Imagine there’s a secret to persuasion that no one has ever told you about. You’ve done all you can to make your presentations more effective, but there is something you are missing. How does it feel to be left out of the secret? To have your hard work fall flat? To have your best efforts produce no results?
When we think about the most persuasive elements in a presentation, we probably think of concrete statistics and powerful narratives. And sure enough, those things can be powerfully persuasive. But we want to tell you about a persuasive powerhouse that many presenters don’t know about: imagination. We’ll show how imagination affects us in the present moment. Then we’ll share one research-backed way to use it called the George Bailey Effect.
How Imagination Affects Us
When you ask your audience to imagine something, you are forecasting into the future. But you are also affecting them tangibly in the present moment. Here’s how. In her book The Cultural Politics of Emotion, Sara Ahmed says that an emotion occurs when we have contact with some thing or some one or some thought and we appraise that contact as good or bad. (She calls it “towardness” or “awayness.”) The thing that’s important here, is that the contact doesn’t have to be physical. For example, you don’t have to actually bump into the ex who cheated on you to have a pit in your stomach or feelings of anger come up. You only have to imagine bumping into him/her.
So when you ask your audience to imagine something (be it positive or negative), they will likely experience very real feelings in the present moment as a result of that “contact” with an imagined potentiality. And no matter how much we think we are governed by logic, our emotions are normally what persuade us. So your job as a presenter is to figure out what feelings you hope to evoke in audience. And then to figure out what imagined contacts will produce those for them. For example, if you want audience members to purchase a raffle ticket that will benefit a local non-profit organization, you might spend some time asking them to imagine what they would feel like if they won, and to picture themselves enjoying their winnings.
A word of caution. Anytime you are working to evoke emotions in your audience members, you should make sure to do so ethically. Be especially mindful of this if you are using fear appeals. History is full of examples of speakers who made manipulation a game rather than viewing persuasion as something to be handled responsibility and respectfully.
The George Bailey Effect
In 2008, researchers discovered something interesting about imagination. We have more positive feelings when we imagine what our lives would have been without good things we are currently experiencing than when we actually think about those good things. For example, their research says that it would make me feel better in the present moment to imagine what my life without my wonderful husband, Matt, would be like than simply to explain or think about what my life with Matt is like. They dubbed this “the George Baily Effect” because of its similarity to the plot of the popular Christmas movie, It’s a Wonderful Life.
So how can we use this research-backed tactic in our presentations? By having the audience imagine their lives without rather than with. Let’s look at a couple of examples. If you are pitching a product that will save a company a significant amount of money, you might start by asking them to imagine themselves without the luxuries they currently enjoy—to imagine themselves operating on a budget less than what they currently do. This will produce positive feelings of thankfulness for what they currently have. But then, you ask them to imagine how they would feel if they could save a significant amount and enjoy a larger operating budget. This imagined future will take their present, positive feelings to the next level.
Or say you are giving a presentation that pitches your company’s new app. You might ask the audience to imagine what they would feel like if they apps they loved most no longer existed. The George Bailey Effect says that imagining this will make them love those apps even more. Now, tell them you have an app that will soon become one of their favorites. One they won’t want to imagine their lives without.
Asking your audience imagine things can help them experience real emotions in the present. And you know how to produce positive emotions in them by helping them to see what their life would be like without some of the good things they presently enjoy. Imagination and persuasion are tightly linked, and you now know how to unlock their power in your presentations.
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