Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
Speaker 1: There's Charles W Chuck Bryant. This is Stuff you should Know.
Speaker 1: I'm a little grumpy about this topic. I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: go ahead and throw that out there because it's pretty thin.
Speaker 1: Well not only is it thin, but just the older
Speaker 1: I've gotten, man, it's just all we're talking about reverse psychology,
Speaker 1: and I see it's used with like kids sometimes and stuff,
Speaker 1: but then when it gets to like relationships and dude,
Speaker 1: professional relationships in business, I just it's a little discussed.
Speaker 1: It all feels like manipulative games. And the older I've gotten,
Speaker 1: the more I just have no time for that garbage.
Speaker 1: And I'm just you know, like, be honest. Even if
Speaker 1: things don't turn out, well, yeah, at least you were
Speaker 1: honest and you weren't being some manipulative puppet master. It's
Speaker 1: just gross, dude. I ran across advice on how to
Speaker 1: use reverse psychology to get your boyfriend back. There's a
Speaker 1: site called ex Boyfriend Recovery dot com and it gives
Speaker 1: tips on it. It really insists on asking the question,
Speaker 1: do you want the person who you can use reverse
Speaker 1: psychology to get back. And if you're using that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff, it's like, this is the tactic you're taking
Speaker 1: to get your your boyfriend back. Um, then is this
Speaker 1: Is this the kind of relationship you really want in life? Agreed?
Speaker 1: So I'm right there with you. I think I think
Speaker 1: people are so afraid to walk away from a relationship
Speaker 1: even if it's toxic. Um, we don't touch on that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff much. We should do more stuff on
Speaker 1: relationships like that because it is tough, and I get it.
Speaker 1: But um, I don't know. Man, you get a little
Speaker 1: age under your belt and it's very easy to just
Speaker 1: say get out of that. Treat yourself with kindness and respect,
Speaker 1: even even if you take that out of the equation.
Speaker 1: You shouldn't manipulate other people and being in a relationship
Speaker 1: with you, not at all. That's a pretty good rule
Speaker 1: of thumb that applies to just about everybody. It will
Speaker 1: lead to badness. You also should not be such a
Speaker 1: desperate human being that you buy something you can't afford
Speaker 1: to impress the salesman who's selling it to you. Another
Speaker 1: good rule of thumb that might work on me. Actually,
Speaker 1: maybe that's why it bug me too. Oh yeah, I
Speaker 1: can't afford that. I'll take two, all right, I'll show you.
Speaker 1: All right, that was all preamble. Yeah, but we sadly
Speaker 1: covered a lot of this topic and just that preamble.
Speaker 1: So we're talking reverse psychology. And it turns out psychology
Speaker 1: itself doesn't even really recognize reverse psychology, although it is
Speaker 1: definitely a thing. Like you can point to certain instances
Speaker 1: of reverse psychology, and the basis of it is that
Speaker 1: you are telling somebody to do the opposite of what
Speaker 1: you want them to do. And what you're doing when
Speaker 1: you get them to react and do the opposite of
Speaker 1: what you're saying, which is what you really want them
Speaker 1: to do, what they're displaying is is a is recognized
Speaker 1: by psychology. It's a it's something called reactants. And with reactants,
Speaker 1: people oppose what they're being told out of a sense
Speaker 1: of independence or protecting their sense of autonomy. But for
Speaker 1: whatever reason, even if it's not in their own best interests,
Speaker 1: they'll do something that's the opposite of what they're being told.
Speaker 1: That's reactants. Reverse psychology is priming that pump in order
Speaker 1: to manipulate somebody into doing what you want. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: a lot of the examples given in this article are
Speaker 1: very ham fisted, but I'm going to use them anyway.
