Tiger Woods insists on wearing red shirts during golf tournaments. Michael Jordan wore his North Carolina practice shorts under his Chicago Bulls uniform. Marshawn Lynch credits eating Skittles with his most significant football feats in the National Football League.
Many people refer to these as superstitions, but they are examples of a powerful psychological tool in action – suggestion. An athlete’s rituals impact their performance by creating a psychological reaction, a suggestion that following specific actions results in optimal performance.
The power of suggestion is used in every industry to entice people to behave in a certain way. From voting for one candidate over another to choosing a specific product from a field of similar ones, the power of suggestion impacts many aspects of our lives.
What is the Power of Suggestion?
A suggestion is a powerful tool that targets the human psyche to influence behavior. It comes in many forms and can be driven by our internal thoughts or received from external influences. To understand the power of suggestion and how it works, it’s necessary to have a basic understanding of how the brain functions.
Basics of the Human Brain
The human brain is powerful and complex. Our brains carry on several processes every second of every day, even while we sleep. Some of these processes are automatic, like breathing and metabolizing food, while others are controlled, like moving around and making decisions.
Human brains have many different parts that communicate via neurons. Each piece of the brain has a unique function.
The cerebrum, or cerebral cortex, is the most substantial part of the brain. It’s also the part of the brain that receives, interprets, and analyzes information to determine and initiate an appropriate reaction. The cerebrum has different lobes, and each lobe is responsible for unique functions.
- The frontal lobe manages your motor skills and cognitive functions. It also controls speech.
- The temporal lobe handles auditory input from your ears and translates it to the parietal and frontal lobes. Your temporal lobe also houses the parts of the brain responsible for fine motor functions, emotional behavior, short-term memory, emotions, and some movement.
- The parietal lobe processes sensory input from the body, including pain. It is the area where language is processed.
- The occipital lobe is responsible for receiving visual data from your eyes and transmitting it to your parietal lobe.
We make all of our decisions in the cerebral cortex, and the process can be surprisingly complicated.
How Our Brains Make Decisions
Two principles guide human decisions, reflection and emotion. Your past experiences and accumulated knowledge determine how much you rely on reflection and emotion for every decision you make.
Reflection is your ability to rationally assess a choice by considering all options and potential outcomes. On the other hand, decisions we make based on our emotional reactions tend to be spontaneous and with little or no regard for possible consequences.
The balance between reflective and emotional reactions is where the power of suggestion comes into play.
Understanding the Types of Suggestions
Suggestions influence our expectations and consequently affect many of our actions and beliefs. Often, a suggestion takes the form of irrelevant information and how it fits with our experience, beliefs, the situation, and social circle. Suggestions can take different forms in different circumstances.
Deliberate suggestions are clear statements like “you’ll enjoy that book.” Unintended suggestions are indirect, like prescribing a pill to treat a symptom or making somebody believe another person is observing them.
Suggestions may also be verbal or non-verbal. While many people think of suggestions as statements, this is not always the case. Think about advertisements and store displays that rely mostly on visuals to suggest products.
Suggestions Affect Different Parts of the Brain
You know that our decisions are made in the cerebrum and that it has different areas with unique functions. Since each of the lobes has specific duties, suggestions can target one or more lobes.
- The placebo effect can impact multiple areas of the brain to trick it into believing the treatment alleviates symptoms.
- Sensation and perception can be altered by suggestion. For example, think about the brainteasers that trick your mind into seeing different things.
- Implicit learning, as demonstrated by the study where participants sniffed the scented pad and received one of three directions that consequently impacted their performance.
- Memory can be affected by suggestions. Consider the example of eyewitnesses altering statements or ideas of perpetrators due to suggestions.
Applications for the Power of Suggestion
The power of suggestion has many applications. It’s prevalent in everything from sales to sports to matters of the heart. A suggestion is a subtle attempt at eliciting the desired reaction by triggering an emotional response.
Suggestion Can Improve Performance
Do you remember the athletes and their rituals? The success of an athlete’s ritual relies on the power of suggestion. It’s actually the belief that wearing a specific item or munching a particular food will improve your play. This phenomenon is well documented and not just in athletes.
