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AIM AT THE ACT, NOT THE ATTITUDE

Scholars have said attitude is the key target of persuasion.¹ Persuasion attempts are indeed often designed to change our attitude toward a candidate, toward smoking, toward buying healthier foods, toward brand A, or toward our pro-life or pro-choice point of view.

But attitude shouldn’t be the key target of persuasion.

The real goal of persuasion is to change behavior—to get someone to act differently, to get a voter to vote for your candidate, to get a smoker to stop smoking, to get a parent to buy healthier foods for the family, to get a shopper to choose brand A over brand B, or to get a legislator to take action in keeping with your pro-life or pro-choice agenda.

If you succeed in getting someone to act the way you want, your persuasion attempt succeeds whether or not attitudes change. If you fail to get someone to act the way you want, your persuasion attempt fails whether or not attitudes change.

Imagine you are working for a major metropolitan city government. Like many cities, yours has overcrowded roadways and a mass transportation system that is losing money because of declining ridership. The mayor asks you to get some people off the roadways and onto mass transportation, easing both problems at once. With enormous effort and expense, you put together a communication campaign that generates a more negative attitude toward driving to work and a more positive attitude toward commuting by mass transit. If, despite the effort and the attitude change, people are still overcrowding the roadways and avoiding mass transit, your work has been in vain and the mayor will not be pleased. On the other hand, you might put your effort into making parking at city lots downtown a little more expensive and using the additional money to make mass transit a little less expensive. With this approach, you may have success at getting some drivers out of their cars and on to mass transit without necessarily changing attitudes. In the first case you have gotten attitude change without behavior change. In the second, you have gotten behavior change without attitude change. I suspect the mayor would be happier with the latter.

Attitude change is one possible way of getting someone to act differently. But attitude change is not the only way and is quite likely not the most effective way.

We often choose attitude change as the goal of persuasion because it feels so good when someone else comes to agree with our view of the world. Goethe observed, “People have a peculiar pleasure in making converts, that is, in causing others to enjoy what they enjoy, thus finding their own likeness represented and reflected back to them.”² In fact, Goethe felt that “[t]o make converts is the natural ambition of everyone.” We know how good it would feel to get someone to agree with us and we aim for that feeling.

A second reason we make attitude change as the goal of persuasion is because it is hard to imagine a change in behavior happening in any other way. Even social scientists have had trouble imagining a change in behavior before a change in attitude. When attitude research was in its infancy, scientists assumed that human behavior is guided by attitudes.³ If attitude guides behavior, the thinking went, we should be able to change behavior by changing attitude.

But it turned out that the connection between attitudes and behavior was weak.

In an influential review of 47 studies of the relationship between attitudes and behavior, Allan Wicker found that the assumed connection had not been demonstrated.⁴ Wicker examined 20 studies of job attitudes and job behavior, 16 studies of attitudes and behavior toward minority groups, and 11 studies of attitudes and behavior toward miscellaneous objects, such as attendance at union meetings, spending money, voting, and cheating on exams.

S.M. Corey, a professor of educational psychology at the University of Wisconsin, conducted one of the studies reviewed by Wicker.⁵ Early on in a course Corey was teaching, he measured students’ attitude toward cheating in the classroom “anonymously.” During the course, the students self-graded five exams. Without the students realizing it, Professor Corey also graded the exams and related the differences between the students’ self-graded scores and their actual scores to the students’ attitude toward cheating. The study did find cheating, but found no relation between actual cheating in the classroom and attitude toward cheating in the classroom.

Across the 47 studies, Wicker found that attitudes have little or no relation to behavior.

More recently, some social scientists have sought to resurrect the assumed connection between attitudes and behavior.⁶ They noticed that the attitudes investigated in earlier studies were typically general attitudes (for example, feelings about a particular racial group) whereas the behaviors were more specific (for example, renting a room right now to a particular person of that racial group). These social scientists found that the more specific the attitude is to the behavior, the more the attitude and the behavior vary together. An attitude is specific to a behavior if the attitude is about performing that precise behavior, toward a precise target, at a precise time, under precise circumstances. But this is not attitude as we commonly think of attitude.

