Robert Cialdini, a social psychologist at Arizona State University, set out to improve the way he talked about science in his writing and in his classes. For inspiration, he went to the library. He pulled down every book he could find in which scientists were writing for an audience of nonscientists. He photocopied sections of prose that he liked. Later, flipping through his stack of copied passages, he hunted for consistencies.
In passages that weren’t interesting, he found mostly what he expected. The purpose wasn’t clear, and the prose was too formal and riddled with jargon. He also found a lot of predictable virtues in the good passages: The structure was clear, the examples vivid, and the language fluid. “But,” says Cialdini, “I also found something I had not expected—the most successful of these pieces all began with a mystery story. The authors described a state of affairs that seemed to make no sense and then invited the reader into the material as a way of solving the mystery.”
One example that stuck in his mind was written by an astronomer, who began with a puzzle:
How can we account for what is perhaps the most spectacular planetary feature in our solar system, the rings of Saturn? There’s nothing else like them. What
are
the rings of Saturn made of anyway?
And then he deepened the mystery further by asking, “How could three internationally acclaimed groups of scientists come to wholly different conclusions on the answer?” One, at Cambridge University, proclaimed they were gas; another group, at MIT, was convinced they were made up of dust particles; while the third, at Cal Tech, insisted they were comprised of ice crystals. How could this be, after all, each group was looking at the same thing, right? So, what
was
the answer?
The answer unfolded like the plot of a mystery. The teams of scientists pursued promising leads, they hit dead ends, they chased clues. Eventually, after many months of effort, there was a breakthrough. Cialdini says, “Do you know what the answer was at the end of twenty pages? Dust. Dust. Actually, ice-covered dust, which accounts for some of the confusion. Now, I don’t care about dust, and the makeup of the rings of Saturn is entirely irrelevant to my life. But that writer had me turning pages like a speed-reader.”
Mysteries are powerful, Cialdini says, because they create a need for closure. “You’ve heard of the famous
Aha!
experience, right?” he says. “Well, the
Aha!
experience is much more satisfying when it is preceded by the
Huh?
experience.”
By creating a mystery, the writer-astronomer made dust interesting. He sustained attention, not just for the span of a punch line but for the span of a twenty-page article dense with information on scientific theories and experimentation.
Cialdini began to create mysteries in his own classroom, and the power of the approach quickly became clear. He would introduce the mystery at the start of class, return to it during the lecture, and reveal the answer at the end. In one lecture, though, the end-of-class bell rang before he had time to reveal the solution. He says, “Normally five to ten minutes before the scheduled end time, some students start preparing to leave. You know the signals—pencils are put away, notebooks folded, backpacks zipped up.” This time, though, the classwas silent. “After the bell rang, no one moved. In fact, when I tried to end the lecture without revealing the mystery, I was pelted with protests.” He said he felt as if he’d discovered dynamite.
Cialdini believes that a major benefit of teaching using mysteries is that “the process of resolving mysteries is remarkably similar to the process of science.” So, by using mysteries, teachers don’t just heighten students’ interest in the day’s material; they train them to think like scientists.
Science doesn’t have a monopoly on mysteries. Mysteries exist wherever there are questions without obvious answers. Why is
In passages that weren’t interesting, he found mostly what he expected. The purpose wasn’t clear, and the prose was too formal and riddled with jargon. He also found a lot of predictable virtues in the good passages: The structure was clear, the examples vivid, and the language fluid. “But,” says Cialdini, “I also found something I had not expected—the most successful of these pieces all began with a mystery story. The authors described a state of affairs that seemed to make no sense and then invited the reader into the material as a way of solving the mystery.”
One example that stuck in his mind was written by an astronomer, who began with a puzzle:
How can we account for what is perhaps the most spectacular planetary feature in our solar system, the rings of Saturn? There’s nothing else like them. What
are
the rings of Saturn made of anyway?
And then he deepened the mystery further by asking, “How could three internationally acclaimed groups of scientists come to wholly different conclusions on the answer?” One, at Cambridge University, proclaimed they were gas; another group, at MIT, was convinced they were made up of dust particles; while the third, at Cal Tech, insisted they were comprised of ice crystals. How could this be, after all, each group was looking at the same thing, right? So, what
was
the answer?
The answer unfolded like the plot of a mystery. The teams of scientists pursued promising leads, they hit dead ends, they chased clues. Eventually, after many months of effort, there was a breakthrough. Cialdini says, “Do you know what the answer was at the end of twenty pages? Dust. Dust. Actually, ice-covered dust, which accounts for some of the confusion. Now, I don’t care about dust, and the makeup of the rings of Saturn is entirely irrelevant to my life. But that writer had me turning pages like a speed-reader.”
Mysteries are powerful, Cialdini says, because they create a need for closure. “You’ve heard of the famous
Aha!
experience, right?” he says. “Well, the
Aha!
experience is much more satisfying when it is preceded by the
Huh?
experience.”
By creating a mystery, the writer-astronomer made dust interesting. He sustained attention, not just for the span of a punch line but for the span of a twenty-page article dense with information on scientific theories and experimentation.
Cialdini began to create mysteries in his own classroom, and the power of the approach quickly became clear. He would introduce the mystery at the start of class, return to it during the lecture, and reveal the answer at the end. In one lecture, though, the end-of-class bell rang before he had time to reveal the solution. He says, “Normally five to ten minutes before the scheduled end time, some students start preparing to leave. You know the signals—pencils are put away, notebooks folded, backpacks zipped up.” This time, though, the classwas silent. “After the bell rang, no one moved. In fact, when I tried to end the lecture without revealing the mystery, I was pelted with protests.” He said he felt as if he’d discovered dynamite.
Cialdini believes that a major benefit of teaching using mysteries is that “the process of resolving mysteries is remarkably similar to the process of science.” So, by using mysteries, teachers don’t just heighten students’ interest in the day’s material; they train them to think like scientists.
Science doesn’t have a monopoly on mysteries. Mysteries exist wherever there are questions without obvious answers. Why is
Similar Books
