in a way that moves the
group toward joint problem solving.
If Only I Had Known: I
- Have you ever regretted saying something that you wouldn't have said if only you had known just one
more little fact? Yeah, me too. We all have. Here are some tips for dealing with this sticky situation.
Twelve Tips for More Masterful Virtual Presentations: I
- Virtual presentations are like face-to-face presentations, in that one (or a few) people present a program
to an audience. But the similarity ends there. In the virtual environment, we have to adapt if we want
to deliver a message effectively. We must learn to be captivating.
Red Flags: II
- When we find clear evidence of serious problems in a project or other collaboration, we sometimes realize
that we had overlooked several "red flags" that had foretold trouble. In this Part II of our
review of red flags, we consider communication patterns that are useful indicators of future problems.
More Things I've Learned Along the Way: V
- When I gain an important insight, or when I learn a lesson, I make a note. Example: If you're interested
in changing how a social construct operates, knowing how it came to be the way it is can be much less
useful than knowing what keeps it the way it is.
See also Effective Communication at Work for more related articles.
Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout
Coming July 16: Responding to Unwelcome Events
- Unwelcome events have two kinds of effects on decision-makers. One set of effects appears as we respond to events that have actually occurred. Another set manifests itself as we prepare for unwelcome events that haven't yet occurred, but which might occur. Making a wrong decision in either case can be costly. Available here and by RSS on July 16.
And on July 23: Microdelegation
- Microdelegation is a style of delegation in which the delegator unintentionally communicates the task to the subordinate in such detail and so repetitively that the subordinate is offended. As a result of this delegation style, many subordinates feel distrusted or suspected of fraud or goldbricking. Available here and by RSS on July 23.
Coaching services
I offer email and telephone coaching at both corporate and individual rates. Contact Rick for details at rbrenaXXxGCwVgbgLZDuRner@ChacDjdMAATPdDNJnrSwoCanyon.com or (650) 787-6475, or toll-free in the continental US at (866) 378-5470.
Get the ebook!
Past issues of Point Lookout are available in six ebooks:
- Get 2001-2 in Geese Don't Land on Twigs (PDF, )
- Get 2003-4 in Why Dogs Wag (PDF, )
- Get 2005-6 in Loopy Things We Do (PDF, )
- Get 2007-8 in Things We Believe That Maybe Aren't So True (PDF, )
- Get 2009-10 in The Questions Not Asked (PDF, )
- Get all of the first twelve years (2001-2012) in The Collected Issues of Point Lookout (PDF, )
Are you a writer, editor or publisher on deadline? Are you looking for an article that will get people talking and get compliments flying your way? You can have 500-1000 words in your inbox in one hour. License any article from this Web site. More info
Follow Rick
Recommend this issue to a friend
Send an email message to a friend
rbrenaXXxGCwVgbgLZDuRner@ChacDjdMAATPdDNJnrSwoCanyon.comSend a message to Rick
A Tip A Day feed
Point Lookout weekly feed
