Let’s be clear. Obtaining from others everything you wish, on a simple order or a simple thought, that does not exist. On the other hand, becoming more convincing, so that you have more influence, is a real and accessible to everyone power.
The general method consists in persuading the manipulated that it is from him that comes the idea of the action to do; and especially to make him do a small step in that way. By nature, the man is congruent with his actions and will be made to continue what he believes having started by himself, even sometimes until his own destruction. The method of the good feelings is perfectly suited. It is necessary to think emotion and not logic.
Technique 1: the foot in the door
In fact, asking for a small favor to somebody is a good way to set up a “dynamics” of persuasion.
Technique 2: the door in the nose
The trick rests on the power of the human guilt. When you face the answer NO, you present the second request which is more reasonable (which is the real one from the start of course).
Technique 3: the principle of the delusion
The reason why the principle of the delusion works is because the person accepts the initial idea which is a very attractive offer. In the mind of this person, the “deal” has already been sealed. Then, you say that the promotion is not any more on the agenda, that you had forgotten this detail, and ask people if they still want to buy.
Technique 4: the error not so innocent
The key of the success is that the good points, which are promised at the beginning of the process of persuasion are real. Mask only the negative details and not the key elements of your proposal. Reveal them only when the target has already taken his(/her) decision.
Technique 5: an offer that nobody can refuse
After having made a speech on the fact that the proposal is good, you submit the request. But before the public has a chance to react, the announcer interrupts himself and adds: ” But wait, that’s not everything! We are going to offer you in addition XXX … ”
Technique 6: and what if we became friends
The creation of a link can also be the method to be used to get what you want. Tell to the person that you respect her. You can also use a common objective, such as the success of a project or your mutual desire to please the employer. There are several techniques for that purpose including the introduction of the positive (“my dear friends”, “dear fellow countrymen”) either to show some respect (sincere or calculated), for the target, or still to speak the language of the listener (who so finds his habits there), or creating some hope (Napoleon would have said that the leader is the one who is capable of selling some hope)…
Technique 7: fear then relief
When you set up a clear and urgent danger for the person, it makes more than simply draw the attention. But to be effective in the use of this technique, it is necessary to create this state of emergency by the fear. Then, you have to offer immediately the relief to this fear.
Technique 8: the red scarf
Example of a divorce in which we insist on having such precise object then at the last moment we pretend to give up reluctantly as compensation of something else (that we wanted in fact since the beginning). The other part will give it to us by thinking they have won.
Technique 9: the look
One of the secrets of a powerful look: the fixedness of the eyes. The exact point where we have to fix the subject is between both eyes or in the nose root.
Technique 10: body movements
As well as the look, the hands are powerful sources of magnetic influence. Manage your fingers towards her temples and you will facilitate her putting under hypnosis.
Technique 11: the foot in the mouth
The manipulator uses inquiring formulae of politeness with the aim of bringing a positive answer. For someone healthy: How are you?
Technique 12: the touch of the forearm
It is surprising but by touching the forearm without provocation (avoid the fixed look), we obtain afterward more easily what we want.
Technique 13: even tiny, your participation is welcome
Another technique which allows on average to obtain more than if we had said nothing.
Technique 14: classify emotionally the manipulated
A collector of the red cross would say: “your pharmacy is tidied up well, we see well that you like taking care of people”.
Technique 15: anecdotes and metaphors
Simply because they arouse the emotion, create images and by-pass the critical reflection. Funny stories, sad; anecdotes, proverbs, metaphors and quotes…
Technique 16: the double constraint
Suggest to your child choosing to go to bed either at 7:30 pm, or at 8 pm. He will probably choose the second possibility… And will go to bed with fewer difficulties than if you had compelling him to go to bed at 8 pm!
Technique 17: the chain of constraints
Example: you are not maybe not brave enough to understand my point of view…
This method leads the receiver to accept or to refuse in the run-up both ideas at the same time…
Technique 18: the humor
“Once you made people laugh, it means that they listen to you, and you can then tell them more or less anything.”
Technique 19: the choice of the terms
Certain terms have similar effects for everybody. “Love” and “freedom” have generally a positive effect. “Pain” and “detention” the opposite effect. This emotion leads to suspend the critical reflection!
Technique 20: the driving
It begins with a valid or demonstrable premise. If the target accepts this premise, it’s the first step. To convince of the validity of a sentence, the persuader will say “let’s face things, let’s be honest, that is why, as an expert, I etc.”. The persuader can then move on to less certain premises. Example: the paleontologists reveal that dinosaurs went out without human intervention, and we know that the human beings are not either responsible for the disappearance of the other animal species.
