How to Persuade People?

Opening the history textbook, we are all astonished at the atrocity of Adolf Hitler.

However, we are much more confused that why did these Geheime Staatspolizei (蓋世太保)obey Hitler's order nevertheless theses commands were extremely irrational?

For many years, lots of psychologists conducted related experiments to explore the reason why a kind person submitted to the evil commands easily.  

Stanford Prison Experiment, a classical psychological test, showed that people change their behaviors according to the environment they are in and the figures they play. In Stanford Prison Experiment, people playing the jailers appeared cruel, hot-tempered, and exerted violence to the prisoners arbitrarily. As for the actors of prisoners, they became self-abased. It means that behaviors change our mind easily. When we do an action, we tend to justify it. (If you are interested in the experiment, you can watch the movie “The Experiment”.)

Though the research shows the dark side of human nature, it can cause positive effects if we make a good use of these results such as persuading people to do something.

Nicholas Gueguen, a psychological researcher, did an interesting research. First, he divided local residents into two. He made a phone call to one group (he pretended that he was staff of an electricity company), asking them to join the survey of saving energy. After several days, he invited these residents to participate the plan of saving energy. He found out that those had received the phones increases their motivation of reducing the use of energy.

Well………I have played a role of diligent student and pretend I love calculus, why DID’NT my calculus grades improve at all…..?  

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Source: http://pnn.pts.org.tw/main/2011/02/16/%E3%80%90%E8%AA%AA%E6%95%99%E3%80%91%E4%B8%89%E5%80%8B%E5%AF%A6%E9%A9%97%E8%88%87%E9%9D%A2%E5%B0%8D%E3%80%8C%E9%9C%B8%E5%87%8C%E3%80%8D%E7%9A%84%E5%9B%B0%E5%A2%83/