The attempt to resurrect the assumed connection between attitude and behavior by changing the definition of the attitude to be as delimited as the behavior is an admission of the problem. Attitude, certainly as commonly understood, does not determine behavior.

And attitudes are hard to change. “Intellectual antibodies,” to use Naomi Klein’s phrase, get in the way.⁷ Intellectual antibodies help us preserve our preconceptions. These antibodies are also known as “Confirmatory Bias.”⁸ Confirmatory Bias is made up of two parts: (1) People tend to seek out information that reinforces their existing attitudes and avoid information that might undermine their existing attitudes, a phenomenon known as “Selective Exposure.” Conservatives watch Fox news and liberals watch MSNBC because Fox news reinforces conservatives’ attitudes and MSNBC reinforces liberals’ attitudes. (2) When information makes it through Selective Exposure, people interpret that information to fit their preconceptions, a phenomenon known as “Selective Perception.” Everyone saw the same polling data before the 2012 election. But those who hoped for and expected a Romney victory interpreted (“unskewed”) those polls to fit the data to their preconceptions.

Which Is Easier to Change, the Act or the Attitude?

Strange as it seems, the act is easier to change than the attitude.

People who see our behavior believe our actions spring from some deep-seated quality within us.⁹ But we interpret our actions quite differently. We see our actions as springing from circumstance. So if circumstances change, we can change what we do and keep our attitude intact.

How people act is a result of both attitude and circumstances. Circumstances have a much greater impact on behavior than we realize. Whereas attitudes resist change, circumstances are often malleable. Change the circumstances and you will change how people act.

Consider all the things you can do to change the circumstances in the home, in the workplace, in the school, or in the store to make the option you recommend more likely.

A persuader can rearrange a circumstance like price, or distribution, or location in store, and change what we buy, but avoid our attitude. A buy-one-get-one-free offer on Cheerios may get us to buy even though we still prefer Corn Flakes. By changing the circumstances, the persuader has avoided our “Intellectual Antibodies.”

I may prefer shopping at Wal-Mart to shopping at Kmart. Build a Kmart nearby and there is a good chance I’ll shop at Kmart more often even if you don’t change my attitude. The circumstances have changed my behavior, but my attitude remains intact.

Changing the circumstances can be easier than buy-one-get-one-free or building a store. You may generally prefer a cookie to a pear. However, when you are hungry, if a pear is at hand and cookies are not, there is a much better chance you will choose the pear. Your behavior may change even though your preference for cookies doesn’t.

Many of our actions take place without involving our conscious attitudes. The lizard inside, our automatic, nonconscious mental system, guides a lot of what we do. We often act without careful consideration of pros and cons or how well the action fits our attitude.

William James, the renowned American philosopher and psychologist, said back in 1899, that 99 percent of our activity is purely automatic.¹⁰ Recent psychological research confirms his suggestion. Much of our behavior results from cues in the environment, rather than conscious reflection and deliberation.¹¹

If the rack at the checkout counter contains a basket of apples, I might buy an apple rather than a candy bar to snack on during the trip home. My choice would change, but not my attitude toward either apples or candy bars.

When persuading, don’t begin by asking, “How can I get people to change their minds?” Ask instead, "How can I get them to act differently?" Getting people to act differently might or might not involve changing their minds.

Thaler and Sunstein’s best-selling book, Nudge, provides example after example of how an organization or a governmental body can change the circumstances in which people make decisions and, as a result, help those people make better decisions.¹² Better decisions don’t require a change of attitude, but they may result in a change of attitude.

Does Attitude Cause Behavior or the Reverse?

Another reason it is useful to target the act rather than the attitude is that what’s cause and what’s effect are often the opposite of what we expect. A change in behavior is more likely to cause a change in attitude rather than the reverse.

People believe that attitude is cause and behavior is effect. Historically, most social scientists believed that as well. But evidence of the influence of attitude on behavior is inconsistent. Evidence of the influence of behavior on attitude, on the other hand, is pretty strong. If we change the way a person acts, we are likely to change the way that person feels. This turns things upside down. Rather than attitude change being the most promising path to behavior change, it seems that the most promising path may run in the opposite direction.

