The Daily Stat from Harvard Business Review

September 2, 2015     An Interruption Can Make a Message More Persuasive Research participants who had been told about a new brand of dark-chocolate truffle were willing to pay about 50% more for it if the verbal description was interrupted for 15 seconds while the describer gave directions to a stranger, say doctoral student Daniella Kupor and Zakary Tormala of Stanford University. This and other experiments demonstrate that a momentary random pause in mid-message can increase a message’s persuasive impact. An interruption piques the listener’s curiosity, enhancing mental processing, the researchers say. SOURCE: Persuasion, Interrupted: The Effect of Momentary Interruptions on Message Processing and Persuasion

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