View Full Version : Reverse Psychology
Youaregettingsleepy
04-22-2005, 08:16 PM
Reasons it works? It doesnt?
Just curious to hear all of the opinions on the board.
Some would say that it is simply "the magic of human nature".....
Taking advantage of our natural tendency toward suspicion/curiousity/protection or doubt.....
EC
betlamed
04-26-2005, 12:33 AM
Hmm... Wikipedia quotes Tom Sawyer, the (in)famous white fence scene... Isn't this simply a reframe?
bl
Or perhaps it would be more appropriate to say that the term "reframe" is an NLP expression that may include techniques that in the past were called "reverse psychology."
solaris152000
04-26-2005, 12:33 PM
If you say to someone, "I bet you cant jump off that tree". It is human nature to challenge that and try and make yourslef look strong. Basic human nature. Yes, I think it works.
Terry (existing)
04-26-2005, 12:50 PM
The poster has disclosed a preconception that it doesn't work, and therefor, the question has no validity. Why should our opinion be of value to someone who has already decided an issue in their own mind? Of course, they failed to consider the skill of another as against their own experiences, but them, if they hadn't and were correct, NLP and hypnosis would have no value either, and we know better...........
People have a variety of patterned responses for various contexts.
Some of those patterns involve what is called polarity response.
Polarity response means a TENDENCY to respond the opposite of what is expected, or what they think is expected.
So if you notice someone who is polarity responding in a certain situation, you can reshape your requests in such a way as to get the response you want by requesting the opposite. This is often called reverse psychology.
HOWEVER
If the person notices what you are doing, it wont work, because they are polarity responding to what they think you want not necessarily what you are saying.
If you ASSUME it will work all the time, it wont.
You must "catch" them polarity responding, determine that it is a pattern, and make the shift in your communication, framing your requests in such a way that they dont realize you have shifted.
An excellent story illustrating this is one about the elementry school kid who wouldnt sit down. Can you guess what the teacher did?
skip
This all works quite well with emotionally based (right brainers) due to the fact that emotion is by nature suspicious and will naturally do the opposite. Since emotion is suspicious, they will suspect your motives unless you are very creative, and change their mind before you can blink.
Since a very large majority of folks today are right brainers, you can get lots of practice with "reverse psychology" if you care to.
EC