Evidence of the impact of our actions on our attitudes initially comes from two areas of social psychology known as cognitive dissonance research and self-perception theory.

Cognitive dissonance research found that if you act in a way that is inconsistent with your attitude, you will generally adjust your attitude to fit with your action, that is, you will shift your attitude to justify or rationalize your behavior.¹³

Social psychologists are fond of seeing what happens when people act in ways that are inconsistent with their attitude. To get people to act that way, they conducted a variety of creative experiments. They have asked study participants to tell others that a clearly boring task is actually interesting and engaging.¹⁴ They have asked study participants to write essays arguing in favor of positions that contradict the participants’ own attitudes.¹⁵ They have asked participants to eat grasshoppers when the participants would rather not.¹⁶ In each case, social psychologists found that when participants acted in a way that was inconsistent with their attitude, their attitude changed in the direction of their behavior. Their attitude shifted to justify or rationalize their behavior.

Even if people are somewhat indifferent about two items, being forced to choose one option over the other results in a change of attitude. Jack Brehm¹⁷ offered people a choice of two attractive items to take home as a gift. After people chose either one of the items, they felt more positively toward the item they chose and more negatively toward the item they rejected than they did before choosing. After they chose, people adjusted their attitude to rationalize their behavior.

According to the theory of cognitive consistency, inconsistency between action and attitude is uncomfortable and adjusting the attitude reduces the discomfort.

Self-perception theory is a reinterpretation of cognitive dissonance research. According to self-perception theory, we don’t really know ourselves. To use Wilson’s phrase, we are strangers to ourselves. We infer our own attitudes from how we behave.¹⁸ We figure out who we are by observing what we do.

So, according to self-perception theory, attitude change doesn’t necessarily result from the discomfort we feel when our actions are inconsistent with our attitude. Rather, when our actions are inconsistent with our former attitude, we reinterpret our attitude, we reinterpret who we are. We even infer from our behavior attitudes that weren’t there before.

I might be careful about what I eat because of pressure from my spouse. But I am likely to come to see myself as someone who is concerned about what I eat and my perception of the influence of the pressure from my spouse on my behavior will recede.

What we do, regardless of the cause, changes our self-definition.

Religion, one of the most powerful forces in society, seems to be dependent on self-perception. Few people objectively examine all religions and choose for themselves the one that is the most compelling. Almost all of us are the same religion as our parents. And our parents’ religion was the same as their parents’ before them.

If the parents are Catholic, the children go to mass. If the parents are Jewish, the children go to synagogue. If the parents are Muslim, the children go to the mosque. And so on. When asked what their religion is, children look at how they have been behaving and conclude they are that religion. Religious action has a dramatic impact on religious attitude. Even though religious attitude is often based on childhood religious behavior, that religious attitude can still be strong enough to change lives or take lives.

Self-perception theory is sometimes applied in psychotherapy in which clients are encouraged to change their behavior in expectation that this behavior change will result in attitude change. Self-perception theory has even been used to reduce teen pregnancy. When teens do volunteer work in their community, they feel more a part of the fabric of the community and are less likely to take risks in their behavior.¹⁹ When teens do volunteer work in their community, they reinterpret who they are and this, in turn, affects how they behave.

Of course, this works for much more than teen pregnancy. If we encourage our teens to do volunteer work in our community, our teens will observe their own behavior and redefine who they are; they will redefine their commitment to the community. It won’t matter that we put pressure on them to volunteer. Our teens will define themselves by what they do no matter why they do it.

After many years of decline, uniforms are again springing up in both private and public schools, even in some of the roughest areas. The hope is that by changing the way children dress, the community can change the way children see themselves. Children observe what they are wearing and redefine who they are and how they behave. It is still early, but it seems to be working.²⁰

It is difficult to change parental attitudes toward childhood vaccinations. It will probably be easier to change the act. If up-to-date vaccinations are required for school attendance and philosophical and religious exemptions are difficult to obtain, parents will comply. Not only will they comply, they will feel a lot more positively about vaccinations. People’s attitude will reflect their behavior.

Changing the circumstances changes the behavior and changing the behavior, in turn, changes the attitude.