A 2013 study by M. Jagadesh Kumar, a professor of higher education, concluded that the power of suggestion could influence student performance on specific tasks. Kumar divided his class into three groups to complete a simple task. He asked them to sniff a scented pad before looking for an inverted “T” embedded in distractions.
Kumar told the first group that sniffing the pad would make it easier to locate the shape. He told the second group that it would be more challenging to identify the shape after sniffing the pad. The final group heard that sniffing the pad would have no impact. Each group performed according to the suggestions they received.
Other studies have shown similar results with people exhibiting suggested behaviors following the ingestion of pills and drinks or exposure to certain conditions. The theory behind these results is the Response Expectancy Theory, which says we modify our behaviors to produce a specific outcome when we anticipate that outcome.
How Suggestion Can Affect Your Health
The Response Expectancy Theory has many applications, including our mental and physical health. The power of suggestion is a viable treatment option for some conditions and often used to test medical treatments. Have you ever heard of the placebo effect?
A placebo is a medical treatment with no active ingredients that often produces a reaction. They are traditionally used to test the effectiveness of an active drug or procedure but may also be prescribed to treat a medical condition in some patients.
Placebos rely on the power of suggestion. The intent is to convince the person taking them that their condition is improving even without an active ingredient. In many cases, patients taking placebos notice an improvement in their symptoms.
Note that placebos are effective treatments for significant medical conditions. However, some argue it is unethical to mislead patients with placebos. The counterargument is that the resolution of a patient’s symptoms is more important than how it’s achieved. Either way, a placebo is just a physical manifestation of the power of suggestion.
The power of a placebo relies on the thoughts associated with the treatment. The placebo effect is evident even when the participants know it is a placebo. For some, the act of receiving treatment is associated with healing and powerful enough to convince the brain of improvement.
The Correlation Between Suggestion and Social Influence
Social pressure is an interesting aspect of the power of suggestion. Our beliefs about the opinions, thoughts, and actions of others are strong motivators to behave in specific ways. Social suggestions can alter our performance, habits, and opinions.
How the Suggestion of an Observer Can Affect Your Performance
In the 1950s, researcher Henry A. Landsberger analyzed experiments from the 1920s and 1930s that evaluated employees at an electric company. The results, now known as the Hawthorne Effect, found that employees worked harder and performed better when they were being observed.
Though there were several experiments involved in the series, it took Landsberger’s analysis to find the common link – observation. Subsequent research has led to the theory that people perform better and work harder when they believe somebody is observing them.
Think about it. If you believe your boss is watching you, how do you respond? In most cases, the mere suggestion that an employer is observing is enough to encourage better work from employees.
How Social Suggestions Can Condemn Innocent People
Throughout history, there are hundreds of examples of suggestions altering the outcomes of trials. From police lineups to courtrooms, simple suggestions can alter a person’s assessment of a situation.
The Salem Witch Trials remain an exceptional illustration of how the power of suggestion led to the condemnation of innocent people. Two young women with curious afflictions were diagnosed as “bewitched” by a local physician. Their antics spread to other girls in the community, which led to mass hysteria and the deaths of eighteen people.
These girls were so convincing with their suggestions of witchcraft and devilry that neighbors turned on each other. More than 150 men, women, and children stood accused of witchcraft, and several Massachusetts communities were affected by the aftermath. All of this can be traced back to the suggestion of “bewitchment.”
Today, we observe the same effect in eyewitness identifications. Imagine a witness overhears officers discussing a suspect and mention a specific physical trait, say a mole on one cheek. The witness may not have considered that mole previously, but now adopts it into their description of the offending party.
Using Suggestion to Sell
The power of suggestion is a cornerstone of good sales techniques. From advertisements to store arrangements, a suggestion is one of the most powerful tools in sales.
When you step into a store, the displays and sales associates are primed with suggestions for you. Everything about your retail experience is intentional, from product arrangements to how employees speak to customers.
Consider the layout of Ikea stores. The strategy relies on psychology, more specifically, the power of suggestion. Ikea stores take customers on a journey with mockups of products as actual rooms. Customers can immerse themselves in a realistic room to picture how they would look and feel with the product in their homes.
Painting a picture in your mind is a prime example of suggestion in sales. Advertisers use the same approach with print and television ads. They want you to relate to their product, to imagine yourself using the item and your life improving as a result.