Speaker 1: Like this first one is just a pure definition of
Speaker 1: what it could be. Is Uh, a wife wants her
Speaker 1: bedroom ainted, so she asked the husband, you know, can
Speaker 1: you please paint the bedroom? And he's like, no, I
Speaker 1: want to paint the bedroom, until she finally goes, you
Speaker 1: know what, Uh, you're not such a great painter. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna paint in the bedroom because I'll do a
Speaker 1: better job. And then in this article, off the couch,
Speaker 1: I'm going to the Sherwyn Williams right now, go everywhere
Speaker 1: he pauses the football game. Uh. So that's the just
Speaker 1: a very bare bones example of how, um, someone might
Speaker 1: try and manipulate their husband or wife, yeah, into doing
Speaker 1: a chore instead of having just a grown up relationship
Speaker 1: where you tell your husband maybe we should talk about
Speaker 1: painting the bedroom and he goes, I'll entertain that because
Speaker 1: you're a valid human and you have opinions and needs
Speaker 1: and what's and if you don't do this, you're in
Speaker 1: a big, big trouble. Yeah, it's not just adults, though,
Speaker 1: is it, Josh? What that reverse psychology is used on No,
Speaker 1: typically it's used on children. UM, something as simple as
Speaker 1: saying like, UM, I'll bet you can't finish washing the
Speaker 1: dishes before you know your TV show comes on. That's
Speaker 1: a good positive use, yes, UM. And psychologists who do
Speaker 1: recognize and talk about this kind of stuff because it
Speaker 1: is worth talking about, and there is a certain amount
Speaker 1: of service among psychologists too. UM. I guess talk to
Speaker 1: parents about the use of reverse psychology UM, because it
Speaker 1: isn't necessarily something you want to use a lot. You
Speaker 1: want to use it sparingly, and there are certain UM
Speaker 1: qualifiers that you need to use, like, for example, you
Speaker 1: shouldn't use negative reinforcement or negative reverse psychology, right, And
Speaker 1: this was actually a pretty good example. I think, UM,
Speaker 1: like you'r you want your kid to hang their bike
Speaker 1: up in the bike rack above the cars in the garage,
Speaker 1: So negative reverse psychology would be if you really want
Speaker 1: them to do that, for you to say, you know what,
Speaker 1: let me do it, because you're so dumb you'll drop
Speaker 1: the bike on the car. What kind of monster would
Speaker 1: do that? Apparently they're out there, But that is a
Speaker 1: great example of negative reverse psychology. You really want your
Speaker 1: son to hang that bike up but you end up
Speaker 1: insulting him in the process of trying him to get
Speaker 1: you know, get him to do something right. And then
Speaker 1: the kid's self esteem is in the toilet and it
Speaker 1: spoils around counterclockwise if it's a kid from the Northern
Speaker 1: hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern hemisphere, which is not true,
Speaker 1: by the way. And I also don't think I didn't
Speaker 1: even find this in there. This is just me. I
Speaker 1: don't think you should put your children against one another either,
Speaker 1: Like you know, I bet you can't finish your green
Speaker 1: beans like your big brother can. Um. I grew up
Speaker 1: in a family with a big brother that was way
Speaker 1: better than me. The way smarter and better looking beans
Speaker 1: really took effect on that one. No, but I have
Speaker 1: to say my parents never compared us or never expected
Speaker 1: me to be him, which was great. Uh. They probably
Speaker 1: did it accidentally, but they did it behind your back
Speaker 1: maybe so, but at any rate, always they go to
Speaker 1: bed and be like, I really like that Scott. He'll
Speaker 1: tell you what he did today. Oh, I'm a big
Speaker 1: Scott fan myself. That was all the buzz behind the scene,
Speaker 1: Scott Scott. So some more recommendations if you're a parent
Speaker 1: using reverse psychology is that, Um, you again, you don't
Speaker 1: want to use it too often because even a dumb
Speaker 1: kid can see through what you're doing eventually. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: they're going to think you're a manipulator. Yes, you don't
Speaker 1: want your child to think of you as manipulative. Even
Speaker 1: if you are. You want to very at least manipulate
Speaker 1: them into not thinking that. So you want to be
Speaker 1: smart about using reverse psychology. And then there's a whole
Speaker 1: school of thought among some parental advice columnists that say
Speaker 1: you shouldn't use reverse psychology at all. It's a really
Speaker 1: bad idea across the board. It's a form of dishonesty.
Speaker 1: I think. Yeah, and what your kids do pick up
Speaker 1: on this, they will they will be like, well, my
Speaker 1: my parent doesn't really mean anything they say. It will
Speaker 1: also teach your teaching your kid not to listen to you.
Speaker 1: And there's a good example of that in this article
Speaker 1: where if you really wish that your son would cut
Speaker 1: his long hippie hair, um, a type of verse psychology
Speaker 1: would be to come up to him and stroke it
Speaker 1: and be like, I hope you never cut this hair.