Cognitive dissonance research began in the 1950s and self-perception theory dates from the 1960s, but we have only recently begun to understand the body-to-mind connection that underlies the phenomenon.

The lizard uses the body to help think and the actions of the body feedback to the lizard. In research published in 2010, Dana Carney, Amy Cuddy, and Andy Yap simply had people strike two poses, each for one minute.²¹ Half the participants positioned themselves in “high-power” poses with expansive limbs and the other half of the participants positioned themselves in “low-power” poses with contracted limbs as in a self-hug. Even though these poses were only held for one minute, the experimenters found that the poses caused “physiological, psychological, and behavioral changes.” In particular, they found “elevation of the dominance hormone testosterone, reduction of the stress hormone cortisol, and increases in behavior-ally demonstrated risk tolerance and feelings of power.” By placing their bodies in a powerful pose, people become more powerful.

In discussing this feedback body to mind, Wilson reminds us of Kurt Vonnegut’s advice: “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”²²

Parents sometimes think it’s cute to select hairstyles or clothes for their young children that are worn by society’s rebels. Mohawks or motorcycle jackets or whatever that, in an older person, would be indicative of a rejection of societal norms can be amusing when worn by a small child who is totally dependent on adults. However, if the child comes to define himself as someone who rejects society’s norms, the parents may be in for some challenges. The child will figure out who he is by observing what he does. Why he does it is immaterial. To paraphrase Vonnegut, children may become what we pretend they are, so we should be careful about what we pretend they are.

For the most part, the attitude change that results from behavior change occurs without us being aware of it. In fact, our current actions can cause us to forget or misremember what our original beliefs or attitudes were.²³ Once we act, our attitude toward that action becomes more positive than it was before we acted. And, once we act, we remember our attitude toward that action as more positive than it actually was.

The fact that behavior change often leads to attitude change is the reason why the “gaining commitment” and “foot-in-the-door” approaches are included in lists of surprisingly effective persuasive techniques.

Gaining commitment refers to the technique of getting people to say they would do something because saying they would do something improves the chances they will actually do it.²⁴

Jim Sherman, Chancellor’s professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Indiana University, illustrated the impact of saying we would do something.²⁵ Sherman called people in Indiana and asked them what they would say if they were asked to spend three hours collecting money for the American Cancer Society. Many people said they would volunteer. Days later, when someone apparently from the American Cancer Society did call and ask people to volunteer, three out of 10 of those who had been asked for a commitment agreed and almost all of those who predicted they themselves would volunteer did volunteer. The proportion agreeing to volunteer was seven times higher among those who were called days earlier to predict their behavior than among those who were not asked to predict their behavior.

Whether you are trying to persuade a boss, a friend, or a family member, aim for commitment. Commitment will be much easier to get than actual behavior change, and once you have commitment, behavior change will come more readily.

The foot-in-the-door technique is related. The technique increases the chances of getting people to take a major action by getting them to first take a smaller action in the same direction. Persuading people to take a small action is more feasible and, once they take the small action, their attitude begins to change, making the major persuasion possible. Asking someone to take a small action, like putting a three-inch square sign saying “Be a Safe Driver” in their window can increase compliance threefold with a later request, made by a different person, to put a very large sign on the lawn saying “Drive Carefully.”²⁶

If you are trying to organize your neighbors to confront city hall about needed improvements, start small. Get your foot in the door. Start with a block party, then a petition, and you may be able to work your way up to a march on the mayor’s office.

Action adjusts perception, leaving the situation looking different to the actor.

When you change the act, there is a good chance you will affect the attitude. When you change the attitude, there is a good chance you will not affect the act.

Tools to Change the Act

Possibly the most important reason to aim at the act rather than the attitude is that aiming at the act allows you, the persuader, to choose from a much wider array of persuasive tools. When you take stock of what you can do to accomplish your goal, you can, of course, use all the techniques that might change attitude if that is your chosen path to behavior change. But you also can use a whole host of other techniques for changing behavior that don’t run afoul of “Intellectual Antibodies.”

With consumer products, you can change the act by changing the price, changing the distribution, changing the packaging, getting someone else in the household to ask for the product, enhancing the product’s presence in the grocery store with promotional displays, and so on.

