“You Had Me at Hello”

Target Audience: Teachers, School Professionals, Behavior Analysts

Remember that famous line from Jerry Macguire - “You had me at hello.”? Isn’t it so true - that just “hello” can facilitate positive feelings towards the person and perhaps the situation? Consider how you feel when you enter a retail store and a sales person walks up to you and says, “Hello. How can I help you?” Doesn’t that make you feel welcomed and aren’t you more likely to ask for help and to ultimately buy something? Greetings can be very powerful in creating a positive atmosphere and establishing a good rapport with people in general, especially with children.

Here is a link to a study by Allday and Pakurar (2007) published in the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1885415/. They evaluated the effectiveness of teacher greetings (saying hello using student’s name and saying a positive comment about them) at the door and on-task behavior during the first 10 minutes of class for 3 middle school students with problem behaviors. They found that greetings increased on-task behavior from a mean of 45% to a mean of 72%.

Perhaps this small gesture increased the overall positivity in the room thereby improving the students’ motivation to cooperate and engage in the task at hand. In any case, saying hello to someone and giving them a compliment can be one small, easy way we can make someone feel welcomed and encouraged to be part of things. “Hello” can be the start of a relationship that leads to more good things in the classroom and beyond.