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People just want to be accepted and loved. Use this knowledge to get almost anyone to do what you want.
Observe their body language. Do they cross their arms a lot? How much eye contact do they make? Do they shift around when talking? Do their eyes dart around the room?
All these are clues about their personality and disposition and you can tailor your communication to them depending on how receptive they are. Do they laugh easily? What makes them laugh? Do they talk a lot? Do they talk about themselves?
Finding out to what degree of extrovert/introvert they are can go a long way into successfully manipulating anyone around you to do what you want.
It’s how I’ve made friends and how I’ve dated women with variable rates of success.
The power of “yes, and …”
Basically when you are being accused of something, or need to shift how someone is perceiving you, instead of saying “yes, but …” You should try 'yes, and…"
Not only does it take the attention away from the negative, but it’s helping in building up new ideas.
If you are in a debate and you want to nudge someone towards your opinion, or at least away from theirs, without triggering the typical emotional defence behaviour which ruins rational discussions, calmly ask objective questions which point towards problems in the arguments of your partner.
From my experience, I found this certainly helps to keep discussions civil and make people think rather than just judge emotionally, even though this is not a one-fits-all tool.
(A) Such questions can be used to inquire about the reasons for a statement or opinion, which can provide you with a broader argumentative “attack surface” and might weaken your discussion partner when they discover that their point of view is not as sound and good as they thought it to be.
This basically boils down to principles of epistemology. “How do you know?”
(B) Another use is to include facts or opinions in such questions which counter the argument of your partner and let them re-evaluate it.
Two simple examples:
- “Why do you think that wolves are dangerous for humans?” (A)
- “How does this fit with research which shows that wolves avoid humans and don’t see them as prey?” (B)
That way you don’t necessarily present yourself as an opponent, since your own opinion is not directly verbalized. Instead you hop into a more neutral role, where you ask genuine questions and show interest in the other person’s point of view. Combatative counter arguments are rephrased and hidden that way without the other person realizing it.
Procrastination.
Taking a walk every day helps improve the mood on my dopamine deprived brain.
Sometimes the person you really need to trick with psychology is yourself.
When in an argument, wait for the other person to stop talking then maintain eye contact and say nothing. They’ll feel the need to fill the void and keep talking after a few seconds, but this move throws them off balance and helps calm them down. Also works great with angry customers at retail jobs.
Also, when you suspect someone is lying to you. After the silence, they’ll often try to cover up the lie because they suspect you’ve figured them out.
I can get people to tell me their life story and trauma within 10 minutes of meeting them.
Someone tell me what psychology trick I’m doing so I can stop doing it!!!
I get this too! I don’t judge them, I listen because they’ve probably been wanting to do that for a long time. Another thing that happens with me is that “tough” types will approach me and start acting really friendly with me, whereas with other people they’re always angry and intimidating. I think there’s something about me that’s really disarming but like you, I have no idea what it is!
I have no idea why but this happens with most people in my family and we can even trace it back to my great grandma.
I think it does come down to listening actively, but also by sharing a sense of openness and vulnerability. When you’re honest about yourself with others, they’re more likely to be honest with you.
It’s genetic?
u/Sharkeatingbreakfast
Autism is genetic, and many undiagnosed autistic children will become much harder to diagnose as adults because they will over adjust from their social awkwardness and become incredibly active listeners.
They’ll often be told they’re “easy to talk/open up to” because they maintain great eye contact, nod along and give little responses throughout a story.
I’m not saying you’re autistic necessarily, but the experience you’re explaining is one that I’ve had and many people I’ve known have had
I’m not saying you’re autistic necessarily
Lmao you don’t have to.
So all I gotta do is cure this gosh-dang autism and people will stop?
The 4chan version of autism doesn’t have this issue as much, I’d guess. You could give that a shot
listening
oh no…
Be kind and use people’s names. Also, just asking for stuff.
You’d be amazed how far it will take you just to ask for something, using a person’s name, and being kind about it. Demand something and people will be reluctant to give you a thing.
brygphilomena, can I have your full name, address, social security number, and mother’s maiden name?
brygphilomena, can I have your full name, address, social security number, and mother’s maiden name?
You forgot the magic word.
Orillstabyou.
“Langer demonstrated this fact by asking a small favor of people waiting in line to use a library copying machine: “Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I’m in a rush?”
The effectiveness of this request-plus-reason was nearly total: Ninety-four percent of those asked let her skip ahead of them in line.
Compare this success rate to the results when she made the request only: “Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine?” Under those circumstances, only 60 percent of those asked complied.
At first glance, it appears that the crucial difference between the two requests was the additional information provided by the words “because I’m in a rush.”
But a third type of request tried by Langer showed that this was not the case. It seems that it was not the whole series of words, but the first one, “because,” that made the difference.