When going door-to-door, canvassing for a political candidate in Iowa, I had no success changing anyone’s attitude toward the candidates. People’s attitudes were firmly in favor, firmly against, or firmly undecided and my visit wasn’t about to change that. Though I couldn’t change attitudes, I found I could change behavior. Potential voters were eager to know where and when early voting was taking place. I was told which voters were leaning toward my candidate. All I had to do was to contact those voters and give them the early voting information and I influenced behavior without changing attitude.

When helping a political candidate, you can change the vote by getting those already leaning toward your candidate to vote early, locking up their vote. You can make sure that those leaning toward your candidate, but who haven’t voted early definitely get to the polling station on Election Day. In neither case have you changed attitudes toward your candidate, but you have influenced voting behavior.

When working to further a pro-choice or pro-life agenda, you can work to defeat an incumbent at the polls rather than working to change the incumbent’s attitude. If you are successful, other office holders may change their behavior without changing their attitude because they fear a similar fate.

As parents we don’t have to change our children’s attitude toward empty calorie foods. If we can fill the kids up with fresh fruit and oatmeal, they’ll eat less Fruit Loops even if their attitude toward Fruit Loops is unchanged.

When we aim at the act, we don’t need to aim at the ultimate act.

Microsoft has decided to aim at the act, but not the ultimate act. Ultimately, Microsoft wants people to buy Microsoft products. But its approach doesn’t aim at changing people’s attitude toward Microsoft. Rather, Microsoft has invited everyone who has Windows 7 or 8 to download Windows 10 for free. Microsoft doesn’t make money by offering a free download of their new operating system. But everyone who downloads Windows 10 is more likely to purchase other Microsoft products and is less likely to switch to a Mac. Microsoft gets their foot in the door by providing a free download of Windows 10. Once Windows 10 is downloaded, users attitudes toward Microsoft improve a bit and users are more likely buy many other pieces of software that Microsoft offers.

Bisquick is a popular baking mix sold by General Mills. Bisquick marketing also illustrates aiming at the act, but not the ultimate act. Obviously, the brand would like people to purchase Bisquick. However, it seems that most people who might be interested in purchasing Bisquick already have a box of Bisquick on their shelf. When they use up the Bisquick on their shelf, they purchase another box. Until then, they don’t.

Using Bisquick is an intermediate act. Purchasing Bisquick is the ultimate act.

Brand management can get more people to purchase Bisquick by getting people to use up the Bisquick they already have. So Bisquick aims at getting people to use up the Bisquick on their shelf. Bisquick encourages people to impress their family with a dish that uses the Bisquick they already have in the pantry. Bisquick doesn’t spend time telling people why Bisquick is superior to other options. It simply encourages people to prepare a dish like pancakes, biscuits, Impossible Pie, or one of the many other recipes that empty the Bisquick box.

As it is sometimes useful to aim our persuasive efforts at some intermediate act rather than our ultimate goal, how do we pick an intermediate act?

The Leaky Hose

Any physical action is actually the end point of a series of steps. Take the time to lay out the steps. It’s helpful to think of this series of steps as a leaky hose. Many people fail to make it to the end, because they leak out somewhere along the way. The pool of potential people who might behave as we would like shrinks as they take or fail to take a series of action steps toward the ultimate action goal.

Think about all the people who might ultimately behave as you would like. What is the series of action steps that leads to the ultimate behavior you seek? How many people “leak out” at each step? Ask yourself, “Where do you lose potential?”

Think about a major choice such as buying a car. We laid out the steps leading to the purchase of a Volkswagen in the following way:

• Make a short list of cars to consider.

• Gather information on those cars from magazines or television.

• Ask friends, relatives, or owners of the cars on that short list.

• Check out the brands’ own Websites.

• Check out Websites that compare brands.

• Visit the dealer.

• Take a test drive.

• Negotiate a price.

• Purchase.

You can expand the list, shorten it, or modify it based on your understanding of the process involved. Once you have your list, you can ask how many potential buyers you lose at each step and how feasible it is to patch that leak.

