OratorsOracle

No, the audience is not like you.

Because a discussion on this can easily digress into philosophy, let’s refrain from diving too deeply into the relation between the speaker and the listener here – but as a baseline, if you think you have a lot in common with your audience: As a part of the very definition of public speaking, there is a fundamental difference between speaking and listening. The barrier between the active, public individual and the passive, anonymous group is exactly what we try to breach when we speak.

In the attempt to connect with our audiences, we often make the very risky mistake of assuming that they are just like us – which of course, to some extent is true. But due to the nature of the situation alone, you are most likely not like your audience.

The social projection bias or the egocentric bias (almost, but not quite the same - the discussion is ongoing) is the natural next place to move the spotlight after the fundamental attribution error and the consistency bias.

The egocentric bias is the tendency to think and believe that other people think like us, would do like us, and share the same emotions around the values that mean something to us. When we think about it, we instinctively know this not to be true, but when we make quick, heuristic decisions based on intuition, we act as if it was.

In fact, many speakers plan their presentations, their means, and their effects as if the audience has the same experience level, the same references, the same understandings, the same values and the same interests as themselves.

Obviously, this is only very rarely the case. Even in a very homogenous group, these assumptions come with a risk of transgressing cultural and social borders, or at the very least create noise in the messaging. In other words, for most people it takes an active effort to overcome the egocentric bias and understand your audience from the inside – but interviews, tag-alongs and research can bring you very far.

Understanding your audience does not come free, it will take legwork and empathy, but the connection you will be able to create is deeper, more credible and will elicit larger effect.

(Image: If we could see all the assumptions, we project to our audiences, maybe it would look like this beautiful stage performance piece. Considering every individual in the audience, with how they differ from your ideas, interests and experiences, as a relation you create when speaking, the complexity quickly becomes enormous.

Image credit: From the performance “Hakanai” by Adrien M & Claire B, next show at time of posting: Théatre André Malraux, Paris, France, February 10, 2024.)

Opening the vast cupboard of cognitive effects, we begin with “The Anchoring Effect”:

If I ask you: “Did you have an interesting day?” or “Were you busy today?”, the answers could very well be the same in terms of factual content, describing what you did. But the anchoring effect tells us that it is very likely that you will think of very different answers, when asked these two similar, but very different questions.

How we frame a question – and a talk – has a big impact on message reception, acceptance and retention. By creating a reference point with a statement, a metaphor, an anecdote, a fact or maybe an object, you “anchor” the audience to something of your choice, that then becomes a baseline for your further reasoning.

Validated and qualified by Tversky and Kahneman in 1974, the anchoring bias (or effect, as we prefer) is an established cognitive effect that they suggested is part of a “anchor and adjust” heuristic, helping us make fast and reasonably safe decisions in many environments. In the big social game, ever since early apehood, it has been an advantage for anyone to quickly be able to judge a situation by only a few pieces of data. The first thing we hear in a specific context is a natural anchoring point for that analysis, and that is what we tap into, when we open a presentation with something remarkable, relevant and reasonable.

Image: Copy of a Roman anchor, built from Egyptian tradition. The oldest anchor found looks like this (only the stone is left, of course) is thought to be from around 3400 BCE. (Science Museum Group. https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co8358797/model-of-roman-anchor-model.)

Now for number 22 of the 24 ways to utterly undermine yourself and any future hopes of ever presenting again:

"It’s all about you"

Of course everyone wants to know what you think about the whole thing. And make your introduction slide very informative, we need to know your full life story and how you got here – and what
you have been doing here for so long, and what you do in your spare time.

If this is not your first day with new colleagues, you will have worn everyone out way before you get to any meaningful point.

Number 21 of the 24 ways to negotiate your way out of ever presenting to an audience again:

"I already sent you the slide deck"

“Did you have time to see it?” If they did, what are you going to bring? You are lucky they are even there.

And if they didn't, they now know that they won't have to listen to a word, you are saying, because they can just go home and read it all. Or they can have it all to the very last slide after about 1½ minute.

So don't be too surprised to see those distant gazes or sneaky mail checks going on pretty soon after that first sentence: "I already sent you the slide deck"