Speaker 1: It looks so good, and then the kid sure, And
Speaker 1: then maybe because he's creeped out. The kid goes to
Speaker 1: the barber the next day, has his hair cut and
Speaker 1: joins the army. You know, so you got what you
Speaker 1: wanted your kids out of the house. He joined the army. Um.
Speaker 1: But you also have taught him to not listen to you,
Speaker 1: especially if you praise how good his hair looks um
Speaker 1: after he cut it. So not only do you not
Speaker 1: mean what you say, you're also kind of wishy washy
Speaker 1: because you like the long hair, but now you like
Speaker 1: the short hair, and you're praising the kid for having
Speaker 1: done the opposite of what you told him to. That's
Speaker 1: so this is all all this combined. It's it's basically
Speaker 1: it sounds like lazy parenting, yeah, you know, or or
Speaker 1: cold calculated terrible parenting. Yeah. Psychopathy Yeah that. Uh. Let's
Speaker 1: take a break here and we'll come back and finish up. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm just kidding. We'll come back and talk a little
Speaker 1: bit more about who might be affected by reverse psychology.
Speaker 1: All right, Experts say, if you're a narcissist, man, I
Speaker 1: really hate that. I saw that in this article. Experts. Yeah, experts,
Speaker 1: but they do say, Josh, if you're a narcissist, or
Speaker 1: if you're a control freak check or if you're Type
Speaker 1: A that you might be more susceptible to being manipulated
Speaker 1: by a um reverse psychologist. Why is that? Well, because um,
Speaker 1: you want that control. Yeah, and that's ultimately what it
Speaker 1: comes down to. So like, none of this will possibly
Speaker 1: work if the person doesn't feel that their autonomy and
Speaker 1: sense of freedom and sense of self destiny is not
Speaker 1: at stake here. That's what you're doing, is you're you're
Speaker 1: you are, You're assaulting that person's ability to choose, and
Speaker 1: so they're going to choose the opposite to reassert themselves.
Speaker 1: And apparently people who are type a's are more likely
Speaker 1: to sense that their autonomy is being tread upon a
Speaker 1: more passive person that type B, which we should do
Speaker 1: an episode on that where that came from type A
Speaker 1: type and definitely we should do one on personality inventories. UM,
Speaker 1: but the type BE people, you really shouldn't use reverse
Speaker 1: psychology on them because they'll end up doing what you ask.
Speaker 1: So you're you're asking them to do the opposite of
Speaker 1: what you want and then they'll just go do that,
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, just asking what you wanted to do,
Speaker 1: and they might go, yeah, great, I'll do that right.
Speaker 1: The problem is people who use for psychology are the
Speaker 1: same people who who worry that the person they're talking
Speaker 1: to is not going to do what they want. You
Speaker 1: know what I mean, I guess it's not true. Uh.
Speaker 1: There's a doctor, a psychologist named Janette Raymond and Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: of course, who says that it's not so much I
Speaker 1: don't know. It's not so much the personality type though,
Speaker 1: but the dynamics of the relationship, which makes a lot
Speaker 1: of sense. It does. Um. I also read an article
Speaker 1: in Psychology today on this about that context has a
Speaker 1: lot to do with it to whether it works or not.
Speaker 1: And this was a two thousand eleven posts. So it's
Speaker 1: kind of charming that the guy uses Charlie Sheen and
Speaker 1: rehab as an example. He's saying, he's saying that, UM
Speaker 1: saying something that like if one of Charlie Sheen's friends
Speaker 1: had said to him, like, don't go to rehab. You
Speaker 1: totally don't need rehab, don't go, Charlie Sheen very likely
Speaker 1: would have been like, awesome, Yeah, you're right, I agree
Speaker 1: with you. Because number one, his desire to not be
Speaker 1: in rehabbing to do tons of cocaine, and his desire
Speaker 1: to be proven to prove that he doesn't need help
Speaker 1: would definitely trump any petty fleeting desire to prove that
Speaker 1: person wrong and and regain a sense of autonomy. What
Speaker 1: a weird time that was. It really was. He was
Speaker 1: the most famous person in the world for about a month. Yeah,
Speaker 1: didn't you go see his tour? No, okay, I read
Speaker 1: about it. I didn't see Mike Tyson. Yes, Tyson two
Speaker 1: do very different things. I'm not equating those two. Someone
Speaker 1: I knew went to that stupid Charlie sheensur and apparently
Speaker 1: the people who went were really unhappy because he tried
Speaker 1: to make it like just some normal thing. You're like, no,
Speaker 1: tell us all your drugs, like a legitimate stage show,
Speaker 1: which it was not right, And like he wouldn't talk
Speaker 1: about any of his drug stories or sex stories or
Speaker 1: anything like that. He was just basically it's just doing, uh,
Speaker 1: just talking. And yeah, he got booed a lot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think even now Charlie Sheen is like, that
Speaker 1: was that was weird? Well, why did do all that stuff?