If you are failing to get on the short list because you are a foreign make and many people want to buy a car made in the United States, you might explain that your cars are actually made in Tennessee. If you have a great Website but not enough people are visiting, you can figure out how to attract more people to your online site. If you’re getting people in the showroom but not enough are taking a test drive, you might put in place a program of training for salespeople. A smile, a firm handshake, or a remembered first name could be enough to increase test drives.

As you lay out the leaky hose, you might come up with a plan that has several different elements for what you can do in mass media, in social media, on your Website, and in the dealership to move people through the leaky hose. Those in the business world call this an integrated marketing program.

One can lay out the steps in any number of ways. The value is in breaking down the larger action into a series of smaller choices that each may be more easily influenced.

Sometimes the choice is lightning quick and largely automatic. However, even a decision as simple as the choice made at home of an apple instead of a cookie can be thought of as the end point of a series of action steps. We can lay out those action steps and think about where we might lose someone along the way. We may be able get apples chosen more frequently by simply making apples more visible in our kitchen and cookies less visible. It may be possible to influence some intermediate choice (placing apples on the counter and cookies in the cabinet) in a way that might not have occurred to us if we were focusing only on the ultimate choice (apple or cookie as snack).

Persuading someone to place apples on the counter and cookies in the cabinet will probably be easier than persuading someone to eat an apple rather than a cookie when they are about to make a choice between those two equally available snacks.

When the ultimate action is one we want to encourage, we want to reduce the leaks and keep people moving through the hose. We ask at each step why are people leaking out of the hose? What are those people doing instead of what we would like them to do?

Being clear about the “instead of” helps sharpen our persuasive attempt.

Imagine we want people to purchase Rolled Gold Pretzels. Anyone buying a salty snack is a potential customer. We may look at how many people who buy a salty snack buy pretzels. And we might look at how many people who buy pretzels buy Rolled Gold Pretzels.

We could increase Rolled Gold sales by getting more people to buy pretzels instead of some other salty snack. If more people buy pretzels, Rolled Gold will get its share. To encourage people to buy pretzels instead of some other salty snack, we might emphasize the rewards of eating pretzels rather than eating the typical salty snack.

On the other hand, we could increase Rolled Gold sales by getting more people to buy Rolled Gold instead of other pretzels. Obviously, to do this we would emphasize the rewards of eating Rolled Gold instead of other pretzels.

Which leak are we going to try to fix? Getting people to buy pretzels instead of some other salty snack is a lot different than getting people to buy Rolled Gold instead of other pretzels. Being clear about the “instead of” sharpens our persuasive attempt.

Let’s return to the car-buying example. If many people are going to our brand’s Website but few take the next step of visiting our dealership, we have to ask what those people are doing instead.

If visitors to our Website go on to visit the showrooms of other brands but not ours, we have to figure out why. We might ask which specific competitors are getting the visits and what reward these potential buyers anticipate from visiting those showrooms. In the light of that information, we might change our Website, emphasizing different benefits to expect from visiting our brand’s showroom.

If visitors to our Website postpone buying a car altogether, we might wonder if we are attracting the wrong people to the Website. Maybe we’re attracting people who are not serious about buying a new car. In which case, we have to evaluate and modify whatever we are doing to attract people to our Website.

Understanding the “instead of” helps us decide what we can do to reduce the leak.

When the ultimate act is one we wish to discourage, we want to expand the leaks. We ask at each step what the person could be doing instead of staying within the hose and continuing to flow toward the ultimate undesired action.

Perhaps we are trying to persuade an individual to quit smoking—a very tough assignment. We can look at all the steps leading up to lighting a cigarette:

• Purchase a pack of cigarettes at a convenience store, grocery store, or gas station.

• Go somewhere where one can smoke. That is,

• Leave the workplace.

• Leave the home.

• Leave the restaurant or bar.

• Leave some other retail establishment.

• Take out the pack.

• Open the pack.

• Take out the cigarette.

• Light it.

Knowing the actor personally would enable you to do a much better job of laying out the leaky hose.

In this case, we don’t want to patch the leak; we want to enlarge the leak.

