Friday, June 09, 2006

Drink Coffee
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Next time you have a deal to clinch or a colleague to win over, do it over coffee.
But make sure your arguments are sound as your audience is paying attention and will be quick to weed out weak points, says Queensland University of Technology researcher Dr Blake McKimmie, one of a team of psychologists who studied the effects of caffeine on cognition and persuasion.
The team found a moderate amount of caffeine could influence persuasiveness of an argument because it increased a person's attentiveness and allowed them to scrutinise a message more closely. "If you have drunk a moderate amount of caffeine - about two cups of coffee for a 60kg person - you are better able to evaluate an argument and if that argument is strong then you could be more likely to be persuaded," Dr McKimmie said. But, he says, with caffeine there is a fine balance between being alert and able to concentrate and being "wired".
"Research suggests if you have too much caffeine you are likely to be unable to pay as much attention to the actual message but be distracted by peripheral things such as the attractiveness of the person serving the coffee."
The research team asked people about their attitudes to voluntary euthanasia and abortion before they had drunk orange juice containing caffeine. They also questioned another group who were given plain juice. Each group was given a persuasive argument on the topics to read after the drink. "We found a marked increase in attention to the messages and the amount of positive message-related thoughts in the group who had had the caffeine," Dr McKimmie said.
"These differences were related to increased persuasion by the strong message for those people who consumed the caffeine." He said the finding of increased recall in the people who had had a moderate amount of caffeine suggested "caffeine-content drinks on campus may not be not such a detrimental thing if used in moderation". But he cautioned that other research suggested caffeine influenced mood and physiological arousal which could have a negative impact on information processing. "This is because people in a positive mood tend to engage in less effort when thinking about things. "Increased concentration and better recall was found only after a moderate intake of caffeine. Too much caffeine and these effects may well be lost," he said.
The experiments were conducted in the morning, a time when caffeine is traditionally used to counteract the fatigue effects of the circadian rhythms, he said

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