Speaker 1: He just came to Yeah, just I think he even
Speaker 1: admits what a what a dumb period in my life. Um,
Speaker 1: I could talk about that guy all day. I don't
Speaker 1: think we should do with Charlie Sheen episode. Okay, I
Speaker 1: like him. Platoon I think is one of the best
Speaker 1: movies ever made, and he did really well in it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Good movie. Men at Work. I never saw it. You
Speaker 1: have to see Men at Work, do I? Yeah? Casablanca
Speaker 1: first though, sure, okay, just to appease the people in
Speaker 1: podcast land. If he asked me personally, you could watch
Speaker 1: him at the same time. Um. They give a really
Speaker 1: bad example to me in here about Julian Ossange, which
Speaker 1: of wiki leaks. This is like, this almost made me, Um,
Speaker 1: just throw my laptop away while I was reading this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it said basically, um an examlause. If Julian Assange had
Speaker 1: been not been told to stop, if basically the US
Speaker 1: government had said fine, just go do it, he would
Speaker 1: have lost interest and and never would have published all
Speaker 1: those diplomatic cables in this article. Terrible, terrible example. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I actually just scratched it out. Are not you with
Speaker 1: a pin? Looked like a knife. You just went back
Speaker 1: and forth like carving it up. Man. I really can't
Speaker 1: believe it made it in there. So children though, Um.
Speaker 1: One of the big reasons kids, Uh, it works on
Speaker 1: kids is because if you're a parent, um, and I'll
Speaker 1: find this out at some point, not yet obviously, but um,
Speaker 1: kids it seems like they're innately um, interested in doing
Speaker 1: the opposite of whatever you say. Yeah. And plus they're
Speaker 1: also their little brains are developing their what you call
Speaker 1: naive in a lot of ways. So it does tend
Speaker 1: to work on children. Again, like we said, you want
Speaker 1: to use this worryingly if at all, UM, But there
Speaker 1: have been studies, There have been real studies on this
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. We finally get to the studies. So
Speaker 1: the study of reverse psychology is phenomenon um of reactance
Speaker 1: being primed, right. Um. Really kind of starts in the seventies.
Speaker 1: But there's this very famous UM study from two that
Speaker 1: was in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. I
Speaker 1: think bulletin maybe in there. Anyway, this is UM. The
Speaker 1: the in this study found that children who were who
Speaker 1: were given free reign to play with a bunch of
Speaker 1: toys except one that toy became super popular. Um. But
Speaker 1: there you know, they're studying things. They had to put
Speaker 1: it down on paper eventually. UM. They had another study
Speaker 1: UM or a very similar one, had kids rate a
Speaker 1: handful of toys that were in this room, and then
Speaker 1: the researchers went back and picked the one that fell
Speaker 1: right in the middle. I think it was a toy
Speaker 1: motorcycle or something UM and with a new group said
Speaker 1: this is like, you can play with all these toys
Speaker 1: except for the motorcycle. And then later on they formed
Speaker 1: yet another new group with new UM people running the show,
Speaker 1: and some of those same kids that had been told
Speaker 1: no to the motorcycle were suddenly very interested in the motorcycle.
Speaker 1: So this has been documented, this has been UM looked
Speaker 1: at over and over again UM. But they don't exactly
Speaker 1: know what the mechanisms are behind it, and we will
Speaker 1: dive into that right after this. So before we move on,
Speaker 1: I want to point out to adults out there, it's
Speaker 1: very normal and even kind of cute when there's two
Speaker 1: kids playing with two different things and one kid says
Speaker 1: at some point, well, no, I want that one because
Speaker 1: they're playing with that toy, so I want that toy.