Technique 21: the questions
… Help to reveal the objective of the persuader as being an idea coming from the ” target”: do you want to sit down? Can you tell me your childhood?, etc.
… Can create some confusion if they are too much complicated or asked too quickly, so producing a certain anxiety, itself reducing the critical reflection. The persuader answers it then, reducing this anxiety while giving to the answer a not criticized value.
… Can contain new ideas or suggestions: why do you want a new car? askes the seller to the person who has hardly just addressed him and who does not really know what to choose…
Technique 22: the missing words
Create a sentence containing only one part of an alternative. ” It is obvious that this computer is much better!” The “target” will then be driven to wonder better than what? With regard to which other one… etc.
Technique 23: the missing information
The fact of not evoking a subject can persuade that it does not exist, so avoiding any discussion…
Technique 24: absolute
A vulnerable “target” will be attracted by absolute (“always”, “never”) which propose an end while destroying any possibility of debate. The terms “must” or “must not” also imply a kind of absolutism.
Technique 25: the reduction in the absurd
Very interesting and quasi-unstoppable method (we can only counter it by changing the level of the discussion): Take any idea and with a little of imagination push it to a logical extreme.
Technique 26: from the general to the particular and conversely
If we give you an example, say that it is only about a particular case. If we propose you a theory or an idea, say that it is too general.
Technique 27: the layout
Write a title, very big and very fat, which announces a “fact” (in reality, the propaganda which you wish to spread). Then a long article, complicated, possibly contradictory with the title, between very crunchy pages of advertising.
Technique 28: figures
This “technique” is a variant of the method of the authority, which uses the prestige of The Science. And when we show you a beautiful curve, what you can answer?
Technique 29: the choice of the words and their definitions
Example: our more and more evolved democracies, replace “video surveillance” by “video protection”.
Technique 30: “you are free of” makes slave
Paradoxically, the fact of feeling free of our choices leads us to accept more easily a request, because we are convinced that this choice is really ours. This method is also used to strengthen the effects of the “feet in the door” and other techniques.
Technique 31: “a little bit is better than nothing”
This kind of small sentence, “even a centime will be enough”, have the effect of increasing the impression that the organization really needs this money to be ready to content with so few.
Technique 32: the touch (brush)
In the experience of the students in statistics, Nicolas Guéguen proposes three tracks: The touch of the teacher increases the self-confidence of the student, either it leads him to validate himself by accepting more favorably his request, or still, it confers him a more positive mood which favors the access to a request.
Technique 33: the labeling forces to the action
The labeling (example: “you are brave”) allows the pupils to weave a link between their acts and what they are. It is interesting to create this link when the act goes in the direction of what we expect from them. They interiorize the idea that it is in their nature to be brave. They are thus more inclined to realize acts which imply their courage. This technique revealed that it had a bigger educational efficiency than an usual persuasion.
Technique 34: the repetition
For Zajonc (1968), “The simple repetition of a stimulus is enough so that it is gradually positively perceived” (advertising phenomenon, songs on the radio, faces of future stars or politicians…). Zajonc talks about “the familiar unknown”.
Technique 35: the feelings
The works showed that the emotional argumentations had more influence but all the feelings have not the same effect, example: the fear. Furthermore, there are nuances to be made on the emotional intensity of the message (ex, campaigns of road safety) :
– Message with intense fear: 8 % of change of behavior
– Message with moderate fear: 22 % of change of behavior
– Message with low fear: 36 % of change of behavior
According to Girandola (2003), who worked on this type of studies, the intense fear has effects on the opinions but not on the behavior. If the message frightens, it can engender defensive behavior such as the refusal of the information by the denial or a loss of credibility of the source.
Technique 36: the bombardment of love
We create a pseudo-family feeling and of membership by the embrace, the emotional demonstrations and the flattery. It is very effective because the individual feels at once taken in a new family, welcoming, etc. while the outside is demonized.
Technique 37 : The invention of words
The invention of words is a very useful technique. It allows to impose to the individual a particular language and, therefore, a particular thought (because we think with words). It also allows to give to concepts as old as the hills an appearance of novelty and change.
Technique 38 : The prediction of arguments
This technique is extremely useful in propaganda as in mental manipulation. It consists in predicting in advance the arguments of the opponents and in warning the listener that he will hear these arguments.
Technique 39 : The urgency
It prevents the man from thinking. This method is called “problem-reaction-solution”. We create at first a problem, a “situation” planned to arouse a certain reaction of the public, so that this one is himself an applicant of the measures whom we wish to make him accept.
