Here’s my compilation of interesting psychological rules that affects human behaviour unconsciously and take seconds to execute.
Apply them yourselves to validate!
3-second rule of Eye Contact
Give everyone in your audience at least 3 seconds of continuous eye contact before moving to the next person. This is usually enough to make people feel included in a conversation. The 3-second rule is a great and simple way to engage your audience and convey a sense of ease with it, even when you’re feeling nervous.
4-second rule of Customer Engagement
4 seconds is the maximum most online shoppers will wait for a webpage to load before abandoning the site, any longer than that, and you’ve lost your chance to win over a new member.
5-second rule of Metacognition
The 5-second rule is a form of metacognition that switches the gears in your brain, so your mind works with you instead of against you. If you have an instinct to act on a goal, you must physically move within 5 seconds or your brain will kill it.
7-second rule of Judgement
It just takes 7 seconds for somebody to gather their first impression. While you can’t stop people from making snap decisions, the human brain is hardwired in this way as a prehistoric survival mechanism. Now you can use this rule to make those decisions work in your favor.
10-second rule of Shopping
The 10-second rule says that any time you are about to spend any money, count to ten slowly and spend that time considering whether or not you should actually spend the money, actively trying to think of reasons why you shouldn’t buy this item.
17-second rule of Manifestation
If you hold a thought for 17 seconds, you set in motion that manifestation. The purpose behind this rule is to get you to think purely for 17 seconds, and to have that desire become stronger until it reaches 68 seconds. This is a particularly powerful rule because it helps you to focus to achieve your desire.
20-second rule of Habits
When it takes more than 20 seconds to start a task, you are more likely to not do it. The brain is lazy and wants to work on familiar tasks. If you want to create a new habit, you have to make it easy to integrate by decreasing the activation time, ideally 20 seconds or less.
30-second rule of Conversation
If you want to win with people, say something encouraging within the first 30 seconds of every conversation. The indirect return of 30-second rule is that when you encourage people, the encouragement has a way of returning to you, maybe not immediately, but certainly eventually.
60-second rule of Group Discussion
While engaging in a group to solve a problem, do something in the first 60 seconds to help them experience it. You might share shocking or provocative statistics, anecdotes, or analogies that dramatize the problem. This ensures the group empathetically understands the problem (or opportunity) before they try to solve it.
90-second rule of Self Control
When a person has a reaction to something, there’s a 90 seconds chemical process that happens in the body; after that, any remaining emotional response is just the person choosing to stay in that emotional loop. This rule is a mindful way to override your hardwired survival reflex of reaction and cope with life’s unexpected events in a calmer, healthier way.
