THE JOURNAL OF THE ARKANSAS READING ASSOCIATION
Reader THE
Volume 42 • Issue 1
An Affiliate of the International Literacy Association
Committing to a “Reading Makeover” Danny Brassell, Ph.D. Nothing extraordinary occurs through half-hearted measures. To be successful as a reading teacher, you need to be fully committed to your reading program. The Pope needed a heart transplant, and there was much concern throughout the Roman Catholic world. Everyone gathered outside the Vatican screaming and waving his or her hands. “Take my heart,” they would shout. “Pope, take my heart!” The Pope did not know what to do, so an idea popped into his head. He asked everyone to please be quiet for a few minutes. Then, he told all of them that he was going to throw down a feather. Whoever the feather landed on, he would take their heart for the transplant. The Pope threw the feather down upon the people. Everyone was still waving his or her hands and screaming, “Take my heart, Pope!” This time, however, they were leaning their heads back and blowing the feather back into the air. “Take my heart, Pope!” they would shout, as they blew the feather. “Take my heart!” Getting people to commit to something can be tricky business. Then, again, maybe it is as easy as persuading someone to agree with you on the tiniest point. Perhaps the optimal way to create a reading makeover is not to require every student to read 50 novels in six months; baby steps could prove more effective and longer lasting. A snowball effect can produce great rewards and contribute to the development of a commitment habit. Compared to World War II, an alarming number of American soldiers captured as prisoners of war (POWs) during the Korean War collaborated with their captors. Why? Had they been beaten? Tortured? Humiliated? Psychologists interviewed the Korean War POWs upon their return to the United States and learned that the Chinese Communists gained compliance not through brutality and intimidation but from a lenient policy: the Chinese got
Spring 2017
soldiers to comply with simple, seemingly trivial requests and built from there. For example, after speaking with a prisoner for some time, a Chinese interrogator would convince a POW to concede that the United States is not perfect. Once the soldier complied, the Chinese might smile, offer his new American “friend” a cigarette and ask him to list ways the United States was not perfect. After writing a number of ways the United States was not perfect, the POW might then be asked to sign his name to the list and read it aloud to other prisoners. When fellow American prisoners tried to debunk the POW, he would find himself portrayed as a collaborator and begin defending his position. Edgar Schein (1956), principal American investigator of the Chinese indoctrination program in Korea, observed that while only a few men were able to avoid collaboration altogether, the majority collaborated at one time or another by doing things which seemed to them trivial but which the Chinese were able to turn to their own advantage. Robert Cialdini (2009) notes how these actions were particularly effective in eliciting confessions, self-criticism, and information during interrogation. To get someone to commit to a large task, the most successful persuasion technique is to induce him or her to commit to a small task first. Psychologists Jonathan Freedman and Scott Fraser (1966) asked housewives to place a large eyesore of a sign on their front lawns, urging passers-by to keep California beautiful. Half of the chosen housewives, however, were asked to put a small unobtrusive sign in their windows first. The result? The housewives who had agreed to the smaller request were far more likely to agree to stand the large sign in their garden— even if the two requests were made by, apparently, two totally unconnected people or even if the signs were about different issues. Salespeople understand the importance of the small sale in paving the way for much larger ones down the road (known as the foot-in- the-door technique). Have you ever had your dinner interrupted by a telemarketer who asked Continued on page 11. ~ Page 1 ~