Does Being Influential Make You Healthier & Happier?

In the movie "Pursuit of Happyness," Will Smith plays Chris Gardner, a medical equipment salesman who is way down on his luck but who has his heart set on an internship at the financial investment firm Dean Witter. He wants to turn his life around but the cards are stacked against him. He is not qualified for the internship, his resume is unimpressive and he shows up to his interview wearing a paint-splattered tank-top and jeans (After a day of painting, Chris was arrested and spent the night in jail because of unpaid parking tickets. He went to the interview right after being released). When the interviewer asks him, "What would you say if a guy walked in for an interview without a shirt on...and I hired him?" Chris immediately and confidently says, "He must have had on some really nice pants." The entire boardroom erupts with laughter and nods of approval for Chris' wit and ability to immediately change the group's mood. The internship is his!

Chris got the internship because he influenced the interviewers. He did this by using 3 very powerful influence strategies:

1) Likeability

Chris' joke made everyone laugh and in turn, like him more. Dr. Robert Cialdini, psychologist and influence expert (http://www.robertcialdini.net), has written extensively about the influential effect of being liked, and what better, quicker way to enhance likeability than to get someone to laugh.

2) The element of surprise

The interviewers were surprised by Chris' response. They thought he was going to say that they shouldn't hire someone who came to an interview without a shirt, but he came up with something completely different. When you surprise people, you temporarily reduce their defensiveness and hence their resistance to your request. In essence, they've been thrown off their game (The interviewer's "game" is not to hire people who are dressed inappropriately) and because of that they're more open to your position. Dr. Kevin Dutton, a persuasion expert, calls this "incongruity" (see http://splitsecondpersuasion.com).

3) Focusing on the positive

Chris also used a strategy I describe in my book, "Instant Influence," which is to re-focus the person you'd like to influence away from reasons why they cannot give you what you're asking to reasons why they may want to do so. Chris did this by helping the interviewers imagine a reason why they, in fact, might want to hire a shirtless applicant (because he had on really nice pants). You get 2 for the price of 1 with this strategy because focusing on the positive when everyone is focusing on the negative can also be very surprising.

Chris does all three of these influence tactics elegantly, instantly and effectively - he's a natural, to be sure. However, these are all skills that can be learned by virtually anyone.

And why might you want to learn them (careful, I'm influencing you by prompting you to focus on the positive reasons you might want to sharpen your influence skills)? Because being more influential not only gets you what you want...but there is actual science that shows that it also makes you happier and healthier! So, what does Chris get for being so influential? He, of course, gets the internship, but he also gets a big boost of happiness, which researchers have shown to be directly related to actual physical health. Let's review 2 key and recent studies.

First, in a sample of 227 college students, researchers, Drs. Sommer and Bourgeois from Baruch College and Florida Gulf Coast University, respectively, tested the proposition that one's own judgments about how well they influence people around them was related to their level of subjective well-being (http://bit.ly/nFTedf). They did this by having the students complete a series of questionnaires measuring the following traits: perceived influence (e.g., high levels of this ability meant endorsement of items such as, "I usually succeed in my attempts to persuade others to do things I want"), Self-worth (e.g., "I take a positive attitude toward myself."), Control (e.g., "I can do just about anything I set my mind to do."), Life Purpose ("My life is very meaningful."), Life Satisfaction (e.g., "I am satisfied with my life."), Positive and Negative Feelings (here, participants rated how frequently they had positive (e.g., joy) vs. negative (e.g., sadness) feelings. The last 2 questionnaires comprised subjective well-being (basically, happiness). The results clearly showed that the more influential the participants rated themselves being, the greater their overall subjective well-being, and also that this occurred because being influential led to a sense of worth, feeling in control and a belief that life is purposeful. Thus, thinking of yourself as influential leads to well-being or happiness. Further, this connection may exist because influencing others may be critical in meeting our needs for self-worth, control and meaning.

Now combine that with the results of a large-scale meta-analysis (a study of many studies) published earlier this year on the connection between subjective well-being and physical health conducted by the guru of wellness and health, Dr. Ed Diener. In the article titled, "Happy People Live Longer" (http://bit.ly/nFTedf), Dr. Diener describes in great detail a 4-decade-long literature showing the very strong relationship between high subjective well-being and good outcomes regarding stroke, coronary artery disease, stem-cell transplants, AIDS and renal failure, diabetes, immune function, and in some cases, cancer. There also appears to be a robust and positive connection between subjective well-being and longevity. Dr. Diener cites the evidence from scores of studies and reviews each in an effort to delineate which of the 2 factors comprising subjective well-being (i.e., life satisfaction or a favorable proportion of positive to negative feelings) is operative in each medical disease.

So, the next time you are faced with a situation in which you would like to have more influence, try one of the above strategies to get what you want (i.e., likeability via humor, surprise or focusing on the positive) or, better yet, read this month's feature PT article on the topic, "The Art of Influence" (http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/201109/the-art-influence). However, if you're not yet up to that, then see if you can first influence yourself to want to learn more about being influential. Focus yourself on your own positive reasons why you might want to have more influence strategies at your disposal. It may be about being happier or healthier, but it may be about completely different motives. You may actually surprise yourself with even more powerful reasons.

Here's to health and happiness...AND to influence to help us get there!