Instead of including a real reason for compliance, Langer’s third type of request used the word “because” and then, adding nothing new, merely restated the obvious: “Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I have to make some copies?”
The result was that once again nearly all (93 percent) agreed, even though no real reason, no new information, was added to justify their compliance.”
Excerpt From Influence Robert B. Cialdini, PhD
Many of my friends are familiar with this study, and an inside joke of ours is to, when asking for something, end it with “because reasons.”
I managed to skip the entire line at Ohare security screening by just walking past people waiting patiently while I repeated “sorry, plane is boarding, excuse me, boarding, pardon me…” etc. Nobody bothered objecting and got out of the way for me.
My incoming flight was delayed, and immigration took forever, so once it was time to get to my connection the plane had started boarding. After security I had to run, and I got to the gate just in time.
Better not argue with this idiot
“Sure”
Being nice to people makes them happy to be around you.
Master manipulator. Needs to be contained
Love your sense of humour. :-)
A good retail one: don’t say “sorry for your wait.” Say “thank you for waiting” or “thank you for being so patient”.
Something to do with… it makes people feel good about themselves if they think they’ve done something for you, which in turn makes them more likely to keep being patient.
I often don’t like it when customer service people say this to me if I have been waiting to resolve an issue that is the company’s fault, because my waiting is barely a choice; the company screwed up and now I am ‘forced’ to spend time getting it resolved.
Only apologize or thank me when it’s personal and sincere. (The size of the business matters a lot in if the apologies or thanks feel genuine.)
This works with signs, too. “Keep off the grass” is the least effective, followed by “please keep off the grass”, with “thank you for keeping off the grass” being the most effective.
I’m pretty sure this is more likely to make me walk across the grass though - it feels like they’re assuming what I’m doing, which feels offensive enough for me to make sure they’re wrong about it.
Yup. “Thank you for keeping off the grass” is presumptuous. It presumes that I have kept off the grass and/or will keep off the grass. And that kinda makes me want to stomp all over the grass.
Who’s being presumptuous here? The sign isn’t for you. It’s for people not on the grass.
The lunatic is on the grass
Fair enough!
So similar thing I learned in sales. I avoid using the word “help” because if you ask something like “is there anything I can help you with”? The word “help” subconsciously makes them feel like you are implying they are weak, vulnerable, and need assistance. Where as if you ask them “is there anything I can do for you”? The word “do” has a more positive connotation and implies that you are offering a service or a gift, which more people are likely to agree to.
Someone told this to workers at a cafe I go to occasionally. They don’t usually have a particularly long wait which makes it seem insincere and a little ridiculous.
Another fun trick I learned in sales is that if you’re trying to get someone to purchase something, instead of having them focus on whether or not they should get something, change their question to something else.
For example, I used to sell phones. Instead of having people try to figure out if they want the newest Samsung or not, I would take the phone in two different colors and ask if they liked it in blue or black instead. Putting it in their hands let’s them imagine having the phone already and the question changes from should I purchase this phone to what color do I want?
I’m quite sure this can translate to other questions and decisions people ask themselves
This is sometimes known as thinking past the sale, and works exactly for the reasons you said. A similar trick is to ask about the accessories they want for the phone they haven’t yet decided to buy.
Did this in computer sales. Within a few sentences I would know that you would be buying one of three computers off my shelf.
Oh I just need something for word and internet.
Well let’s look at <expensive>, <cheap>, and <the one you should obviously buy>. There are 40 computers on this floor, but you now have to pick from the three I chose for you. Out of those three, there is one right answer.
Now lucky for them I was trying to steer them to the best computer for them, because I was not on commission and didn’t care about sales numbers, but this is a frequent sales tactic. Next time you’re on a car lot, try to see if you’re shown more than 3 cars out of the hundreds on the lot.
Suspiciously similar to a trick parents use on their children. “Do you want to eat the peas first or the carrots first?” Gives them the illusion that they made a choice about what to eat.
Yea. It’s simple when you change the question from “do you want to buy X?” To making the assumption that they already will buy it and now the only question is “what color will you be buying?”
If you don’t want to answer the question, say “I don’t know, what about you?” and they’ll start talking about themselves, and you won’t be in the spotlight anymore.
answering questions in an accuate way that still leaves the asker with no real additional information.
Law school?
in the same class: when interviewing about awkward topics, don’t immediately ask then next question. People tend to keep expanding their answer to fill an awkward pause. often saying more than they initially intended to
mine was a joke response actually suggesting im using the trick on the OP.
…
If you want someone to approve something, ask for something over the top outrageous and then when they expectedly say no, you „compromise“ to the thing you actually intended.
The ole cock-thumb.