Speaker 1: It looks like way more fun. Uh, it's not cute
Speaker 1: when you're an adult. No, and I see it happen
Speaker 1: where you know, I want what that person has, why
Speaker 1: don't why don't I have that? And people there are
Speaker 1: plenty of advertisers out there that use that, that manipulate that.
Speaker 1: Some of them go to um hysterical lengths, Like there's
Speaker 1: a Patagonia ad that had a picture of a Patagonia
Speaker 1: jacket and it just said, do not buy this jacket.
Speaker 1: I think it was a little tongue in cheek. Well
Speaker 1: you know what actually did if it was tongue in cheek.
Speaker 1: I posted this article, um what was yesterday? It will
Speaker 1: have been a couple of weeks ago on Facebook on
Speaker 1: our Facebook page. One before you sent it as a
Speaker 1: what a coincidence? All right, and I said I would
Speaker 1: advise you to not read this article like ha, And uh,
Speaker 1: it did pretty well. I didn't really got a lot
Speaker 1: of shares, and a lot of people seem to read it,
Speaker 1: and most people were like, oh, very funny. But I
Speaker 1: don't know, did it work probably. I'm almost sorry they
Speaker 1: read the article now, But but I think it's it
Speaker 1: probably got a lot of reads because it is something
Speaker 1: that's so ingrained in popular culture, you know, reverse psychology.
Speaker 1: It's used all over the place, either expressly, like there's
Speaker 1: a very famous Simpsons episode where Homer's reading a parenting
Speaker 1: book and his brain says, um, don't you get it,
Speaker 1: you gotta use reverse psychology. Homer's like, that sounds really hard.
Speaker 1: I'm not doing that, and his brain goes, well, fine,
Speaker 1: don't use reverse callogy goes okay, I will and uh.
Speaker 1: I saw another example Tom and Jerry UM when Jerry
Speaker 1: has a bomb and they're passing it back and forth,
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden, Jerry changes and suddenly
Speaker 1: grabs the bomb back like he wants it, and that
Speaker 1: makes Tom want the bomb, and Tom of course ends
Speaker 1: up holding the bomb while it explodes. Reverse cycle. And
Speaker 1: actually the same lady that made the terrible, terrible example
Speaker 1: of UM, Julian Julians does point out that this is
Speaker 1: it almost enters the realm of folklore reverse psychology does,
Speaker 1: but there is something going on there. And again it
Speaker 1: is based on reactants, which is somebody doing the opposite
Speaker 1: of what's presented to them, breaking a rule something like that,
Speaker 1: but we don't really know what's behind it right. Well,
Speaker 1: one another quick example is UM. And this wasn't even
Speaker 1: us trying to use reverse psychology, but during some of
Speaker 1: our UM like necrotizing fasciitists or maggot therapy. When we're like,
Speaker 1: don't go to Google images and look this up. Invariably
Speaker 1: we have people to emails like why do you have
Speaker 1: to say that? Because that's the first thing I did
Speaker 1: and it was disgusting. That's why I spell it correctly
Speaker 1: because I know people are not going to listen to it.
Speaker 1: But it's not us saying like I really want them
Speaker 1: to go look at this. We're gonna tell them not to,
Speaker 1: like we really mean it. Don't go look it up.
Speaker 1: It's disgusting. Yeah, ah, you sort of do a little okay. Um,
Speaker 1: so uh, there there have been there's been research into
Speaker 1: trying to figure out what what's going on here? Why
Speaker 1: do people do this? Um? And uh Esther inglish Askell,
Speaker 1: who writes over I O nine great site. Um, she
Speaker 1: wrote a little post on this and is talking about how,
Speaker 1: um is it is it that people are rebelling against
Speaker 1: authority to to establish their own autonomy again or their
Speaker 1: sense of autonomy, or is it that they're trying to
Speaker 1: they're curious, their curiosity is peaked. And she makes a
Speaker 1: really good case for curiosity being piqued by saying, if
Speaker 1: you put forbidden on the door. A lot of people
Speaker 1: are going to go right through that door to see
Speaker 1: what is on the other side of this forbidden door.
