Soft Tactics for Likability
provide the requester with feedback on the content of the essay. When participants were led to believe that they shared the same birthday as the requester, they agreed to the request 62.2 percent of the time, while those who believed they did not have anything in common with the requester only agreed to the request 34.2 percent of the time (Burger et al., 2004). Almost twice as many people agreed to a request simply because they thought they shared the same birthday as the person asking the favor.
• Play or like the same sports
In a follow-up study, participants were asked to donate money to a well-known charity (Burger et al., 2004). People who were led to believe they had the same first name of the requester donated an average of $2.07. For those who shared no similarity with the requester, their average donation was $1.00. Donations more than doubled based simply on the fact that the person asking for a donation had the same first name. Such is the power of perceived similarity to enhance the likelihood of obtaining cooperation from others.
• Share similar opinions about certain things
We like people who are similar to us. This fact seems to hold true whether the similarity is in the area of opinions, personality traits, background, or lifestyle. Consequently, those who wish to be liked in order to increase our compliance can accomplish that purpose by appearing similar to us in a wide variety of ways. (p. 173)
There are myriad ways you can use similarity to establish a connection with your students and thus enhance the likelihood of obtaining their cooperation. Burger and colleagues (2004) look at the power of having the same first name or sharing the same birthday, and these are strategies you can use as a teacher if, in fact, you actually share these similarities with some of the students in your classes. Obviously, you will not share the same name and birthday as most of your students. However, the power of similarity works in many other areas as well. For example, you might share any of the following with your students.
• Come from the same hometown or country • Play the same musical instrument • Live in the same neighborhood • Have gone to the same school when you were a child • Like a particular movie or the same TV shows • Have the same hobbies or share similar interests (coins, cars, cooking, music) • Admire the same people For your target students to know the ways in which they are similar to you, you will have to find out about the likes and interests of these students. As a classroom teacher, one way I accomplished this was to start the year with an assignment that I called the Newspaper of the Self. I would have students write a newspaper in which they were the only topic. In the sports section, they would tell about the sports they played or liked to watch. If they hated sports, they would tell me why. The TV section was about their favorite TV shows, and the same with music and movies. The travel section talked about the best holiday they ever had or the fantasy holiday they would take if they could go anywhere they wanted. You get the idea. This assignment was a gold mine of information that I could then use to establish similarities with each of the students I taught. In my experience, if you maximize what you know about your students, you will almost always find something you share in common. Note: You will find a complete description of the Newspaper of the Self assignment in the appendix (page 217).
TACTIC: CREATE SIMILARITIES BETWEEN YOU AND ALPHA STUDENTS There will be times when you have a student or group of students who are natural leaders. They have established themselves as the alpha students among their peers (students whose peers like and respect them; the
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Cialdini (2007) puts it this way:
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