persuasion If you follow the steps I'll outline, you will quickly see and feel an improvement in your health overall. Both doctors were talking about the same thing, but their presentations were very different. Doctor Two made sure her delivery was positive and did not overload the patient with all the negative details all at once. The patient will need to understand the reality of the situation and all its implications, but an initial positive and general discussion will better prepare the patient emotionally and psychologically to properly deal with the issue. A university in Colorado was having trouble getting their grass to grow on campus because the students kept walking on it. They tried placing signs on it that read, "Don't walk on the grass," but the students ignored the requests and walked on the grass anyway. The university subsequently took a different approach. They put up another sign that said, "Give Earth a Chance." Like magic, the students stopped walking on the grass. The university simply changed the perspective of its students by making the issue an environmental one. One last example of shifting the frame of reference comes from an experimental questionnaire administered to physicians: A group of physicians were posed with the following scenario: "Imagine the United States is preparing for the outbreak of an unusual Asian disease, which is expected to kill 600 people. Two alternative programs to combat the disease have been proposed. Assume that the exact scientific estimates of the programs' consequences are as follows: If program A is adopted, 200 people will be saved. If program В is adopted, there is a onethird probability that 600 people will be saved and a twothirds probability that no people will be saved. Which of the two programs would you favor?" Notice that in the wording, the focus was on the "lives saved." Seventytwo percent of the physicians chose program A over program B. The same experiment was conducted again with a different group of physicians. This time, the focus was on how many people would die: "Imagine that the United States is preparing for the outbreak of an unusual Asian disease, which is expected to kill 600 people. Two alternative programs to combat the disease have been proposed. Assume that the exact scientific estimates of the programs' consequences are as follows: If program A is adopted, 400 people will die. If program В is adopted, there is a onethird probability that nobody will die and a twothirds probability that 600 people will die. Which of the two programs would you favor?" You can see that this scenario is exactly the same as the first, but there was a dramatic difference in the results. This time, with the shift in focus, 22 percent of the physicians voted for the more conservative plan, plan A, while 72 percent voted for the risky plan, plan BI' DoorintheFace "Doorintheface" is one of the most common techniques for implementing the Law of Contrast. persuasion