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Warning: Don’t be evil!

I have a secret for you. This is something everyone knows about, but they don’t consciously use it. It’s part of human nature, but it is so manipulative that if you realised its power, you will understand what you can do to get what you want. But don’t tell anyone else about this…

I am talking about behaviour shaping. It hit me the other day when I realised I was doing it unconsciously as part of a sales pitch. My customer was a passionate and very driven person. But he was uncertain of the plan that I was presenting to him. I tried to address his concerns, and I could see that he was slowly agreeing with me. Then I said, “Dude, this is a great opportunity here for you, and I could see that you are a very driven person who wants to reach his goals. I have met so many people out there, and they have no desire, but you, I can see it in your eyes, man.”

He looked at me, surprised. Then he started talking about having those goals since he was 18, and what he would do to get there. He spent a few minutes pondering, and then, he signed on the application form.

I remember I used to work in the insurance line, and there was a point in time when the working hours got me really down. I could not motivate myself to keep going because of the relentless rejections I had received. My manager took me in for a talk, but she did not reprimand me. Instead, she talked about how she had faith in me, because she had identified that I was a resilient person, and that my goals seemed to be the only thing that I would focus on whenever I talk to her. That talk had me eager to go again, and thinking back, I remember wanting to show her that I was a resilient and driven person.

Hitting it!

I am not going to go deep into what I know. As far as I know, there are four ways of shaping one’s behaviour to get what you want. I definitely think I am merely scratching the surface here, so if you have something you know about, feel free to share.

There is one very important aspect to note here though. Your personality has to be stronger than the person whose behaviour you are trying to shape. If you cannot get that down at all, you are almost certain to fail, because he/she will say no, and you wouldn’t be able to bend that person’s will.

Now that we have that out of the way, the first thing to do with the method mentioned above is to identify a positive character trait. Hit a soft spot; find something that the person wants, and then use it against him/her. It can be a goal, a dream or even a material want. You would have to calibrate to the situation though, depending on what you want to get out of it.

Cognitive Dissonance

In psychology, there is a term known as cognitive dissonance. The second and third methods are based on that. For more information, here is the direct link to Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance

The second way is to get the person to reveal who they are. In a normal conversation, someone may say that they are entrepreneurial. Later on, when you are trying to persuade that person – let’s say to start up a business with you – you can remind that person of that initial view of their self, so they would have a tougher time backing down. The difference between this method and the one before is that with the first one, you elicit a trait based on what you observe.

Another way is to argue for something way over what you want. You get a person to commit to something, and then change the conditions at the very last minute. For example, you asked a friend to meet you, and he/she agrees but says that the location has to be in town. When your friend is out of the house and heading to the meeting location, you inform he/she that you are at a different location (the place that you actually want to go), and tell them to meet you there instead. He/she would be hard-pressed not to agree since they are already out of the house.

Reward and Punishment.

The final way that I know of to shaping behaviours is through reward and punishment. In psychology, a similar term would be reinforcement. Animal trainers use it all the time. We give food to a dog if it listens to our commands. Likewise, we punish the dog if it does something wrong. Those with kids would know. If our kids get good grades in school, we would reward them. And if they did something wrong like getting into a fight, they are grounded.

We use it unconsciously all the time. Sometimes, it can be really subtle. I withdraw attention from anyone who makes snide remarks, and although my original intention wasn’t to punish that person, I didn’t want them to continue with a behaviour that I deemed as unnecessary or antagonistic. The key point here is to make the reward obvious, but not blatantly out in the open, and the punishment subtle. Here’s why:

If you are to reward someone for their good behaviour, they will merely be thinking that you are showing appreciation for something good. Do it over the top, and you can seem like you want something in return. If you are obvious with a punishment, it can backfire on you. Humans and animals alike can retaliate, and that is not your purpose here. Your objective is merely to stop bad behaviour, and if you do it subtly, you leave the other party uncertain, and it is likely they will stop since they know that what they were doing is wrong anyway.

Final words.

That being said, I am putting out this word of caution. Use it with the best intentions in mind! Obviously there are people out there who are going to manipulate, but it doesn’t mean you have to do the same thing. Create win-win situations for both parties, and it will go a long way for the both of you in the future.

- CY

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 20th, 2008 at 6:52 am and is filed under Featured, Social Scene. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.