Speaker 1: I'd be one of them. But if you put on
Speaker 1: that same door a science is forbidden colon toilet overflow,
Speaker 1: people are gonna be like, I'm not going in there. No,
Speaker 1: there probably donuts in there, and okay, so so you're
Speaker 1: the suspicious type. But if you take it on its face,
Speaker 1: she makes a good point. Yes, some people would be
Speaker 1: repelled by the idea of a disgusting, overflowing toilet in there,
Speaker 1: but other people might have their curiosity is squashed and
Speaker 1: so they wouldn't need to transgress. So it's a lack
Speaker 1: of information in a curiosity. And apparently other studies kind
Speaker 1: of bolster this idea because they show that the the
Speaker 1: the reactants is more intense, the more arbitrary a rule seems,
Speaker 1: so that people are saying, like, wait, why, I don't
Speaker 1: understand this. It doesn't make any sense. It seems to
Speaker 1: be one component of it um and another component of it, however,
Speaker 1: seems to be just disobeying. There's another study that was
Speaker 1: I think in conjunction. In that study of teenagers and
Speaker 1: it found that, um, these a group of teens were
Speaker 1: told do not cheat on this test. It's really important
Speaker 1: you don't cheat on this test, and not like all
Speaker 1: the other tests. Yeah, I guess which you can cheat on.
Speaker 1: And this group was induced to cheat more often more
Speaker 1: frequently than the control group who weren't told not to
Speaker 1: cheat on this. Yeah. What's the point of that. I
Speaker 1: guess it's just I don't know, that's just finding boundaries
Speaker 1: or or you could also make the case that they're
Speaker 1: they're trying to see what happens if they do cheat
Speaker 1: because they're curious. So the jury is definitely still out
Speaker 1: on what's behind reactants. Yeah. Um. We talked a little
Speaker 1: bit about how business. Um. I think they said in
Speaker 1: the article that sales is a common way in business
Speaker 1: that you can use reverse psychology. Like the car salesman
Speaker 1: who shows all the cars except for the most expensive one,
Speaker 1: and they're like, well, why don't you show us that?
Speaker 1: And he's like, well, you know, I think that's probably
Speaker 1: out of your price range. And then if you're you know,
Speaker 1: an adult living in a child's body or a child
Speaker 1: living in an adults body, like big, yeah, you go,
Speaker 1: well no, let me see that car I can afford that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: what do you mean? And the goofers family who's always
Speaker 1: broke drives off in their brand new car. Or the
Speaker 1: lationship example they gave, like if a boyfriends like, you're
Speaker 1: becoming kind of clany to the girlfriend, and the girl
Speaker 1: immediate is like, yeah, you know, I think we should
Speaker 1: spend some time apart. Actually we should even date other people. Boom,
Speaker 1: the guy all of a sudden says, wait, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: what do you mean date other people? So some of
Speaker 1: that harmless stuff in a relationship happens, I'm sure, but
Speaker 1: that's not what we were talking about earlier, with like
Speaker 1: truly toxic relationship malation and manipulation. That's that's a different thing.
Speaker 1: They're different levels of this. Okay, that's on the same
Speaker 1: spectrum for sure, Uh, but it all it also uh
Speaker 1: levels all the way up to real UM therapy called
Speaker 1: paradoxical intervention, and UM psychologists actually say reverse psychology is
Speaker 1: the media inventedat That's not what we call it. It's
Speaker 1: an actual therapy that some people say is not ethical
Speaker 1: to use. Other doctors say, no, it's just fine to use. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I actually came across a I think a paper from
Speaker 1: the nineties or something about the ethics of using paradoxical intervention. Right,
Speaker 1: this does help or it can help, And the whole
Speaker 1: idea of it, it's not really reverse psychology. It's just
Speaker 1: about the closest thing psychology has to reverse psychology, where
Speaker 1: you are telling a patient to go and purposefully do
Speaker 1: a symptom something they're complaining about. So if somebody is
Speaker 1: saying that they're a big procrastinator and they don't have
Speaker 1: any control over this is who they are. The doctor
Speaker 1: prescribes them one hour of procrastination every day. So I
Speaker 1: decide an hour to just procrastinate. And it does a
Speaker 1: bunch of different things. One, it's silly. The whole point
Speaker 1: of it is meant to be silly. It also takes
Speaker 1: something that was formerly thought of as involuntary voluntary, and
Speaker 1: since it's voluntary, you can also voluntarily not do it.
