Re: Familiarity and change

Hi Guys,

I hope you'll let me in the discussion, even though I've been slow about 
answering those
three interesting questions you sent me. I promise to get to them in the 
next day or so.

When Mary Lynn Manns and I were working on the patterns in our new book 
- Fearless Change -
one of our "shepherds" or reviewers said that a lot of interesting data 
was available in a
research area called social psychology. At the time, this was new to me. 
I've been
a technical person all my life and only took the one required psych 
course in my sophomore
year. Boy, was that a long time ago :-)! So, I began reading books in 
this area -- which,
are fascinating to me now. As I get older I see more and more that the 
technical solutions need
support from these important other areas.

In my reading I stumbled on influence strategies. This discussion 
reminds me of one of them --
social proof.

In one study, nursery-school-age children terrified of dogs, watched a 
little boy playing with a
dog for 20 minutes/day. This produced such marked changes in the fearful 
children that after
only 4 days, 67% were willing to climb into a pen with a dog and pet the 
animal. A month
later, the improvement had not diminished, in fact the children were 
more willing to play with dogs.
A second study showed that simply watching films had the same effect. 
The most effective
showed a variety of other children playing with dogs. Apparently, social 
proof works best when
provided by the actions of many other people.

Try standing on a busy street corner looking up.  Alone, you may not 
attract much attention,
but if three or four friends join you, 80% of the passers-by will look 
up, too :-)!

This causes a lot of anxiety for those concerned about the frequent 
violence shown on television
and in movies. Research has shown that children act more aggressively 
toward one another after
seeing aggression on television, for 5-6 and 8-9 year olds, both girls 
and boys.

The pattern Mary Lynn and I describe is called Just Do It. Go ahead and 
use the innovation
in your daily work. Others will be curious and ask about it. Then use 
Smell of Success to treat
these opportunities as teaching moments. Personal Touch suggests that 
each person is looking
for something -- learn and listen and see if your innovation can help 
that person get what he is
looking for. Fear Less is an extension of Personal Touch for the 
skeptic. Sometimes the resistant
person just wants a chance to air his concerns. Again, listen and learn 
and see if you can help
him address his fear.

BTW, I've written about some of these strategies for an on-line 
newsletter, if you'd like to
read a little more -- I'm always at the bottom of the issue :-)!

http://www.ddci.com/news_vol4num4.shtml
http://www.ddci.com/news_vol4num5.shtml


Enjoy!



Linda




Dale Emery wrote:

>Hi Clarke,
>
>  
>
>>The difference seems to be that in the "big girls" nursery the
>>kids all eat at the same table, compared to "little girls"
>>nursery where they ate from high chairs.  Seeing her peers eat
>>grapes without complaint seems to have given her the
>>confidence to do the same.
>>
>>I wonder if we old folks are just the same ...
>>    
>>
>
>I've seen something similar with lots of changes.  Before trying 
>some new thing we're promoting, people often want to know who 
>else has tried, and how it worked.  And sometimes they want to 
>know "who else like me" has tried it.
>
>Dale
>
>  
>

-- 
Fearless Change on-line forum: http://hillside.net/Wiki/wiki.cgi?BookReview



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