Pratfall effect

Being a bit human can help.

There's a classic finding called the pratfall effect, coined by Elliot Aronson and colleagues.

In simple terms, a competent person becomes more likeable after a small blunder because it makes them relatable and less threatening.

So for instance, spilling a bit of coffee in an interview can weirdly help if you can handle it well.

Having a small embarrassing blunder sort of worked into your content is completely natural and completely fine to leave in, and in a lot of cases, it actually increases the value of your videos, which is insane.

For those of you who are secretly nerds deep down like I am, in psychology this is called the pratfall effect.

It's where imperfections increase likability in a lot of cases.

And what I wanna do in the second half of this video is tie all this into how to actually do this and implement this inside of your content because it sounds a lot easier than it is, trust me.

Let's take a look at an example of a brand that did this perfectly.

If you look at the way that Strawberry Milk Mob posts on TikTok, very raw, very organic.

It's basically her doing everything that we talked about here, pratfall effect, homophily.

Everybody feels so connected to her and her sisters because they've just created that relationship where you just feel like you know them.

The reaction that we had to her reaction also has a name.

It's called the Pratfall Effect, and it was first coined in 1966 by this psychologist called Elliot Aronson.

And he basically realized that when people make small mistakes, they immediately become more likable.

He had participants listen to audio recordings of actors auditioning for a TV quiz show.

They naturally were rooting for them because they were smart and they wanna be on the winning team.

But there was something in the way, and what the researchers realized was that it is very hard to like somebody, to imagine yourself being friends with somebody if they aren't also making the mistakes that, that we are making.

So if you do something embarrassing, I really want you to remember that exact effect, the Pratfall Effect.

You are so scared of other people's judgment that maybe your inclination will be to hide beneath your mistake.