Good salespeople are also mindful of their words when selling. They may skip the “come see us again” closing and replace it with a confident statement. “You’ll enjoy that,” is an affirmation of your purchase and plants a positive feeling for the product in your mind. It’s an encouragement to enjoy your purchase and return to the store in the future.
How You Can Use the Power of Suggestion in Life
Understanding the applications of the power of suggestion is useless if you don’t know how to use it to your advantage. Learning how to use suggestion takes time and a deeper understanding of the underlying psychology. You also need to decide how you want to use suggestion because different approaches yield varying outcomes.
Using the Power of Suggestion to Improve Your Life
Since suggestion is a part of our everyday life, why not use it to your advantage? Keep in mind, this is not about manipulating others. Using suggestions to improve your life is about opening yourself to new, positive experiences and opportunities.
Practice Being Present
When you’re more aware of your surroundings, you’re more likely to identify negative suggestions before they take root in your psyche and alter your perception. Remember, the power of suggestion relies on your expectations, and if you can replace negative ideas with positive ones, you’ll feel better.
Keep an Open Mind
Closing yourself off to certain possibilities and outcomes, you limit your opportunities. A closed mind is a form of suggestion that leads to adverse events and prevents growth and improvement.
Build a Positive Network
As you’ve learned, social suggestions are powerful. Choose to surround yourself with positive, supportive people, and their positive social suggestions contribute to a safety net and encourage better outcomes.
Remember, it’s okay to cut negative people out of your life. Toxic people give negative suggestions that foster adverse outcomes. A supportive network of friends and family will encourage you and give you a boost. There is nothing more inspirational or motivating than the love and support of an excellent social network.
If you practice making suggestions work for you, then you’re already on your way to achieving those goals. It doesn’t matter what you aspire to accomplish, identifying, blocking, and replacing negativity suggestions with positive ones is sure to help you on your way.
Believe in Yourself
Self-confidence may be hard to come by, but boosting yours will affect how people see you. When you appear sure of yourself, comfortable with your knowledge, and have command of your emotions, people are more likely to listen to you.
People who exude confidence find it easier to influence others with the power of suggestion. Think about a news anchor reporting on a recall or warning. Are you likely to listen or take action if they appear uncertain, stumble over words, and fail to make eye contact with the camera? Probably not.
It’s not easy to build self-confidence, and nobody was born with limitless amounts, but you can develop yours. Start by imagining yourself as you want to be and work toward that image every day. You’ll have to silence that inner critic and push outside your comfort zone, but the rewards are well worth the work.
Believe in the Power of Suggestion
Reinforcing positive expectations is the critical step in making suggestions work for you. Your beliefs feed your expectations, so you need to believe in the power of suggestion. Digging deeper, you need to believe in your ability to weed out negative suggestions and people to replace them with more positive options.
Using Suggestion to Be a Better Salesperson
Have you ever fled a store because the salespeople were too forward? From spraying you with perfume samples to following you around the store and commenting on every item you look at, certain stores are impossible to shop in.
Shopping should not feel like you’re running the gauntlet to avoid pushy salespeople, but many stores have adopted this method of over-engaging their customers because they think it works. However, it often has the opposite effect. Most customers don’t want to feel pushed into a purchase.
Good salespeople tend to leverage the power of suggestion to sell more products. Aside from being confident in what they’re doing, good salespeople employ the power of suggestion using several different methods.
- Start with a genuine welcome and an invitation to explore a new product. This interaction starts the experience off in a positive way.
- Connect on a personal level. Tell your customer you’ll check back and then follow through. Compliment something they’re wearing, carrying, or doing and tie it into something in stock that complements it.
- Point out key items. If you see somebody staring at a display with several products, focus on a bestseller or one you prefer and tell them why.
- Work the add-ons organically. The simplest version of this is adding on batteries to a battery-operated product. If you look, there are plenty of other ways to expand a sale.
- Point out exclusive opportunities. People love to feel special, and nothing conveys that sensation like an exclusive event or promotional opportunity.
- Convince your customers that they’re buying a product instead of thinking that you’re selling them something.