One might change who is the primary shopper so the smoker is less often at the point of purchase. Or one might attempt to get a smoker to pay at the pump rather than go in the service station and be subject to temptation. Can the act of taking out the cigarette pack be delayed by encouraging the smoker to put their cigarettes in a less-accessible place? Can other things like sticks of gum be put in the cigarette pack along with cigarettes so that when the smoker reaches for a cigarette he is confronted with a choice?

Breaking down the behavior into smaller steps suggests ideas for intervention that would otherwise never occur to us.

Bud Light vs. Lite Beer From Miller

Bud Light became the world’s largest selling beer, but it struggled in its early days. The beginning of its success is a good illustration of aiming at an intermediate act rather than the attitude.

Lite Beer from Miller dominated the light beer market when Bud Light was introduced. Bud Light initially gained a small share of the light beer market, but its sales quickly stagnated. Bud Light couldn’t seem to get growing against this massive category leader.

Wholesalers for Anheuser-Busch, the company that brewed Bud Light, explained the situation this way. Young men drink the most beer and the preferences of young men are often determined by what they consume in a bar. Lite Beer from Miller had a tremendous advantage in the bar. A young man would often say to the bartender, “Gimme a light.” Both the young man and the bartender interpreted this as “Gimme a L-I-T-E,” a request both for a type of beer and a brand. Because few people were asking for Bud Light by name, Bud Light was having trouble holding on to bar taps. As a result, Bud Light was not growing.

Bud Light could have attempted to get the brand growing by changing beer drinkers’ attitudes toward Bud Light and toward Lite Beer from Miller. But the brand chose to aim at an intermediate act. Asking for a Bud Light instead of asking for the brand whose name was synonymous with the category would have been a big step, so Bud Light did not choose the ultimate goal as the aiming point. Bud Light aimed at a smaller, more achievable, but still effective step—getting beer drinkers to hesitate for a moment rather than making the automatic “Gimme a light” request. If young men simply hesitated, realizing they had a choice, Bud Light would grow its small share.

If you are old enough, you may remember a series of simple 10-second TV spots in which a beer drinker would say “Gimme a light.” Instead of a beer, he would get some other sort of light—a stop light, a train crossing light, a lighthouse light, a flaming arrow, or whatever. The announcer reinforced the visual by saying that “When you just ask for a light, you never know what you’ll get.”

One might debate the humor of the spots, but not their impact. Bud Light started to grow as soon as the series of “Funny Light” ads began to run. Aiming at the act of hesitation started the brand on a growth trend that continued until the brand became the best-selling beer in the world.

To persuade people to act differently, you don’t have to aim at the ultimate action you desire. Whatever people do is the end of a series of action steps. You may find it easier to aim to change a prior step in the series. Lay out the leaky hose—the series of smaller action steps that lead to the ultimate act you would like to encourage or discourage. Figure out precisely where to focus your persuasive attempt to have the biggest impact on the outcome.

Aim at the act, not the attitude. Changing the act is your ultimate goal. Fortunately, the act may be easier to change than the attitude. And changing the act is likely to be a more effective way of changing the attitude rather than the reverse.

The easiest way to get people to act as you would like is to change the circumstances, making that act seem more natural, normal, and inevitable. And as you focus on an act, make that act appealing to the lizard. The lizard pays attention to how readily the act comes to mind. The lizard is concerned with the associations that are called forth by the act. The lizard notices how the people who perform that act behave and infers the qualities of the group the lizard would, in effect, join if it also performed that act. The lizard will be strongly affected by the emotion that the act evokes. Even mild affection can make a big difference. And the lizard is sensitive to the popularity of the act.

In focusing on the act, building its mental availability and associations, and drawing attention to related behaviors, emotions, and the preferences of others, you are redefining the act. You are giving the act meaning. An act with meaning might be thought of as an act with direction. It is an act that is going somewhere.

Recycling may be thought of as dropping an aluminum can in an identified container. Or recycling can be thought of as something bigger, such as a contribution to a cleaner environment or a small step toward a more efficient government.

Redefine the act. Give it meaning. When you attach associations to the act you transform the act from an objective operation into a subjective, symbolic performance. If you do, you not only increase the probability of the act, you begin to change the attitude toward it.