Priming
In my first book, In the House of Ideas, I stated... “You cannot hypnotize someone against their will, but you can hypnotize someone without their knowledge.”
Hypnosis is happening every time you communicate with another human, but most of us aren’t aware of this. You have a responsibility to those with whom you communicate, because you have the ability to give both positive and negative suggestions that can influence the way they think.
Priming is one method of influencing your conversation partner without their knowledge.
Priming is secretly using words, objects, smells, tastes, or touch to trigger a desired psychological response within your conversation partner.
Let’s do a little experiment...
Complete each step before moving on to the next.
Step 1
Take a look at this list of words below for 10 seconds. When you’re done, cover up the words with your hand or by some other method. I don’t want you to be able to refer back to the list.
sour
nice
candy
honey
sugar
soda
bitter
chocolate
good
heart
taste
cake
tooth
tart
pie
Now, cover up (or scroll up) the words so you can’t see them.
Step 2
Keeping the list of words covered up, take 60 seconds to write down as many of the words that you can remember. (Do not peek at the words while writing the words you can remember, and do not look at the list when your 60-second written recall is completed. Simply move to Step 3.)
Step 3
Without looking at the list of words, did you remember to write down “sweet”? Do you remember “sweet” being on the list now?
Now scroll down.
If you remembered the word “sweet”, take another look at the list. “Sweet” is not one of the 15 words on the list.
This is priming. (It’s also a damn good party trick.)
When communicating with humans, you have the opportunity to prime them in a positive way as well as a negative way.
For example, when asking a friend about the anxiety they’ve been feeling, you may ask questions such as...
“How anxious have you been lately?”
“How was your level of nervousness since we last met?”
“Last week, you told me that you worry a lot. How have you been lately?”
“You told me that you often have a sense of being overwhelmed. How often do you feel that way?”
Questions like these cause your friend to focus on being anxious, nervous, worried, and overwhelmed. You’re priming your friend to focus on the things that they no longer want in their life. You are also invoking these emotions as you ask about them.
Instead of negatively priming, conduct an experiment for a few weeks with your friends by positively priming them.
It’s a simple matter of restructuring your questions to focus on what they want. You can easily change the negative questions above into positive questions.
“How carefree have you been lately?”
“How was your level of calmness since we last met?”
“What’s something that made you extremely happy lately?”
“What did you do since last week that felt good?”
If your friend has difficulty pulling these times out of their ordinary life, design these moments. In other words, plan things with your friend that will help them feel carefree, calm, happy, and good.
Always begin with the end in mind, and consistently move your conversations to that destination.
