Choosing friends that will propel you towards success

28 Jul Choosing friends that will propel you towards success

What kind of people do you surround yourself with? Do they share the same goals and values as you do, or do they subscribe to a different school of thought?

While you might think that choosing our friends carefully is advice best given to kids, there is good reason to do the same as an adult. You can easily be influenced by the people around and what they say.

Have a look at this fascinating info I came across the other day:

It seems too simplistic that just repeating a persuasive message should increase its effect, but that’s exactly what psychological research finds (again and again). Repetition is one of the easiest and most widespread methods of persuasion. In fact it’s so obvious that we sometimes forget how powerful it is.

People rate statements that have been repeated just once as more valid or true than things they’ve heard for the first time. They even rate statements as truer when the person saying them has been repeatedly lying (Begg et al., 1992).

And when we think something is more true, we also tend to be more persuaded by it. Several studies have shown that people are more swayed when they hear statements of opinion and persuasive messages more than once… Some studies have even tested how many times a message should be repeated for maximum effect. These suggest that people have the maximum confidence in an idea after it has been repeated between 3 and 5 times (Brinol et al., 2008).

The facts can’t be denied – we will eventually start to believe the things those around us say. So beware of what kind of people you surround yourself with.