How to Coach Yourself and Others Beware of Manipulation | Page 216

Uniqueness of method
One of the key rules in magic states that magicians should never repeat the same trick using the same
method. Indeed all of the published papers to date demonstrate that participants are less susceptible
toward misdirection when the same trial is repeated (Kuhn and Tatler, 2005; Kuhn et al., 2008b, 2009;
Kuhn and Findlay, 2010; Cui et al., 2011). The fact that the effectiveness of misdirection is greatly
reduced if the same trial is repeated numerous times does raise some questions as to the reliability of
multiple trial presentations.
Social cues
With many magical tricks, social cues (i.e., where the magician looks) play a fundamental role in
misdirection. For example, as Sharpe points out “people tend to look in the same direction as the
person they are watching looks” (1988, p. 64). For example, using the vanishing ball illusion, it has
been shown that participants’ susceptibility toward the illusion is greatly influenced by the magician’s
socia