Speaker 1: It means you can actually control something you didn't think
Speaker 1: you could control. Right. But and then also by making
Speaker 1: it silly, it disempowers this thing that's like just such
Speaker 1: a big problem. It's now it's a silly thing. I'm
Speaker 1: I'm purposefully procrastinating an hour out of every day. The
Speaker 1: thing is is if the patient is not privy to
Speaker 1: what technique you're using, it's very manipulative. Yeah. It's almost
Speaker 1: like a lighthearted aversion therapy kind of you sort of
Speaker 1: exposure exposure. Yeah, is that the same thing? Yeah, not
Speaker 1: a version, but yeah, it's it's yeah, like, if you're
Speaker 1: afraid of snakes, let me dump a bunch of snakes
Speaker 1: on your head. Yeah that's pretty unethical, I would say, so. Um,
Speaker 1: but like you said, some psychologists say, no, you can
Speaker 1: use it as a tool in your toolbox, just don't
Speaker 1: be a tool when you use it. Terrible. So. Um.
Speaker 1: The whole point of all of this is these are
Speaker 1: all persuasive techniques, or what are called compliance techniques, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what you're trying to get people to do what
Speaker 1: you want. And there's another thing I ran across called
Speaker 1: the door in the face. It's a compliance technique which
Speaker 1: people use all the time. You'll find it very familiar. Um.
Speaker 1: It's when you ask for something really huge that you
Speaker 1: know the other person is going to turn down, and
Speaker 1: they do. And then you ask for something what you
Speaker 1: originally wanted, which is smaller by comparison. They may have
Speaker 1: turned down if you'd ask for it just on itself. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think we talked about a version of that in
Speaker 1: the m p A. A. Like filmmakers, they'll say, I
Speaker 1: really want to get this violent scene in there, so
Speaker 1: let me do something really outrageous that the m p
Speaker 1: A is gonna pull that and not pay as much
Speaker 1: attention to the thing I really wanted to keep right.
Speaker 1: So that's door in the face. There's also footing the
Speaker 1: door where um, you ask for incrementally larger stuff to
Speaker 1: where you finally build up to the thing you want smaller,
Speaker 1: smaller to larger, but then lastly check the other thing
Speaker 1: I ran across. It was probably the healthiest way of
Speaker 1: using reverse psychology. So if reverse psychology works because the
Speaker 1: person feels like there's their sense of autonomy is being threatened,
Speaker 1: you take their autonomy and you put it front and center.
Speaker 1: You say, I can't make you do anything. Only you
Speaker 1: can decide whether this is good or bad for you,
Speaker 1: So do what you want. And technically it's a form
Speaker 1: of verse psychology. But what you're doing is you're taking
Speaker 1: this obstacle that really doesn't have anything to do with
Speaker 1: anything this person's sense of autonomy putting it right there
Speaker 1: in the middle and saying this is a non issue, like,
Speaker 1: I respect your autonomy. I can't tell you what to do.
Speaker 1: You decided it's it doesn't even strike me as manipulative necessarily,
Speaker 1: it strikes me as healthy. Yeah, Or you can just
Speaker 1: be honest with people. See where that gets you. But
Speaker 1: I think that's honesty. True. But yeah, you can also
Speaker 1: just say like I want you to do this. You
Speaker 1: know I can't make you, but this is the direction
Speaker 1: I want you to go. There's also the door in
Speaker 1: the floor. No, do you mean flowers in the attic? No?
Speaker 1: During the floor was the the Jeff Bridges movie based
Speaker 1: on the John Irving book, A Widow for One Year.
Speaker 1: Great book, pretty good movie. John Irving knows what he's doing.
Speaker 1: I thought A Widow for One Year is a much
Speaker 1: better title than the Door in the Floor. Though you
Speaker 1: have a door in the floor. Rhymes. Hollywood loves rhymes,
Speaker 1: they sure do. Yeah. Yeah, Uh, you got anything else? U?
Speaker 1: Surprisingly No. If you want to know more about reverse psychology,
Speaker 1: good luck finding it because we covered everything sadly. Uh.
