来源：《今日心理学》
原文刊登日期：2022年3月8日
When you want to convince another person to do something, the first factor you probably consider is how likely they are to agree. Such thinking can discourage you from attempting to influence them at all, and that would be a mistake because research shows your sphere of influence may be much larger than you imagine. No matter whom you’re trying to convince, you’re probably more persuasive than you believe.
当你想说服另一个人做某事时，你可能考虑的第一个因素是他们同意的可能性。这种想法可能会阻止你试图影响他们，这将是一个错误，因为研究表明你的影响范围可能比你想象的要大得多。不管你想说服谁，你可能比你相信的更有说服力。
For example, we generally feel more comfortable asking a friend rather than a stranger to, say, sponsor us in a charitable fundraising effort or help us with a task. But recent research by two colleagues and me found that while we tend to think our friends will be more amenable to our requests, strangers are almost equally willing to pitch in.
例如，我们通常会更愿意向朋友而不是陌生人求助，比如，在慈善筹款活动中赞助我们，或帮助我们完成任务。但我和两位同事最近的研究发现，虽然我们倾向于认为朋友会更愿意接受我们的请求，但陌生人几乎同样愿意参与进来。
We asked participants to approach both strangers and people they knew well with a simple request for a favor: to complete a brief survey. Before making their requests, we asked participants how many people they thought they would need to ask before three complied. Participants who had been instructed to approach friends thought they would need to ask an average of 3.9 before three agreed, and those who had been asked to approach strangers thought, on average, that they would need to ask 9.4.
我们要求参与者向陌生人和熟人提出一个简单的请求：完成一个简短的调查。在做调查之前，我们询问了参与者，他们认为自己需要问多少人，才能有三个人答应。那些被要求请求朋友的参与者认为，他们平均需要问3.9个人，才能有三个人同意，而那些被要求请求陌生人的参与者平均需要问9.4个人。
It turned out the task was easier than either group expected: Participants had to ask, on average, only 3.8 strangers or 3.1 friends to get three to consent. Not only did participants greatly underestimate their ability to get strangers to agree to their request, but, surprisingly, strangers were almost as likely as friends to say yes.
结果发现，这项任务比两组人预期的都要简单：参与者平均只需询问3.8个陌生人或3.1个朋友，就能得到3个人同意。参与者不仅大大低估了他们获得陌生人同意的能力，而且，令人惊讶的是，陌生人几乎和朋友一样有可能同意参与者的要求。
A growing body of research has found that not only do we have bigger social networks than we think, and are more central to those networks than we realize, but we also have more influence over more types of people. This all suggests that when you have something to ask or say, people may very well be willing to listen to you.
越来越多的研究发现，我们不仅拥有比想象中更大的社交网络，而且在这些网络中所处的地位比我们意识到的更靠近中心，而且我们对更多类型的人有更大的影响力。这一切都表明，当你有话要问或要说时，人们很可能愿意听你说。