Frequency: Engaging the grey matter
Think of light. Think of bright. Think what guides us through the night.
(Introductory series on Frequency, part 8 of 20)
Think of Light. Think of Bright. Think of Stairs in the Night.
— Dr Seuss, Oh, the Thinks You Can Think
When prolific author and social psychologist Hugh Mackay published “What Makes Us Tick? — The Ten Desires That Drive Us” (2013) he proposed that humans in general were driven by ten core fundamental desires (beyond the basics of physiological needs).
The ten desires that drive us
According Mackay’s explorations and research, the ten core desires that drive us are:
- The desire to be taken seriously
- The desire for ‘my place’
- The desire for something to believe in
- The desire to connect
- The desire to be useful
- The desire to belong
- The desire for more
- The desire for control
- The desire for something to happen
- The desire for love
Picture the audience naked
Remember that piece of advice?
Taking that list above, imagine your audience (or just the one reader or viewer in their home) stripped of those core desires.
Naked. Bereft.
This is what their inner narrative — a low hum of anxiety and angst back-dropping their lives — might sound like.
- Nobody takes me seriously
- I have no place
- I have nothing to believe in
- I’m disconnected
- I feel useless
- I’m haunted by un-belonging
- There is no more for me
- I feel powerless
- I’m bored with life
- I fear no one loves me
It’s an admittedly stark picture. In gamification terms, someone with all of these internal narratives, internal deficits, might have a very low health score indeed.
Most of us, thankfully, don’t suffer deficits on all fronts simultaneously. And (perhaps not just for me) it’s rather comforting to know that there is a universality to these secret fears we harbor from time to time.
Shiny exteriors notwithstanding
It’s also interesting, from a communication perspective, to evaluate the specific deficits our readers might be facing — no matter how shiny their exteriors.
We might do this by reflecting on our own lacks — different lacks at different times in our lives — and how acute those lacks were, no matter how shiny our own exteriors seemed at the time.
Connecting begins with empathy
Comparing Mackay’s research on our inner states, the way our grey matter operates, seems— like all psychology-of-persuasion and behavioral science — to be highly relevant to anyone who wishes to deeply engage with their audience.
Contemplating the last time we felt endeared to a communicator — what empathic signals they were sending to us, to speak to our longings for significance, identity, hope, belonging and compassion.
Connecting begins with caring enough to engage
Looking at Mackay’s list, and cross-referencing it with similar studies on behavioral psychology (this I’m still working on) seems to reveal why some communicators resonate with their audiences more than others.
It becomes clear that connection begins with caring enough to engage, with genuine empathy, those we seek to serve.
Secret sauce: empathy, caring, generosity
It seems like the way that communicators might speak to the unspoken longings of their audience is by keeping the desires that drive them front and center.
It seems like, upon closer examination of multiple communicators across diverse mediums, that there are recurring patterns of empathic and audience-focused connection.
Data-visualizing recurring patterns
I hope to use data visualization to unpack more specific case studies in the days to come, to test recurring patterns.
I’ve alluded to these recurring patterns throughout this introductory Frequency series.
And it feels like every time I run a new piece of content through this mental model of recurring patterns, I learn something new.
(This is part eight in a twenty part introductory series exploring the intersection of frequency, resonance and nuance. Find part 1 “Frequency: A fairytale” here, part 2 “Waving to the whales” here, part 3 “Ravenous beasts among us” here, part 4 “The magic of enthralling prose” here, part 5 “Illuminating the abyss” here, part 6 “It’s all about the hum” here, part 7 “Empathic colormapping” here and part 9 “Audacious mental models” here.)
