The Grasshopper Experiment
This Interesting study reflects how effective a communicator is in producing an attitude change By Philip G. Zimbardo.
Philip asked an equal number of army recruits and wanted to test their Attitude towards trying out new types of food. In this case, it was a fried Grasshopper.
It is worth knowing that the grasshopper was fresh out of a tin and they looked slimy and unappealing.
Two groups of 10 were given an experimenter each, one experimenter was a nice one which spoke to you calmly and asked you nicely to eat the grasshopper whereas the other group were given a mean experimenter which did not speak to them respectfully and being mean. At the end of the experiment the army recruits were asked to rate they’re enjoyability of eating the grasshopper.
Who do you think enjoyed the grasshopper more? Lets take a look
As we can see from the graph is that the nice experimenter group had little/no change in attitude however the mean experimenter were the ones that ended up having the most positive attitude to eating a grasshopper.
Why?
The group that were controlled by the mean experimenter had to act against they’re own believes e.g not eating the grasshopper. They felt uncomfortable when eating it because it was against they’re disbelieves at the time.
When they finished eating they felt so much better because they felt empowered that they done something that was outside they’re comfort zone. This is called cognitive dissonance.👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻
The lesson you need to learn from this is that you NEED to get out of your comfort zone a lot more. It will feel good after.
🐐