You must have used reverse psychology before, even if you haven’t realized the power it has, it’s basically about taking a certain stance so that the other takes the opposite stance.
Teenagers have experience in applying reverse psychology, in the process of establishing their identity, if there is something they hate is someone who dominates them or wants to condition them, so, to avoid this feeling, they often choose not to. do as suggested to them, even if they know it would be the best option.
- However.
- It’s not just a teenage problem.
- Although with less intensity and frequency.
- There are some traces of this inclination in us also in adult life.
Imagine a 5-year-old refusing to eat vegetables, you intend to force him to eat until he’s finished what’s on the plate, but there seems to be no way: he won’t eat carrots or courgettes. you keep insisting that he eat, it will end badly. You give up and he’ll play with pleasure.
Why not take advantage of reverse psychology?
It is not as simple as telling the child not to eat, he will run away and leave us the vegetables. First of all, we have to do some preliminary work, we have to give the vegetables an attractive shape, so that they do not look like a tasteless and bad dish, but quite the opposite.
So, we can put in reverse psychology to further increase the attractiveness of the dish, the truth is that if something arouses our curiosity, it further increases the desire for the forbidden, especially in childhood, since parents often prohibit things that, at some point, their children have already experienced it and have found it fun.
How fun it is to jump in a puddle; Do we forbid it?
Over the years and the associations we have made in childhood, in addition to what is described above, we feel the need for independence.
Another reason to follow reverse psychology may have to do with the security we feel in a given situation, if we don’t feel safe and someone pushes us to take a risk, we’ll probably choose the most common or least different behavior from most.
On the other hand, when a sense of security accompanies us, we will lean towards the risky option with more determination if someone tries to make us choose the safest option.
Therefore, the application of reverse psychology in these cases will not determine in which direction the balance will tilt, but will cause it to turn permanently, or more forcefully, to one side or the other in the situations described above.
Perhaps the example of the child who did not want to eat vegetables is basic and we understand it because he is a child who can be handled more easily, however, it should be noted that reverse psychology is widely used in companies.
For example: a company offers optional training to its employees, however, as they are out of hours, no one is willing to do so, so directors report that from next month class hours will be halved and that these resources will be lost.
With this strategic move, the company does not really want to take courses, but the worker understands how much they are worth, if they are not used, will they become something else that has nothing to do with it?And no one likes to lose something of objective value, even if that person, until then, didn’t give it.
If the company gets the worker to understand this, it will start taking the courses, even if it is simply so that it does not finish them.
You understand now, isn’t it about walking in life, denying things, that the other does them the way we want them to. Is there a condition? (To call it somehow) so that the habit of manipulating does not become a custom:
1- Who to apply it on and why? Answer this question before using the reverse psychology technique. If your child is going to get dressed to go to school or stop watching so much TV, welcome, but if you want to convince your customers to buy a new product, you may need to think better.
2- What effects can be achieved? If you deny your child a chance to do his homework and decide to do it, that’s fine. However, sometimes the move will not work and he will respond, with the greatest happiness in the world, “Perfect, I can play video games too. “
3- How free do you want this person to feel? The greater the need for self-affirmation (the need to feel that you are making decisions of your own free will), the greater the likelihood that the person will follow a different path than we told you, for example, a person who does not like to take orders will be a good candidate for reverse psychology to work for them.