Become an Authority on What You Sell
Who is more likely to succeed in suggesting something to you, a stranger, or your parent? Will you try a new medication recommended by a coworker or your doctor? These questions may seem silly and obvious, but they highlight a key component of the power of suggestion.
To be a better salesperson, know your product inside and out. Your knowledge will give you confidence that you’ll be able to project to customers. Plus, you’ll be able to answer questions correctly and guide your customers to the right products.
Can You Block the Power of Suggestion?
We live in an age of information with access to more data than we could ever hope to process in a lifetime. The world around us pummels us with suggestion almost every second of every day. It doesn’t take much to wonder if we can counter the effects of suggestions.
You can attempt to restrict the amount of information you receive by cutting certain things from your life. Deleting social media and avoiding the television may limit the amount of feedback you receive, but there are still opportunities for suggestions to reach you.
A better approach is to develop certain skills to make you less suggestible.
Develop Emotional Awareness
Remember that human decisions are based on a combination of reflection and emotion. While our emotional reactions strongly influence our decisions, beliefs, and expectations, we retain the ability to reflect on the facts and think critically.
Emotional awareness opens the door to emotional freedom. Individuals with excellent emotional awareness have insight into how the mind works, irrational human behavior, and the correlation between our decisions and our happiness.
Improving emotional awareness is an exercise in addressing your underlying pain and trauma to learn what drives certain behaviors. It is the reason that strong emotional awareness helps people successfully quit bad habits without replacing them.
Expand Your Critical Thinking Skills
Gaining perspective on your emotions is a step toward making better decisions regarding suggestions, but it’s only half of the equation. Developing your ability to reflect and use critical thinking is another crucial component.
Critical thinking skills allow you to make informed, logical decisions. While your emotions still have a say in how you think, feel, and act, they can be tempered by rational thoughts. There are several ways to develop your critical thinking skills.
- Critique your thoughts and actions to determine why you believe or feel a certain way.
- Be an active listener. Embrace empathy and learn to react better to others.
- Practice analyzing information. Break down what is being said, dissect and evaluate all sides of an argument, and determine the central issue of every interaction.
- Aim for foresight by exploring the impact of different decisions and carefully weigh all options before you before choosing.
Choose Your Influences Wisely
Surrounding yourself with positive people is a way to use suggestibility in your favor. It also happens to be a method of countering suggestions. Our role models heavily influence our beliefs and actions.
When we choose role models, we work to emulate their behaviors and are affected by their challenges. In many cases, similar behaviors, opinions, and challenges drive us to connect with some of our role models.
The correlation between role models and our openness to suggestions is well documented in several situations. People we admire and respect can easily alter our behavior with suggestions. Why do you think advertisers spend so much money on celebrity endorsements?
The next step in countering the power of suggestion is to choose your role models wisely and understand how their suggestions affect you. When you recognize the influence a role model can have, you’re more likely to approach their suggestions with a critical mind.
A Word About Hypnosis and The Power of Suggestion
It is impossible to address the topic of suggestion without discussing hypnosis. Though hypnosis is a highly debated topic and often the subject of entertaining shows, there is some evidence that it can be useful.
Hypnosis is a state of consciousness that leaves an individual unable to react voluntarily and opens them to suggestion. A hypnotized person appears to be in a trance that closely resembles daydreaming with no awareness of your surroundings.
In the medical community, some professionals practice hypnotherapy and argue its effectiveness in treating some conditions. Some medical professionals say that hypnotherapy can reduce stress and anxiety, diminish pain, break bad habits, and overcome phobias and traumatic events.
Opponents of hypnosis and hypnotherapy insist there is a lack of objective evidence, inconsistent results, and adverse side effects.
Hypnosis remains ambiguous. About ten to fifteen percent of people are “highly hypnotizable,” but the same percentage of people are unable to reach a hypnotic state at all. Hypnosis may be just another example of the placebo effect, but that makes it a type of suggestion, doesn’t it?
The True Power of Suggestion
Research has long supported and relied on the importance of suggestion. It’s closely tied to several aspects of the human condition. However, one could ask if we see the connections because we want them to exist. A suggestion could be one of the most powerful tools available to humans, or it could be a hoax.
In the end, it comes down to expectations and beliefs. Ask yourself, do you believe in the power of suggestion?