Original subtitles

How to manipulate people for good.

So I'm a psychologist

and I'm doing a series on how to manipulate people for good.

We're gonna continue the series today with something that's called

The Positive Opposite. So when most people try to get people to change,

they focus on criticism and the negative behavior.

This is an awful way to get people to change

because it will make them resent you.

And it is not a long term,

lasting solution to helping people change.

What we actually wanna do is

we wanna focus on the positive behavior we want,

and that is called the positive opposite.

So, um,

one example that I can give you of this is,

let's say, um,

you and your partner at a party,

and your partner doesn't spend enough time with you at the party.

They go off and they talk to other people.

And typically what we would normally say is like,

hey, you just abandoned me at the party.

What's wrong with you? Like,

why do you not care about me?

And this type of communication strategy is not effective

and illicit to change

because we're not actually telling the partner what we would want.

Instead, like,

they have no clue how they could win here.

It could be a range of things.

Like, maybe we want them to stay by our side all night.

Maybe they. We just want them to stay by our side for 15 minutes.

Like, there's.

They have no Clue and so

one of the best ways we can elicit change in people

is making it very clear what we actually want

in the positive. So it would sound something like this. Hey,

I missed you during the party last night.

In future parties, could we stick together for 30 minutes?

It doesn't have to be that hyper specific.

But knowing what you want

and communicating it in the positive opposite

is what's actually gonna get people to want to change for you.

Because you're painting them a future that they can actually achieve

and that they know that this is what the behavior you want.

And if they do this behavior,

then they sort of win with you, right?

Instead of just criticizing what they didn't do

and then not even offering a way to win.