Technique 40 : The gradation
To make accept an unacceptable measure, it is enough to apply it gradually, in “gradation”.
Technique 41: the deferred
Another way of making accept an unpopular decision is to present it as “painful but necessary”, by obtaining the agreement of the public in the present for an application in the future. It is always easier to accept a future sacrifice than an immediate sacrifice. At first, because the effort is not to be supplied at once. Then, because the public always tends to hope naively that “everything will be better tomorrow” and that the wanted sacrifice can be avoided in the end. Finally, it leaves some time to the public to become used at the idea of the change and accept it resignedly when the time will come.
Technique 42: the infantilisation
The more we shall try to cheat on the spectator, the more we shall adopt a childish tone. Why? If we talk to someone as if she was 12-year-old, then, because of the suggestibility, she will have, with a certain probability, a reaction so deprived of critical faculty like a 12-year-old person.
Technique 43: the truth is in the eyes
The movement of eyes is a lie detector.
– If you ask to your interlocutor what he did this weekend, eyes will go up & on the left because he remembers images already seen “visual remembering”.
– If you suggest to him not to think of reaching his goal or speak to him about a new spatial car, eyes will go most of the time up & on the right, he will build mental images relative to ever seen scenes, it is the “built picture”.
– If you speak about an already heard song: on the left in the horizontal (summit nose) what is a “hearing to remember”, your target remembers already heard sounds.
– When you ask her to sing some rap version Cabrel, she has to build her version mentally, eyes go on the right it is “hearing build”.
– By the used words, we hurt emotionally the interlocutor, the look goes down & on the right, she will feel sensations or feelings, positive or not: kinaesthetic.
– If they go down & on the left, it is the internal dialogue, she speaks to herself in her head.
If you ask somebody where he was the night of a murder and if the eyes are not going up & on the left (to remember) but rather up & on the right (built) then there are two possibilities: conductive inverted system (left-handed person), or lie.
Technique 44: the anchoring
Let’s imagine that you have already touched three times the shoulder of your target when she laughed. If now, you touch her shoulder in the same way as you touched her three times previously, she will feel the same feelings as when she laughed, when you put your anchor. All this, only by touching the shoulder (in other words, you have just sounded the bell without offering to her any food, but you nevertheless make her salivate as the Pavlov’s dog). It is only a normal reaction, her unconscious being used “to laugh” when you touch her shoulder, the same reaction occurs. Numerous seducers use the anchoring and some even place various anchors on their target, to make reappear various feelings (an anchored point of laughter on the shoulder, an anchored point of excitement on the elbow, an anchored point of romanticism on the hand, etc.)
But the anchoring isn’t limited to body movements, it can also adapt itself to the words. Let’s take the example of the sentence “I love you” which provokes at a large number of people, a sometimes disproportionate reaction. The same reflex can take place with other words, for example, if you are in connection with a girl for some time, whisper her in the ear a word that you usually tell her only during the intimate moments.
The anchor has to be the most unique possible :
It is the basic rule – If the gesture you used has nothing extraordinary and if you use it every day, there will be no association. Act differently, you can change your intonation, for example.
The anchor must be reproducible:
If you put an anchor that you can never reproduce, that will be useless. You have to manage to get closer as much as possible to the original anchoring as you wish to use the anchor, otherwise it will be much less effective.
During the anchoring, anticipate:
The anchoring is not immediate, is needed some time so that the information joins the subconsciousness. So, if you put the anchor at the height of a very strong emotion, it will be associated at the time of the decrease of this emotion, but it is not what you try to do, right? So, try to plan her feelings and get ready.
Anchors disappear:
They are not eternal. After a while (which depends on the intensity of the sensation) either after a too frequent use, the anchor risks not to work anymore. Think of renewing it.
Technique 45: the hypnosis
With questions, you make a person feel a feeling. Feeling that she will associate with you afterward. Everything that we want to make a woman feel (attraction, desire, fascination) is an internal process she manages with her body and her brain. You only have to ask questions which will bring her to use her body and her brain, and she will associate you with these sensations. Take a book on this subject if you are interested.
Detect somebody who lies:
– Looks away when he answers a question.
– Answers with the affirmative or the denial then tells you exactly the opposite.
– The communicator “avoids the question”, “clouds the issue”, evades or diverts.
– The person pouts a brief moment.
– He waits a moment before answering.
– The communicated information is partial: it is the lie of omission.
– The person mixes the tenses in his sentences.
Advise for all your problems in the future:
Know that a well asked question is half solved. For example : Freud « What do women want ? » => « How can we make them react favorably ? »