convince me
TRANSCRIPT
Mariette DiChristina
Editor in Chief
(from the editor)
MINDBEHAVIOR • BRAIN SCIENCE • INSIGHTS
www.Scientif icAmerican.com/Mind SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN MIND 1
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EDITOR IN CHIEF: Mariette DiChristinaISSUE EDITOR: John Rennie
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HAL ARKOWITZ: Associate Professor of Psychology, University of Arizona
STEPHEN J. CECI: Professor of Developmental Psychology, Cornell University
R. DOUGLAS FIELDS: Chief, Nervous System Development and Plasticity Section, National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
S. ALEXANDER HASLAM: Professor of Social and Organizational Psychology, University of Exeter
CHRISTOF KOCH: Professor of Cognitive and Behavioral Biology, California Institute of Technology
SCOTT O. LILIENFELD: Professor of Psychology, Emory University
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DIANE ROGERS-RAMACHANDRAN: Research Associate, Center for the Brain and Cognition, University of California, San Diego
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Some of the articles in this issue are adapted from articles originally appearing in Gehirn & Geist.
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Convince MeI didn’t need it, but it was the perfect thing for anyone who considered herself artis-tic and liked to make detailed drawings, I had to agree. The art supplies salesperson smiled ingratiatingly at me as our conversation morphed into a pitch I literally felt I couldn’t refuse. We had struck up a chat about art, and he somehow found a way to make an expensive pen-and-ink set seem indispensable by echoing back to me things I had said I valued in my drawings and in my tools. When he would point out its vir-tues, he’d say, “Don’t you agree?” Yes, I did. And at the end, I forked over $25—at the time, more than I would spend for a week of groceries as an undergrad—and I could not fi gure out what he had done to make me buy that set. He literally had changed my mind.
Now I know more about why that happened and even have some ideas about how to make it happen myself with other people—and so will you when you read the cov-er story by psychologist Kevin Dutton, “The Power to Persuade.” Dutton provides several simple secrets that confer surprising infl uence. I hope I’ve convinced you to turn to page 24.
Evidence is persuasive to me as a science journalist, and that is why I have always appreciated the work of Scott O. Lilienfeld, a psychologist, columnist and member of Mind’s board of advisers. Lilienfeld’s emphasis on evidence-based psychology has helped sort wheat from chaff in that fi eld. Now we are gratifi ed to present to readers an article he has co-authored with Steven Jay Lynn, John Ruscio and the late Barry L. Beyerstein entitled “Busting Big Myths in Popular Psychology.” The feature holds up six myths to evidence-based scrutiny. You may be surprised. The article begins on page 42.
Oh, and that pen-and-ink set? I’ve never used it, although I still have it. Always felt too guilty to do so because of what it cost. But that’s a subject for another article.