the years, they've learned a lot about which features to build into a communication to increase its success. But, by concentrating on the message itself, they've missed a crucial component of the process. Research done in the last 15 years shows that the best persuasion is achieved through good pre-suasion: the practice of arranging for people to agree with a message before they know what's in it.

　Pre-suasion works by focusing people's preliminary(开始的) attention on a selected concept----let's say softness---which encourages them to overvalue related opportunities that immediately follow. In one study, visitors to an online sofa store were sent to a site that illustrated either soft clouds or small coins in the background of its landing page. Those who saw the soft clouds were more likely to prefer soft, comfortable sofas for purchase, whereas those who saw the small amounts of money preferred inexpensive models.

　A following study showed the primitiveness of the pre-suasive mechanism. Subjects became three times more likely to help a researcher who "accidentally" dropped some items if, immediately before, they'd been exposed to images of figures standing together in a friendly pose. If this tripling of helpfulness doesn't seem remarkable enough, consider that the subjects were 18 months old ---- hardly able to reason or review or reflect.

　Long before scientists started studying the process, a few notable communicators had an intuitive understanding of it.

　In February 2015, the financial investor Warren Buffett had a problem. It was 50 years since he had taken control of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., guiding it to amazing levels of value, along with his brilliant partner Charlie Munger. Many investors were worried that, because Buffett and Munger were getting older, these levels ccouldn't be maintained in the future, perhaps making it time to sell Berkshire stock.

　To respond to these concernes, Buffett wrote a letter to shareholders in which he described various reasons for confidence in Berkshire's continuing profitability. But, before the description of strengths, he declared with characteristic sincerity that what he was about to state was 'what I would say to my family today if they asked me about Berkshire's future." The result was a flood of favorable reaction to the letter as well as a per-share increase for the year of nearly five times that of the S&P.

　With considerable success, practitioners of social influence have always placed persuasive prods(刺激)----small gifts, emotional draw, last-chance opportunities----inside their appeals. Perhaps because of that success, they've mostly missed an accompanying truth. For maximum impact, it's not only what you do; it's also what you do jut before you do what you do.

Passage outline Supporting details A (1) ▲ in communication People often fail to realize that the secret to (2) ▲ people over doesn't lie in the message itself, but in the key moment before it is delivered. Meaning of pre-suasion It's a practice where people are made to (3) ▲ to a message before it is conveyed.