The curse of the fast talker

Watching The Apprentice this week it was difficult not to be entranced by the sheer speed with which Laura blurted out her words in a pitch to a German snack manufacturer.  Suffice to say that the poor man on the receiving end had little chance in grasping the nub of her message.

Despite what one is often told about the merits of talking slowly, many a salesman (they're always salesmen aren't they?) continue to rattle out their words machine gun style.  I'm often torn by their motivation, by whether they believe their verbosity somehow displays exceptional subject knowledge, as opposed to what I often think of as an insecurity preventing the conversation from falling into silence.  So what is the reality?

It's worth remembering that it wasn't that long ago that speed was seen as a virtue.  In 1976 Norman Miller churned out some research suggesting that speeches delivered at 195 words per minute were more persuasive than those delivered at a more sedate, and natural, 105 words per minute.  Back then, this lower range was associated with the more simple amongst us.

Thankfully times have changed somewhat, but has the view on fast talking?  If we fast forward a few years to 1991, researchers tested out various speeds of speech to try and convince one group of participants that the legal drinking age should be kept as it is, whilst another group was convinced that it should be changed.  This topic was chosen because it was topical at the time, seeing as America had recently upped its legal drinking age to 21.

Here is the interesting part.  When the message was counter to what you originally believed, the faster the talk, the more persuasive it was.  By contrast, when you preach to the converted, slower speech works better.

Why does this happen?

Well, so the thinking goes, if you're talking to someone that has a natural inclination against what you're saying, the slower you talk the more time you give them to contrive objections to what you're saying.  If you talk faster however, they are deprived of this luxury.

If the audience does agree with you, the same applies.  If you talk quickly they don't have time to digest it all and find that they agree with you.  When it comes in slow, there's plenty of time to evaluate the arguments, agree and be even more persuaded about what you're saying.

So if someone is trying to change your point of view and they're rattling off their words incredibly quickly you have double the reason to be wary.