How To Use Reverse Psychology?

Certainly you have occasionally resorted to reverse psychology, even if you have not realized it or you are not aware of its power. Basically, it’s about adopting a position so that the other person adopts the opposite one.

The experts in this field are teenagers. In the full process of finding their identity, if there is one thing they hate, it is someone telling them what to do or trying to influence them. To avoid this feeling, therefore, they often opt not to do what they are told even though deep down they know it would be the best thing to do.

However, this doesn’t just happen with teenagers. Although with less frequency and intensity, this inclination (to behave in the opposite way) is also found in adulthood.

How is reverse psychology activated?

Let’s imagine that your 5-year-old child doesn’t want to eat vegetables. You do everything to force him to eat what is on his plate, but there is no way he does it: he does not eat carrots or courgettes. If you continue to insist, the situation will not improve. You will give up and he will happily go away to play.

Why is it better not to take advantage of reverse psychology?

It’s not as simple as telling the baby not to eat. He will run away and you will be impaled with your vegetables. You have to do some basic work first, you have to present the vegetables to him in a way that is inviting, it doesn’t have to seem like a boring and tasteless dish, but quite the opposite.

At this point, you can activate reverse psychology to further increase the attractiveness of the pot. What is certain is that something intrigues us even more if it is prohibited. This is typical of childhood, in fact parents often forbid their children to do things that at certain times they have experienced as fun experiences.

As we grow up, to the association acquired in childhood we add, as we have anticipated, the need for independence.

Other reasons for using reverse psychology relate to safety in certain situations. If we feel insecure and someone pushes us to take a risk, we will probably opt for the more normal or less divergent behavior from the crowd.

On the contrary, if we are accompanied by a feeling of security, we choose the riskiest option and we do it with even more determination if someone urges us to choose the safer alternative.

Acting in the opposite way  in these cases will not affect the scale needle, but will make it tilt permanently or make it tilt more forcefully towards one plate or the other.

Reverse psychology in adulthood

Perhaps the example of the child who does not want to eat vegetables is too simple and we understand it because “he is a child and it is easy to manipulate him”. Either way, you should know that reverse psychology is widely used in companies.

For example: a company offers optional training courses for its employees. Since they are kept out of business hours, no one signs up. The management, therefore, informs that starting from next month the lesson time will be reduced and that resource will be lost.

With this strategic technique, the company does not really want to eliminate courses, but it does want the employee to realize that they have something of value available and that if they do not use it, they will dedicate themselves to something else that has nothing to do. with him. And nobody likes to lose something of objective value.

If the company manages to make the worker understand this, the latter will start attending the courses, even if only so that they are not eliminated.

How to use reverse psychology?

At this point, it’s not about spending your life “denying things” for others to do as we want. There are some “conditions”, let’s call them that, to prevent manipulation from becoming a habit.

1. With whom do you use it and why ? Answer this question before resorting to reverse psychology. If you use it to get your child to dress up for school or stop watching television, then that’s fine, but if you use it to get your customers to buy a new product, you may need to think about it.

2. What are the effects of reverse psychology that you can achieve ? If you deny your child to do his homework and he eventually does it, so be it. However, it will not always suit you and your child may respond as happily as possible: “Great, then I can play video games!”.

3. How free does the other person want to feel ? The greater the need for self-affirmation (the need to know that she is making decisions based on her will), the greater the likelihood that she will follow a path other than the one we indicate to her. For example, a person who doesn’t like getting orders at all will be a great candidate for reverse psychology to work on.