Reverse Psychology: How To Apply It
You’ve probably used reverse psychology, even if you weren’t so much aware of how powerful reverse psychology can be. Basically it’s about you consciously taking a certain position, so that someone else takes the opposite position.
The experts in taking the opposite view are the teenagers among us. Especially when they are in the middle of establishing their image or identity, they don’t like it when someone tells them what they should and shouldn’t do. To avoid this feeling, they usually choose to do the opposite of what they’re told, even when they know inside that it’s actually the best option.
However, this behavior is not limited to teenagers at all. It may be less frequent and less violent, but many people, even as they mature, retain a small part of this contrarian attitude.
For example, imagine a five-year-old who refuses to eat his vegetables. You insist that he eat his entire plate, but this seems completely useless; he doesn’t want to eat his carrots and his eggplant at all costs. If you keep insisting that he finish his plate, the whole situation will only end negatively. So eventually you give up and he happily jumps off the table to start playing.
Reverse psychology is not so simple that in this situation you simply tell him not to eat his vegetables and then suddenly he will. In this case, your child will simply walk away from the table and you will eventually have to eat the vegetables yourself. We need to prepare ourselves and make the vegetables look more attractive: make them look the complete opposite of bland and bland; make eating vegetables something fun.
This is the point where we apply reverse psychology to make the board look more attractive. We almost all immediately become more curious when something is forbidden to us. This is as much for children as it is for adults. Parents so often forbid their children to do something that they used to enjoy so much.
Another reason to be contrarian is because you are very confident in a particular situation. If you feel insecure and someone pushes you to take a chance, you are probably more likely to choose the most common choice over the more deviant choice.
On the other hand, when we are very sure of ourselves, we often gravitate towards the riskier choice when someone sends us to go for the safest option.
In such cases, contrarian behavior does not always determine which side the scales will eventually sink to, but it does ensure that the scales tend to lean a little more and more strongly in a certain side.
Perhaps the example of the child not wanting to eat his vegetables is a bit more common, but be aware that reverse psychology is also often used in the business world. For example, a company offers optional courses for its employees. However, as these courses are held outside working hours, no one registers for them. Thus, their manager informs the employees that the courses will be halved from next month and the resources will be lost.
The company won’t completely remove the courses, but this strategic move will make employees realize that they actually have access to very valuable resources and that those resources will be used for something else if they don’t use them. No one likes to lose something valuable, even if you don’t realize it until it’s given to you.
How to Apply Reverse Psychology in Three Steps
Of course, you don’t want to constantly “deny things” to others just to get them to do what you want them to do. There are a few conditions to ensure that manipulation does not become a habit.
1- To whom will you apply it and why?
Before applying this psychological technique, answer this question for yourself. If your goal is to get your child to get dressed for school or stop watching TV, go for it. However, if you only want to use reverse psychology to get your customers to buy a new product from you, you might want to think twice about doing this.
2- What consequences can it have?
Sometimes you give your child permission not to do his tasks and this ensures that he does them perfectly on his own. Sometimes, though, your plan won’t turn out the way you hoped and he’ll just be really happy that he doesn’t have to do anything. “Yeah, now I can get on with my video game.”
3- How free does that person want to feel?
The greater the assertiveness (the need to feel that decisions have been made on one’s own initiative), the more likely a person will choose a path other than the one recommended. For example, a person who doesn’t like to follow instructions at all is a great candidate for reverse psychology.
