Education Blog

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You might call it “highway hypnosis” or “zoning out” or “spacing off” or “in the zone”. And, hypnosis is used on you everyday on radio and television. Even by your friends or family using guilt, blame, or joy to manipulate your decisions.

Please forget what you may have seen about hypnosis being used to manipulate people’s decisions. If that were true, company’s would pay millions of dollars to do exactly that during a Super Bowl halftime show. Oh, wait, they do. Well, at least they attempt to, and it obviously works enough of the time to make it a good business decision. But, you know it doesn’t work every time or even most of the time.

Hypnosis is used on most of us very effectively by politicians, and advertising executives. And used poorly by most “pre-owned” car salesman. And yes, it’s used on you by friends and family. And yes, you use it on them too.

When you first meet someone you like and smile at them, that is you attempting to manipulate a smile from them. Maybe your response to the previous sentence is “I smile because I’m happy”. You smile because you’re happy and want others to respond by being happy. And if someone doesn’t smile back, aren’t you slightly offended or put-off? Probably. A smile helps increase the odds that the other person will remember you with good emotions attached to the memory. Sounds complicated until you start seeing how common it is.

The beer advertisement shows video that stimulates feelings of happiness, satisfaction, and companionship. People like those things and now those good feelings will tend to be associated with the image of that particular beer brand. If you think of a remote, relaxing, sunny beach in Mexico, blue water, white sand, the sound of small, soft waves, two lounge chairs and maybe a slice of lime, do you think of a particular brand of beer? That’s emotional association at work.

This is evident in all aspects of your life. Your mind began collecting these associations soon after you were born. It is the same for all of us. Of course, it is common sense, but we don’t always realize how powerfully it influences our behaviors and choices.

When a strong emotional connection is made with a trigger, and then combined with repetition and the influence of an authority figure (like a basketball star), the learned belief can be very strong. That can make it more difficult to change. You can call this brand loyalty.

This basic premise applies to all kinds of behavior, from your posture, to your food preferences. A smoker is often aware of when they started and why. Knowing this they may be fairly aware of the emotional associations involved. But, this doesn’t mean all smokers can just stop. Some can and do. Some stop smoking and replace the smoking activity with another. Like food, gum or candy. The behavior is still there and active, and still has the potential to cause trouble.

Once you start seeing the key elements of behavior creation, you will better understand yourself and others. Hopefully, if you have a habit you’re having trouble changing, you can be less frustrated. You’re fighting your own mind’s nature after all. Most importantly, know the habit CAN be changed. If you aren’t able to do it yourself, find a trustworthy professional to help you. I recommend finding a good hypnotist.