Speaker 1: You can start though, looking at how stuff works in
Speaker 1: the search bar by typing reverse psychology. Since I said
Speaker 1: search bar, it's time for listening to mail. This is
Speaker 1: from Robbie. Hey, guys, thanks for your enlightening coverage of
Speaker 1: vast assortment of topics. Help me find common ground with
Speaker 1: children and adults and all types of social situations that
Speaker 1: could have otherwise have been excruciating the awkward. Um. I'm
Speaker 1: an artist, so I listened to you while I paint.
Speaker 1: Music is great, but sometimes spoken word allows me to
Speaker 1: work longer. It's a steady feed of stimulation instead of
Speaker 1: emotional ups and downs. It can come for music and
Speaker 1: other music related news. I recently conducted a social science
Speaker 1: experiment where around New York City and ask strangers what
Speaker 1: there are three favorite things are? The most common answers
Speaker 1: were family, music, and food? What would yours be? What? So?
Speaker 1: What three? What are your three favorite things? Okay? Um? Yeah? Um?
Speaker 1: Can I can I lump food into just one category? Food? Okay?
Speaker 1: UM's gonna do you do? What's your guest travel? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I guess okay or booze? No. No, I'm not so
Speaker 1: sad that I'm going to say that, although it's definitely
Speaker 1: up there, I will say. I will say my lemon
Speaker 1: tree is probably number three. I love that lemon tree.
Speaker 1: It's a producer. Uh, not like that lousy lime tree.
Speaker 1: And my friends. I gotta put them there. We'll we'll
Speaker 1: say food and friend okay, after doing me my favorite
Speaker 1: maturee things. My favorite three things are food. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: say friends and family, which includes Emily. It's a bit
Speaker 1: of a cheap um food. Friends and family, folks food,
Speaker 1: folks and fun fun. Friends and families are chiefs that
Speaker 1: includes everybody. Yeah, you can just say folks, food as family,
Speaker 1: people and People's number two for you. I'm gonna go
Speaker 1: with music. Oh, that's a good one. Boom. What about
Speaker 1: movies though? Do you like music more than movies? I like? Oh, man,
Speaker 1: that is a tough, tough, tough question. You know who
Speaker 1: asks people questions like this, jerks no, because it's so
Speaker 1: impossible to just come up with three things. What's this
Speaker 1: guy's name, Robbie, Robbie, You're not really a jerk, but man, Actually,
Speaker 1: what the email should have said is if I are
Speaker 1: you guys, I don't know. I don't think you could
Speaker 1: answer it. He should have said, like psychology, I want
Speaker 1: to hear you, guys waffle on your top five or
Speaker 1: six things that you like the most in the world.
Speaker 1: So He finishes by saying, what would yours be? There
Speaker 1: are three of you. I'm sorry, but there's only two
Speaker 1: of us are here now, umrank the chairs over there,
Speaker 1: but he can't. Could you possibly answer the question we
Speaker 1: just did? I would record the podcast app on my
Speaker 1: Apple TV as you spoke and then include this footage
Speaker 1: in his experiment. So, uh, we're being experimented on right now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's let's ahead give hi permission to use that clip
Speaker 1: if he wants. I do not give you promise you
Speaker 1: can use my my side, you can use it. That's
Speaker 1: a thank you for your incredible work with your three
Speaker 1: exclamation points. Is there a site that people can go
Speaker 1: to to check out Robbie's progress or keep starter or anything? Well,
Speaker 1: he he directed us to a YouTube link. So if
Speaker 1: I just go to YouTube and type in three favorite
Speaker 1: things and um, you'll probably come across it. Cool. Well,
Speaker 1: thanks a lot, Robbie. Uh I mean that ambivalently. Um,
Speaker 1: it's like six months ago the yeah, so so you
Speaker 1: probably gave up on us anyway. Is there even a
Speaker 1: YouTube anymore? Um? If you want to get in touch
Speaker 1: with us that you can tweet to us at s
Speaker 1: Y s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook,
Speaker 1: dot com slash stuff you Should Know. You can send
Speaker 1: us an email to Stuff podcast that how Stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com and has always joined us at at home
Speaker 1: on the web. Stuff you Should Know dot com For
Speaker 1: more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it
Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot com