www.lesswrong.com/posts/Zz986H9P3WJoh5DNb/the-dark-arts-a-beginner-s-guide
1 correction found
Use the same sensory language as they use. If they talk about seeing patterns, incorporate the words 'look' and 'examine' in your conversation.
Research reviews on NLP's "predicate matching" idea have not found that mirroring a person's visual/auditory wording reliably increases influence or rapport.
Full reasoning
This advice corresponds to the neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) claim that people have a preferred sensory or "representational" style, and that matching their verbal predicates (for example, using visual words like "look" or "see") makes communication more persuasive.
That specific claim has been reviewed repeatedly and has not held up. A National Research Council review concluded that "Existing predicate-matching studies do not support the hypothesis that predicate matching increases influence." A later peer-reviewed review summarizing Sharpley's review of 44 studies likewise reported that matching clients' or other persons' preferred representational system does not appear to assist counsellors reliably in any clearly demonstrated manner.
So the post's recommendation is not just unproven in the abstract; major reviews of the research literature have found that this specific sensory-language matching technique does not reliably produce the claimed persuasive effect.
2 sources
- National Research Council, Enhancing Human Performance: Issues, Theories, and Techniques, Chapter 8: Social Processes
"Existing predicate-matching studies do not support the hypothesis that predicate matching increases influence."
- Roderique-Davies, Neuro-linguistic programming: cargo cult psychology?
Summarizing Sharpley (1987): "matching clients' or other persons' PRS does not appear to assist counsellors reliably in any clearly demonstrated manner."